Give me a call cause we are cleaning out our garage with treasures of 30 years...
I debated in a follow-up post, should I call or leave it?
Well, I did go (yesterday, with a friend), intending only to be helpful and take one or two reusable items e.g lumber.
[Courtesy photo link]
Well, the reader found she was unable to part with anything.
“I suppose I could use that,” I said, pointing toward a medium-sized piece of lumber leaning against the back window of her garage.
Immediately she thought of her own use for the dust covered board.
I tried again with another meagre sample. Same response.
I left wiser than I came and with only a few scraps (from the back of a truck recently filled to the rafters with junk from the garage).
I laughed to myself. We'll leave and she'll put all the crap back into the garage.
Then I concluded:
Some people don’t know the difference between junk and treasure.
Heck, I may be one of them.
I must hurry home and reduce the amount of stuff in my own garage and basement.
.
Decluttering... reducing... recycling... are you into the habit or buried in stuff?
6 comments:
My mother loved to throw things out. I once brought her a picture I had drawn and was particularly proud of. She said, "Oh, isn't that nice," and promptly cut it up for scrap paper to write notes on. I cherish things. Way too much.
I'm proud of the fact that each time I moved house I did get rid of a ton of things. But I now live in a tiny house, alone with a back bedroom that is full of clutter that I can't part with.
hi bobbie,
my wife wisely saved some, not all, artwork in a scrapbook and our adult sons will inherit it one day. two pieces are framed and the boys get a kick out of seeing it. i don't think we turned it into scrap paper (ouch) but it went somewhere (?)
my sister has a room that sounds like your back bedroom and though she can barely turn around in it she knows where everything is and can't part with her treasures.
once a year I have a clean-out week and get back to essentials. nostalgia is weakening but I know now I'll have a hard time parting with my '84 motorcycle.
cheers,
gord h.
One of the most "liberating" things I ever did was right after I got out of the army. There were two sizable cardboard boxes among the stuff I'd hauled back to North Carolina from Texas that I estimated had been taped tightly shut for about 6 years and 7 moves. I couldn't remember when they'd last seen daylight inside, much less what was in them.
So when the time came to move out of the temporary quarters we'd secured with my then mother-in-law, I took both boxes to the dumpster and without a backward glance heaved them cheerfully through the door.
Gosh I hope there wasn't anything in there I wanted to keep.
I think I'm bobbie's mother! I do save about one thing a term though and there are a couple of framed items on the walls so I'm not all bad.
I do admire Mojo. I'd've had to look just in case....
Mojo, pretty reckless behaviour I must say!
Liberating too, I admit.
I get to the point where I can admit to myself that if I haven't used something in the last few years I'm not likely to use it again. Out to the curb it goes, often with a note: "Still works if you shake/kick/tape it!"
Seldom does anything stay on the curb for more than a few hours in our busy residential neighbourhood, so if I regret it later - too late!!
Cheers,
Gord
i think the framing habit is a good one, jesse. children see their art as something of value and if they produce something everyday you can say, "Sorry, kid. Not as good as your framed one. Out it goes!!"
Ok, maybe not those exact words but along that line.
Cheers,
Gord
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