De-Cluttering

With the addition of several pieces of furniture, many picture albums, and other odds and ends from the house in Wooster into our house, there is a need for de-cluttering.

Every once in a while I will go through closets and drawers and cart several bags of clothes to Goodwill.  Not often, though, do I sift through other items and pitch.  I just can't toss things that can still be used. Since I am detest garage sales and will never participate in one again (I know...never say 'never'? -- well, I mean it!), my only options are to place in a bag for donation or....the auction!

Sunday Blaine and Gary moved the bigger chest of drawers into Hilary's old bedroom.  Now I had cleaned that room out a couple of years ago and had done a decent job of pitching and donating. But as I started to go through the pile on the futon and the bags sitting in front of it, I realized that the tendency to save useless items had been raging full force inside me.  NO! NO! NO!

Empty bags.  Perfectly good bags that could be reused to put shoes or other items in when packing a suitcase.  Bags that could be used to take things to other houses.  But who needs hundreds of them?  Not me!  So they were pitched along with sales receipts from Christmas 2015 and Christmas 2016.  Pictures were taken out of frames and the frames added to the 'take to Ohio for the auction' pile.  Small items purchased for Christmas stockings or small gifts for friends were put together in a box so they could be found easily.  A few items I had already purchased for Lynnlee were put together also.  Then I used two of the large drawers in the new dresser for items I could group together. One for Christmas type things - rolls of wrapping paper (they just fit!), tissue papers, boxes of Christmas cards, bows.  Another drawer was good for some odds and ends of craft projects, the glue gun and glue sticks, some ribbon and lace, and a few other things that I could just grab when needed.

At the end of my evening, two bags of trash had made their way to the back door and two bags for Goodwill were ready to stash in the Escape for Friday's trip to Lafayette.

Tomorrow I start on Megan's old bedroom.  The southwest corner is stacked with who-knows-what that has been there since she moved out years ago.  Time to go through that stuff and make some decisions.  Trash?  Donation?  Cart to her house?  

I am on a mission, and I will not be deterred.  De-cluttering is the Word of the Week!