Today I am cleaning out three closets that are in our basement. They are full of stuff we never use, stuff that belongs to our children, stuff that is mixed up between the three closets. When my two daughters were here for the holidays, they rummaged through things and determined what they wanted to take, what could be tossed, and what they still would like me to store for them. Now I am following up with doing the same with our stuff.
I have started this exercise of organizing and clearing out stuff a few times during the 13 years that we have lived here, but I never got finished. It seems to be such a massive project and there is always a mess with piles of recyclables, give-aways, trash, and stuff that will have a new location as soon as I clear the stuff out that spot. Eventually, we’d have company and the piles had to be taken care of. I think that is when I always quit the project.
So, I don’t know if I will ever get to the end of this, but here’s hoping.
Don’t throw out my pheasant. Or my Kodiak spittoon. =)
Excuse me Chris, I’ll tell you what I told my 3 kids, especially my oldest: you want it? You come and get it, LOL. I’m moving Brett Favre’s framed poster. Do I want it? NO. And my son’s childhood transformers. It’s ridiculous. Grown men need to store their own stuff.
Go, Elizabeth!
I’m downsizing again. When I sold my house in 2002 I got rid of an incredible amount of stuff. Now I’m leaving MN and moving to northern WI. My apartment there is actually bigger than what I have here but I just have too much stuff. My mother lived by the Shaker philosophy of simple living. She had just the necessities, which included her quilting stuff but not a whole lot of what I call clutter and other stuff. She got all her books from the library rather than buying books. When she died it was easy to clean out her apartment. When I die I fear my kids will be shaking their heads wondering why I kept what I did. But they should know it could have been much worse.