Just venting about stuff.

[gottawonder]

I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere on the spectrum for hoarding. Yes, I can get rid of things if I'm sure I can't use it, or it's damaged too much to repair. I've done okay with getting rid of clothes that don't fit. We routinely box up books that we're done with, and trade them in or donate them. Any DVDs that weren't worth watching again also get donated or given away.

I don't hang onto garbage. I've been pretty adamant about moving along things we salvaged from the trailer we tore down that my husband said were usable materials. We gave away some windows, some appliances, a pile of usable lumber, sold the trusses, and donated some doors to Habitat for Humanity. I did NOT want piles of that stuff in the yard, and in a year or so it all would have been garbage anyhow.

When our ride on lawnmower died last summer, I would not allow my husband to keep it for parts. A friend of ours took it, which is fine.

I've sold two rubber maid tubs of various horse equipment I wasn't using two years ago.

I recently gave away a beautiful table cloth to a friend of ours, because it was simply too big for our table, even though I loved the material.

I tossed quite a lot of stuff in the move from the trailer to our house on the same property. Crappy old shoes. Lots went to the thrift store as I went through things.

I wouldn't have even thought I was buying a lot of stuff right now, because Covid has slowed me down. I've been buying more movies than usual, and books. For a while I bought a bunch of clothes because I lost a lot of weight. I haven't really gotten around to going through all my clothes and getting rid of everything that's too big. I did give a garbage bag full of jeans away.

I just get overwhelmed. My craft room is a disaster. My "wardrobe" room isn't bad, but I need some shelving in there because there are boxes sitting on the floor with toiletries etc. that don't fit in the bathroom because the bathroom doesn't have any storage space.

Our kitchen is actually pretty tidy. That's nice.

Truly, I need to get rid of about half of my clothes, half of our blankets and linens, most of the drapes I have from the trailer because I just don't see us putting up drapes in this house (isn't that weird?) and most of the weird shit that doesn't belong anywhere and just keeps filling boxes.

Things like old clothes pins that theoretically are useful, pens (I keep getting rid of pens, and we still have so many), paper with things written on them, string, old pennies, stray beads, small nails (we have jars and jars of odd nails and screws), just stuff I can't even explain. It ends up in boxes, and I keep hanging onto it.

The thing is, I'm sentimental, and creative. I can see value in almost anything either in the form of a memory, or a potential use.

How do you guys deal with greeting cards? I'm fortunate in that I have quite a few people that send us cards, lots with letters in them. I hate to toss those, because some of those people have passed away and I treasure their words.

Yet, I love buying new things. Don't we all!

The thing is, I can't properly put everything away in a "place" because too many things don't have a place. So it just sits in boxes on the floor upstairs, or in piles. I try to organize it, but some of it defies category. It's just crap that I can't throw away. it makes it very hard to have a clean house when you literally keep things like plastic drug bottles and paper clips because they are potentially useful.