Closet Cleanup

There are a few things that are really hard for me to get rid of including books, shoes, and clothes. When I moved from Minnesota, I did donate a ton of books--over 2500--and a pretty good amount of clothes, although not too many shoes. I didn't donate enough clothes, however, and my closet here in Georgia was bursting at the seams.

Oh, I meant to get rid of clothes. I have stuff that's frayed, stuff that has holes in it, stuff I bought and ended up never liking enough to wear. I even had clothes with tags still on them that I'd never worn and the odds were I was never going to wear them.

Clearly, it was time to tackle the closet and part with some clothes.

The items that had holes or were worn were easy to discard. Barely a hesitation. You're probably wondering why I didn't get rid of them immediately. Four of the shirts were total favorites of mine back before they'd become frayed. I wore them constantly and I'd developed an attachment to them. I kept them with the thought that I could wear them around the house on the weekends. I never did. The ones with the holes? I have no clue.

With the easy choices finished, I moved into trying things on. Did I like the color? Did I like the style? Would I ever wear it? If the answer to any of those questions was no, it went in the donation pile. Right now I have two of the super large black trash bags full of clothes to go to charity.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I discovered clothes I'd forgotten I owned and that I found new things I could wear. It was almost like buying new stuff. ;-) It's also embarrassing to admit that even with the large amount of clothes I got rid of, my closet is still full. I didn't quite get through everything, though. I basically did one half of my closet plus a little on the other side. I need to go back in on some other weekend and tackle the other side.

Also in the future is pruning the clothes out of my dressers and getting rid of some of the shoe collection, although I will admit that very few shoes will be leaving my house. :-) And with the new clothes I've discovered, I need to rearrange my closet. Sigh. That doesn't sound even remotely fun.

I think I'll bask in my accomplishment a little longer and ignore the future projects for now.

Clutter or Treasure?

To get rid of my old eBook readers or not to get rid of my old eBook readers, that is the question. I have two early Kindles and an early Fire. I still use the Fire from time to time, but I haven't used the regular Kindles in a couple of years. I've reached a point where I prefer to read on my iPad rather than on a dedicated eBook reader.

I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but I've reached a point where it feels more natural for me to read on a back-lit screen. I'm not sure that this is a good thing, but it is what it is.

The hold up in my head is that the trade-in offer for a 2nd generation Kindle is like $5. Is this device worth more to me than that small amount of money? But if I'm not using it and it's just taking up space in my house, it's not really worth hanging on to it and $5 is better than nothing, right?

You can see how I'm going back and forth in my head.

This comes up because I have an email that I must update my Kindles and well, I'm not sure where they're at. I have some ideas, but... But I haven't used them since the last time I had an email saying I had to update my Kindle or it would stop working, so that's probably telling me something.

I'm going to mull this some more.

Buried Treasures

I wrote this post while I was up in Minnesota, helping my dad go through his house.

As I write this, my dad and I have already made three trips to a charity to donate things. Three trips with my car packed full—not only the way back, but also the back seat. Most of what we’ve come across hasn’t been anything I’ve been interested in, but I’ve also discovered some treasures.

The most exciting find was old cards. Cards from when I was adopted, cards from my first birthday, cards for other important events. Just priceless!

I don’t keep cards so no one is going to find anything like this in my house. Sorta sad, but clutter.

We’ve also found some pictures, although nothing that’s blown my socks off yet, but it’s been fun to see photos of when my mom and dad were younger and when I was little. We’ve also come across pictures of people neither my dad nor I recognized and that was kind of sad. We had a 8x10 photo of a couple with a baby and my dad could only come up with the guess that one of them was some sort of cousin to my mom. That’s sad.

I also found a couple of super cool purses my mom used to carry. I guess this was back before she got into the boring mom purses that I remember. She also put aside a few dresses that she told my dad she wanted me to have.

Mostly, though, sorting through the house has been hard work. My parents honestly threw nothing away and my dad and I are paying the price for it now. Big time. And even though I threw out a ton of stuff a few years ago before I moved to Atlanta, it still makes me want to sort through my stuff and get rid of more because wow.

Clutter Slays Me

Recently, I was up in Minnesota to help my dad clean out his house so he can move to Georgia with me. What a tedious and horrible job that is! If you're someone who keeps a lot of things, please consider culling your house out now. Don't leave it for your family to handle for you.

When I moved to Atlanta four years ago, the idea was that my parents would move with me. Only they could not get rid of stuff. As many times as I went up there to help, nothing was accomplished.

Now things have changed and there's no more dallying allowed. My dad was cooperative about getting rid of things, but there was so much of it. So much! We made at least 5 trips to a local charity with my car packed to the gills with stuff. We threw out a ton of paper, literally filling the gigantic recycle bin and even driving over to the recycling center with more. And despite this, you'd never know anything had left the house. That's how full of stuff it was (and still is).

After three weeks of hell, my vacation was over and I had to return home. The clean out did not get finished. We didn't even finish the upstairs let alone touch the basement and there's still the two garages. Gah!

Although it's not optimal, my dad is going to handle the rest. Hopefully, he can get it down without my needing to make another trip up north, but I don't know how he'll manage.

One thing it this experience inspired? I'm ready to get rid of stuff in my house even though I'm not a clutter bug.

Organization

This is another post about the new house. I know that's all I've been talking about for weeks now, but I'm so excited that I can't stand it. For the last year and a half, I've been living in Atlanta, but 98% of my things have been in Minnesota. The idea of having a home with all my stuff? Bliss.

Unfortunately, my new house doesn't have a basement which means I'm going to have issues figuring out where to put things. My basement in Minnesota was unfinished and pretty much a massive storage facility.

I've decided the only two things that can help me now are decluttering and organization.

I did get rid of a ton of stuff as I went through my house in MN to put it on the market, but I didn't get rid of everything I could. Because of time constraints, I just did the things I knew I could power through quickly and I decided to move the rest of it to Georgia and deal with it here. Now, I will have to deal with it promptly, not whenever I get around to it. :-/

Step 2 is keeping myself organized. I am notoriously bad at this, but I've been pinning organization stuff over on Pinterest (Organization Tips) and now I'll have to actually click through and read these blogs. Oh, and come up with a system that works for me.

Some of the guys at work have suggested I put up an outbuilding for storage, but I really don't want to do that. Not only do I not have the space, but I don't want to worry about bugs getting in my things.

Others have suggested I get a storage unit, but I look at it this way. If I can put things in storage and rarely, if ever, need them, then I can get rid of it all together.

Complicating my plans? An August 15 deadline, followed by a November 15 deadline.