The dining room table is covered in Lego again, but I swear this is the last time. My mom sent 5 pieces home with Karin from Dallas and now they’ve been added to the kits that were missing them and labels are ready to be printed. Now we just need to decide what we actually want to do with it all: sell it? or stick it up in the attic for posterity?
There is also a stack of old comic books on the table that Anders needs to go through; Karin and I did a number on her room today and cleaned out a lot of the stuff that has been collecting dust on her shelves for several years. One shelf was full of magazine holders stuffed with her dad’s old Tintins and comics. We already have boxes of comic books filling OUR closet and the thought of adding another one makes me hunch my shoulders. In addition to the comics, we need a magazine intervention…I have boxes and boxes of old Martha Stewart Living magazines (they’re so PRETTY; how can I throw them away??) and Anders has boxes and boxes of old motorcycle magazines. It’s not like we’ll ever go back and read through them again, though I COULD see decimating the Livings for recipes, so why do we keep them all?
What is it that makes us keep stuff? Especially stuff like this?
Karin went through stacks of old school workbooks and papers and drawings and pitched most of it. She has a really hard time parting with STUFF so I was proud of her for being so good today about clearing some of the clutter. Martin came in to laugh over some of the stuff we were finding, and I said, “don’t get too complacent: YOU’RE NEXT” …but he doesn’t have nearly as much junk hoarded in his room as she did, and to be honest, not near as much as his parents do.
I seem to go in waves when it comes to packratting and purging. Sometimes it’s so easy to pitch stuff, other times it’s impossible. I know part of it is not wanting to let go of the past…or the person I was at various times in my life, but 6 boxes of magazines I’ll never look at again? Enough already.
What about you? Are you a keeper or a sweeper?