Junk salvation

[resonant]

The Salvation Army, bless their collective soul, is doing neighborhood pickup tomorrow. They've asked for clothes, toys, and small household items.

We have filled twenty-four bags for them. Plus a shoe tree, three giant empty storage tubs, and a folding table.

Now, clutter disposal is an ongoing task in this house. I probably drop stuff off at the Goodwill truck twice a month. I'm up to date on the kidlet's clothes and toys -- there's nothing here except what got outgrown since Christmas. And I just gave a bunch of furniture to the church, including a double bed from my parents (given to us, for some unknown reason, after they bought us a queen bed for a wedding present) that's been in guilt storage in the basement since 1993.

The bags are all piled up in the living room now, and the cat is doing that thing where she pats an unfamiliar thing and then leaps three feet into the air when it makes a noise.

The saddest thing? Three of these bags are filled with nothing but things that I bought to store other things in.

Comments

[merripestin.livejournal.com]

Three of these bags are filled with nothing but things that I bought to store other things in.

So... basically... you're me, then.

("This is the big box in which I store the medium sized boxes that are so useful for storing the small boxes I will use to completely organize everything I own sometime in the year 2164.")

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

come clear out my house and garage?

[skuf.livejournal.com]

Wow :o)

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

Divesting the household of unwanted/unncessary items is a great way to welcome the spring season. I find spring cleaning to be spiritually cleansing...

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[snerk]

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I actually think it would be easier to do this for someone else than for yourself. Somehow other people's junk is more obviously junk than my junk.

One of the reasons I was able to do this, I think, is that we've lived in this house for ten years now, and a lot of this stuff was stuff that I hadn't touched since before the kidlet was born. So it was easier to let go of. It had all become rank strangers to me.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I don't think I did quite enough of it, then!

[fabularasa.livejournal.com]

I am a stealth cleaner. I tend to wait until everyone is asleep or out of the house, and then I strike. Culling the herds of stuffed animals is the most difficult; young eyes shouldn't have to witness that, for all that it's responsible wildlife management.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[snerk]

The kidlet is the only grandchild on one side, and the only one under thirty on the other side, so she has more stuff than humans should be allowed to have. We actually have to rotate the toys.

On the other hand, my own toys just tend to get pushed behind other toys until I'm discovering entire Rubbermaid bins full of seed-starting gadgetry bought in 1994 and never opened.