{help} she cried from under the pile

Feeling a bit overwhelmed with clutter lately.  I detest clutter, but you'd never know it by looking through my house some days.  Can you relate?  Aren't we all pack-rats, to a certain degree?  Maybe it's your basement that's filled with stuff, or your garage that overflows each summer as items fall from the rafters.  Godforbid we admit that our MINDS are cluttered too?!  How do we go about letting go of things...  and generally they're just that...   things.

The item does not replace the person who died.  The faded pink carnation tucked between the pages of the funeral announcement.  The brown, torn-edged old photograph, unless marked, scanned and put into a book, will one day fall away and not make sense to the fourth generation child who has inherited it.  What about the relics your cherish because they were handed down to you and the guilt is just too much.  However could you part with it?!  Surely Uncle Al would roll over in his grave if he knew you were going to donate the rock tumbler he polished agates with back in the day!?!

But folks, say it with me...  its just stuff!  Collecting dust on top of stuff.  The relics have been losing their value year after year.  I know this to be true because I have been cleaning out my basement recently and looked up the value of some of the stuff I've accumulated.  It's simply not worth the effort to list and resell it.  Unless you make a living that sort of thing, maybe.  Laughing at yourself when you see finally something on Antique Road Show that also sits in your basement just isn't worth dedicating space to it year after year.

The boys have seen the show about hoarding and asked me once, "Mom, are we hoarders?"  Um, no honey.  Not.yet.  Bwhahahaha.  Okay, never.  I don't buy things to bring them home and then never use them again.  But I can see where {prior to my recent accomplishments in the unfinished basement} they might have thought we were.

Oh, I know where I got my trait from...   believe me...  and while he will remain nameless, he will be celebrated this Sunday {in case you want to guess}.  Would you believe that while sitting on my patio last night reading a magazine that often clutters my mailbox (and honestly, I have no idea how I got on the mailing list) that I discovered a stool in a catalog that just might be in aforementioned man's house?  No joke.  And now it's called Vintage and they're selling it for over $129, depending on the style!  Downright crazy.  Heck, if I am looking to purchase something vintage, it might just be a phone call and 10 minute ride away...  but, I digress.

In the years we have lived @3513 we have not touched 90% of the boxes in our basement.  Most of which hold treasures untold, some with monetary value, most...  not so much.  Heck, I've even got a box labeled "deep storage" filled with remnants of my first marriage.  Why??  I have absolutely NO idea!!  Might have to toss it without even opening it up (it's pretty heavily taped shut).  So it has been my self-imposed quest to clean it up and move it out this summer!  I've moved them around from one corner to another until I get the place where the stuff isn't mine to throw away...  and I get discouraged and stop.  However, it's time...  time to get rid of it all (or rent a storage locker for what is left and make him pay for the monthly fee to keep his clutter).  Our city's free haul-away day is on my birthday this year and I couldn't think of a more freeing gift to myself to make it happen!!

At the risk of exposing myself to ridicule and laughter, I'm going to link up the video I took of my basement this past weekend.  I am feeling good about the progress I've made and hopefully will inspire someone else to crawl out from underneath the piles too!

Carpe Diem!

PS:  Please don't buy me anything for my bday this year!
(unless it can be consumed)