Purging

I love to go through my house and get rid of stuff. I hate when papers are stacked and stuffed into every place imaginable. Closets filled to maximum capacity are also a no no. I like empty space. I have found that I am a lot less tense when there is less stuff to look at and deal with. Usually I will go through my house once a month and surface purge. Anything that has turned into clutter or that is obviously not in use I either throw away or put it in the DI box.

Case in point. About 3 weeks ago I was getting fed up with all of the toys that my boys were not playing with. I have two bins that we keep these toys in. The problem is, for some reason they are always all over the floor and yet are never played with. So I put 80% of them into 2 trash bags and put them in the furnace room. By simply doing that I literally felt this burden go away. I don't have to deal with those toys any more! Doing this simple thing reminded me of something that I have always known and oftentimes forget. Having lots of "stuff" can be a burden. You have to store it, organize, clean it, fix it or in this case pick it up over and over. Luckily I am not overly sentimental about stuff and for the most part I am o.k. getting rid of things.

Several weeks ago my friend loaned me this great book. I love books like this because they motivate and excite me to dig deeper and to really purge. I finished reading it last Sunday and this past week I have been going through every box and closet in the house.

I have even ventured into the untouchable stuff that I have passed up in previous purges. I found there were only 2 very difficult things to get rid of. One was the few college textbooks that I had kept from my major and two binders worth of papers etc. I sat there and looked at them and debated. Do I get rid of 4 years worth of hard work? I really felt like I was throwing that degree away. I took a deep breath and put them in the purge pile. The funny thing is as soon as I did that I felt much better and was completely o.k. with my decision.

The second thing that was hard for me to get rid of was unused, but perfectly good picture frames. But they are perfectly good. I may need these. How can I just wantonly DI these? What would my Grandmother say who has kept everything from the dawn of time? I debated for a long time. I honestly don't know why this was so difficult. Finally I compromised and kept one nice 8X10 frame and DI'd the rest. I am proud of myself. As I was going through my stuff I just kept reminding myself to only keep the stuff that I love. I also followed some advice from the book and I took pictures of a few things that I got rid of.

This is most of the stuff that I am taking to the DI. There are a bunch of planter boxes, a playhouse and slide in the garage that are going as well. I also recycled loads and loads of files that I have never looked at.



I'm thinking I need to take all of this stuff to the DI soon before my "a bit overly sentimental and pack rat" husband starts to rifle through them. Whenever I purge I know he gets nervous thinking that I am getting rid of perfectly good stuff. He did begrudgingly read the book and begrudgingly admitted there may be a "few things" he needs to go through and get rid of. I'm not holding my breath that he will do it anytime soon. :)