I try to avoid the garage as much as possible. It’s a lot smaller than our old garage and is stuffed with all the things we haven’t yet gone through since the last 2-3 moves. In addition, our SUV is stored there as well. I walked in there last Friday to retrieve my mid arm and quilt frame and there is still a ton of stuff in the garage. I’m going to clear it up a little bit at a time.
I think it’s time for me to hit the garage and pick a box or section to go through bit by bit.
~Melanie
I tried to go through the bookshelves. I have a ton of books and some of it is from college days, some of it is from work stuff, some of it is great fictions that I felt I had to have (even though I have the e-version) and some of it is the kids’ books.
I had a hard time getting rid of anything. It was much harder than my clothes and my shoes. I was only able to get rid of any duplicates we happen to have.
First – I removed all the kids’ baby and youth books. I kept their hard cover fiction books because I love how they look. These are the Riordan series, Twilight series, Harry Potter, Divergent series, Ever series… etc. These are the books that I’ve read while they read and enjoyed discussing with them.
Second – I removed all the paperbacks of books that I wasn’t in love with. I know that there are quite a few I removed that I love but didn’t have space for so I have to go through those again.
That’s all I’ve done so far.
Even though I said “removed” – I just took it off the bookshelf and put it somewhere else. So, it’s not really gone. I physically get sick when I think of getting rid of any of those books. 🙁 Not sure what that’s about but I’ll have to work through it somehow.
So, the bottom two shelves on the left are looking good. I should have taken a before picture but I forgot. Here’s a pic of how it looks now.
I’m hiding the rest of the books in the bottom cabinet
and in another room
I think there are more in the garage… but I’ll deal with that when we unearth them.
~Melanie
The hubby brought a few more boxes in from the garage. I was able to cut through one box filled with purses, grocery bags, old laptop bags, etc. A second box didn’t belong to me and had to be put back. A third box contained my old journals, old pictures and negatives from high school, and a couple of porcelain dolls. Well, I took out the dolls and displayed them, much to the horror of my kids. I even found a shoebox of the hi8’s containing footage of the summer I spent in the Philippines when I was in college. It would be interesting to see what’s on those tapes.
I was able to dispose of half of the box. The items no longer inspired the memories and joy that they once had. I couldn’t get rid of the journals, though, so I left the box half filled. I have three other boxes waiting for me to sift through.
The problem is that these are really bad boxes to go through. One of the boxes consist of my youngest’s baby clothes. That will probably be easily cut in half. Now that the kids are 14 and 10, we do not have much left from when they were babies. But it took some time giving things away and I still find stuff that I can’t get rid of because they just look too dang cute. But everytime I go through that old baby stuff, I get rid of more and more. The other two boxes are much harder. They are the photos and memorabilias and kids’ school projects from 2008-2010.
I used to scrapbook but in 2006 I was caught up. That meant that I had scrapbooked all the pictures that I wanted to scrapbook and documented all the moments of my kids’ lives through that point that I wanted to. So I took up a new hobby: quilting. Well, since then, I don’t remember the last time I scrapbooked. But I’ve been keeping all the stuff (report cards, cards, random pictures that happened to be printed, brochures, etc.) chronologically in boxes for the time I decide to start scrapbooking again. I was tempted to tell the hubby to put these last 2 boxes back but I persevered. I’m sure I can cull down those boxes. I know I kept everything because I was afraid to throw something away that I might want for the scrapbook. Maybe, I might find the time to scrapbook a page here and there?
~Melanie
I realize that while I’ve gone through my clothes and donated a lot of them away, I have trouble finding things to wear every day. It seems that a lot of them do not bring me joy. I can’t donate them all away as I don’t have the resources to go buy a bunch of new stuff. But I will be on the lookout for things I love and try to slowly bring those into my drawers and my closet. As I find these things I would, of course, donate the older items away.
I’ve asked the hubby to bring in more boxes from the garage. I would like to go through everything in the garage and really only keep the things I want. There are things I can go through inside my house – like the books and bar area and the restroom, etc. And I’m sure I’ll get to those places too. But the stuff there are already in a place. The stuff in the garage is tucked away and I do not really know what’s there. Most of the stuff can probably be thrown out.
Now that I’ve started donating and throwing things away, friends are giving me helpful suggestions on what I can do with the stuff rather than donate and throw things away. They’ve suggested that I do a garage sale. Or in today’s modern world, open an instagram account called #melaniescloset and sell online. Or give them to a friend who will send them to the Philippines for their loved ones to use, barter or sell. I love my friends. But these are things I’ve told myself to do and never got around to doing any of them. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve dragged this stuff from house to house to house. And I’ve finally decided to stop telling myself that I will do these things and just get rid of the stuff.
Happy Thursday friends! The weekend is almost here!
~Melanie