Spring Cleaning

Now that my class is over and summer is approaching I've made time to do some organizing, mainly in the form of purging needless STUFF. I took a huge load of old electronics to our city's annual Household Hazardous Waste Disposal Day and I have another huge load ready to go to Goodwill. I went through a pile of magazines a couple of days ago and I was ruthless, ruthless I tell you, about chucking those. Anything that didn't have "2010" on it went into the recycle bin. Didn't matter if I've read it or not, out it went. (Except my vegetarian magazines; I'm keeping those for now. I'll get rid of them after I pull out any recipes we want to try.) I went through a cabinet in our computer room and streamlined that; Goodwill is getting a lot of nice stationary. I've gone through messy Girl Scout supplies and straightened those out. It's nothing I've planned, it's just as I come across an overstuffed cabinet, or a pile of things I need to go through, or stuff that just needs to find a home, I deal with it.

My main goal for this summer is to go through the two big piles I have left from clearing out my Grandmother's house. I want to get that all sorted out and either put away, send away to relatives, toss, or donate every last little thing. It's been two years since she passed away so it's time to deal with those last items. At least I have it down to two piles; her stuff originally took over my whole living room!

I've gotten to the point where I HATE the piles. They are visual clutter, a reminder of work to be done, procrastination personified, they are stressful to look at, and they weigh my life down. I've toyed with the idea of asking myself a question as I purge- "will this be something I would take with me when I go live in Europe"? If the answer is no, then I need to get rid of it. Not that I have any immediate plans to move to Europe, but I'm hoping to live over there for a year at some point in my life. Not that I've actually been that ruthless with my purges, either, but it's a goal! (Magazines notwithstanding; that was only one little pile.)

It feels so good when a pile of junk goes out the door. I feel lighter and freer. There's more room in the house and less stuff to have to deal with. Off I go to deal with another pile!