get rid of more stuff

On Monday I put a tally sheet on the door and every time I get rid of something, I add a tally mark to the paper on the door. It’s Wednesday, and I only have 18 items, but it’s still 18 items not cluttering up my life/house/mind. We’ll see if this works better at the end of the month. Next stop, the basement! To any of you who are struggling with getting rid of stuff, good luck! To anyone who would like more stuff, let me know; I’ll send you a box or two.

I keep getting rid of things. Boxes of things, but there’s still a lot more. I have two storage lockers and a basement and attic with more boxes of ‘cool things’ that I don’t want to part with. And an office that has stacks of books, papers, projects and odds and ends. Grrrr – well, it’s 3 AM and we have a house-guest so I can’t just start sorting and pitching, but I really want to. I look around and see all sorts of things I don’t really need or want to keep. I think a few boxes of goodies for Goodwill is in order.

The slow and plodding way won’t get the job done before I turn 50, so I have to find a way to get it done faster. It’s time to up the standards for things I’m keeping. We’ll see how much stuff I manage to get rid of this weekend. I’m aiming for 10 boxes.

One box of books was water damaged in storage. Fortunately, none of them were valuable or hard to find. The other box of books was what I culled out of the four remaining boxes of books that are still in storage. Some of those will go to Goodwill, where hopefully, they will find good homes other than mine. Some will go to a local coffee shop, Angel Falls. And another box will get priced and sold. So there! It’s a dent. But there’s so much more stuff. Wish me luck.

The piles of things for Goodwill and Stagecoach are getting larger (like Louie! – Thank you, Stephen Stucker) Now, about all my mental clutter – sigh.

I try to get rid of 10 things each week since May of 2005. No, a deck of cards does not count as 52+ things. It was easy for about three months. Then it got harder. Now it’s much harder. When I buy or acquire something new, I have to get rid of 10 more things. And I cannot bear to just throw things out or donate them all to Goodwill.