I got a burst of ambition today and decided to do some sorting out, throwing out, and cleaning up. I can't believe all of the crap we have accumulated over the past twenty years of living here. The problem is that it's not only my and my husband stuff, it's our three kids' stuff that takes up most of the room. Even though they are all moved out on their own (well, one did more back in..."temporarily"), they left much of their stuff here and don't want us to throw it away. We have become a free storage facility for boxes and boxes of stuff, as well as quite a number of old games and toys, clothing, books, exercise equipment and even a full-sized drum set. We are supposed to save it indefinitely because they do not want it taking up space in their own places, yet they can't bear to part with any of it. I am not a pack rat, however I am outnumbered around here by four-to-one.
Some things I will just have to take upon myself to get rid of and if I don't say anything, they will never know. There was half a closet full of Jeff's clothes that he left behind before he moved out. We kept asking him to go through it and bag up what he doesn't want...if he doesn't want any of it, then bag it ALL up. Well, it stayed there and stayed there and so today I finally bagged it up and took it to the charity drop box up in town.
While surveying the basement, which was once open and spacious when we first moved in, is now a chaotic mess of all kinds of stuff and I really don't know where to begin. I will have to devise a plan of action and think about it. What I would really like to do is to get a big dumpster and just chuck it all, regardless of the wailings that would come upon me afterwards.
The next thing to get sorted out are the childhood games. I have every game I have ever bought the kids in a big closet in the basement. While my holiday decorations sit half in and half out of this closet, all of these games are taking up space where the boxes of MY stuff could fit nicely and out of the way. I have asked the kids to come get whatever games they want to keep because I will be giving away to charity what I myself do not care to save, like Mall Madness, or Hungry Hungry Dinosaur. Maybe my little niece and nephew would like those. I will have to ask my sister-in-law if she would like some of these games. I would love to give some of these toys away, but I know they would have huge cows if I did. Their toys are precious to my kids for some reason. They are all in pretty decent condition and they somehow believe that when they have kids of their own that they will be interested in the ancient toys and games of their parents. Maybe they will be, then again with the way kids of today want things with whistles and bells...and pixels...I hope they aren't too disappointed when the stuff from the olden days is ignored. Maybe I will be wrong, but I don't think so. If it doesn't sing and dance and poopy for real, kids aren't interested.
Now I must go think of a strategy for tackling the chaos downstairs.
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