Spring Cleaning

I have been using my days off lately to mostly do work for The Convention. However, when I am not a slave to my computer or taking phone calls, I have been trying to de-clutter the house. When we lived in VA we had a 2200 square foot house that we rented. While we shared this space with roomates, almost all the furniture in it was ours and the boys let me sprawl as much as I liked. As was, there was never anything in the dining room in the 2 years I lived there. So when Joe and I moved to WA, we paired down a lot of stuff for the move, but we still had a ton of stuff. 1 apartment and now an 1100 sqaure foot condo later and we still have all these boxes that haven't been opened since forever.

I started going through and opening some of these boxes to see what was even in them. I knew some of them had my pretties (music boxes, glass trinkets and such) for which I have been waiting on appropriate shelving to display them on. However, I found all kinds of stuff that I just had to let go. I had role playing character sheets from high school, through college and beyond. I had collected them because each one had a story to me. Not only the character's story (which I was always thorough in developing), but what was going on in my life at the time that I made that character. My friends, my ex-boyfriend, where I lived, what my hobbies were and such. It was kindof a bizarre look into my past and it was really hard to get rid of them. I had to remind myself that this is how hoarding starts, it's just paper Sabrina, let it go! I also found the ubiquitous prom photos and other assortments of crap.

My goal this spring is to know what is in every box and why I am saving it. If I don't ever intend to do anything with it, it needs to find a new home. I am allowing myself some small boxes of memories, like my baby books and such, but nothing extreme. Now, before you get the wrong idea, my house is not covered in boxes and I am really no where near being a hoarder (lets not talk about the yarn ok?). All of the stuff in question fits in a funny closet under the stairs. There are just other things around the house I could put in that closet and since I haven't looked at some of this stuff in 5 years, it needs to go. Simplify and de-clutter. I think it will be better in the long run, besides it will make the summer painting and re-modeling easier.