How can we accummulate so much stuff?

The weeks between Halloween and Thanksgiving I have earmarked for marking semi-major things off the 'to do' list.    Actually this list has existed since I retired, but so many other things have gotten in the way of actually accomplishing any of the tasks.

So here we go.  Thanksgiving is coming.  We are hosting again after a hiatus of a few years due to other things --- the trip to Disney World.  Pneumonia.  Moving the feast to The Farm for one last time.  Once again, we will host  

Every time we host anything I always lament that some things need to be done and there just isn't time to do all of them and Gary always responds with "You can't do it all in just a few days" which is true.  This year...I started early.

What was intended to be just a clean out and dusting and re-arranging some cabinets and shelves has resulted in several bags of trash.  Yes, trash.

The Amish cabinet by the door to the garage.  There were old granola bars stuck in there.  Dried up tea bags.  Lots of recipes torn from magazines and newspapers and after encountering so many similar clippings when cleaning out Mom's kitchen, I pitched all of those and kept only the recipes I had handwritten or those I knew were really good ones or favorites.

Next was cleaning the oven, which hadn't been done in, oh, many years.  Oven cleaner is fantastic, though, and the gunk wiped off fairly easily.   The only mishap was a screw on one end of the element came loose, and I was told it was all my fault, but it re-connected easily and the oven still did work after i was finished.  Whew!

The antique washstand from Auntie Ann was the next item.  I knew this one would need some sorting and pitching and I was right.  Lots of old Country Woman magazines and Cooking Made Simple booklets--all of those went in the trash.  I sorted through the kitchen towels and pot holders and placed some in the Goodwill bag.  Ann had collected packages of napkins from various places she had traveled  They looked old and smelled musty, so into the Goodwill bag they went as well. After re-rolling the remaining seasonal towels and replacing the remaining cookbooks, there was room for more cookbooks that I had placed on top of the microwave. Score on that one!

The hutch.  Three drawers.  Two crowded shelves on the top.   Two side sets of shelves behind the swinging doors.  What a task!  It's amazing how much stuff is shoved into those drawers, mainly as a safe place to put things we don't want to misplace.  The good thing is that since I save my birthday and Christmas cash and gift cards, I had accumulated a nice little sum of money and several free trips to restaurants!  I found receipts for items we no longer owned, lots of pairs of old glasses to donate, random birthday candles, stray flowers, and lots of things to pitch in the trash bag.  The end result was more room for some of the pottery that we had on top of the hutch and easier access to some of the things in the drawers so we can actually use them.

The shelves on either side of the big picture window in the living room have been catch-alls as well.  When I said I wanted to clean them off,  Gary asked me how I was going to get rid of pictures because that is all that was on the shelves. Yeah, right.  On the left were picture albums, cookbooks, and lots of flashlights and other similar items that we just grab and use.  Plus as we pulled things off the shelves and I dusted them off, we found an accumulation of dead ladybugs that needed to be swept up.  The result on that set of shelves was a nice and neat organized set of albums and sundry items.  Some of the pictures we pitched, some we reorganized, some we separated out for the girls to have.

The shelves on the  right were similar in nature.  Lots of dust. Some broken items.  Old candles covered with dustiness.  Many things went into the trashbag.  Old 4-H manuals.  Some things that the girls might want went into a bag for them.

Probably four or five bags of trash from those clean-out projects.   A bag for Goodwill.  Two bags of items for the girls.    To be fair some of the trash came from going through several boxes from Mom's that we just hadn't examined again.  When we were in Wooster, sometimes it was just too overwhelming to go through everything as thoroughly as needed so I just put things in a box to look at later.  Today was later.  Lots of things pitched.  Some items I took pictures of and then threw away.  Stacks of pictures went to the girls == those of the kids and of them that we had sent to Grandma and Grandpa at some time.

More tasks crossed off the to-do list. More things to be added eventually.  The cabinet in the bathroom - oh my!  I wonder how many toothbrushes I will find in there because every time I go to the dentist Stephanie gives me a new one plus there are extras we keep on hand for overnight guests who may need one.  How many bottles of shampoo have been shoved to the back...or body lotion...or shower gel...or little packages of tissues. How many bottles of OTC meds have expiration dates and need to go?  These shelves will be on the list for AFTER Thanksgiving, I am sure.

After a little more sprucing up downstairs, I will move to the upstairs to work through some clothes and clean up the bedrooms.  Another big task!

Then it will be time to move on to the blue bedroom and the garage!  Oh my!  Those will be undertakings requiring more than a day's work, I am sure!

There is a feel-good feeling after cleaning out crowded spaces.  On to the next items on the list...I should feel super great by this time next week!