The Downsizing Battle

At our place, we've been cleaning/tossing out stuff. At the beginning of the year, we decided we would make a concerted effort to downsize and then Covid 19 sauntered into the picture and we were soon derailed in our quest for clean closets.

Last week, after needing to empty all our closets for a blitz on the mice we share this building with, we made a new resolution to start again. We've lived here seventeen years. It's amazing how much junk you can accumulate without really trying. 

Paper! Piles and piles of files I suspect we will never look at again. Story starts. Genealogy info nobody wants. Recipes I'll never make. Research I'll never use again. And contracts for books from publishers long gone out of business. The thing about paper is it's heavy. So the hunk is hauling it down to the dumpster a bit at a time. 

Kitchen stuff. Pans, pots, Pampered Chef, roasting pans (who am I gonna cook for?), and big serving platters. When am I gonna use them? We cook for two, not ten. What am I saving them for? All my children live across the country. The truth my generation has discovered is this--our children don't want or need the stuff we accumulated.

Clothes. Nope, we're never gonna fit in that suit we saved from ten years ago. I'm never gonna wear that dress that was expensive, but hideously uncomfortable. I don't own appropriate shoes to wear with anything dressy. And the awful truth is most of the stuff is stained because I cannot for my life eat without dropping something on my bazzooms...

Some things are borderline. The Christmas Tree we bought and used...three or four years. It's in perfect shape, but man, I'm not up to setting it up and we have no place to put it when we do. That corner was taken when the apartment complex installed a washer/dryer closet, and I have to admit I wouldn't change a thing. The washer/dryer wins every time.

Craft stuff. Keep? Toss? As I grow more infirm, the craft stuff becomes more attractive. Calligraphy, beading, knitting, are all activities I can still do. So...maybe those will survive for a while longer. Maybe.

Every day, we try to throw five things out. Big. Little. But something has to go. It's a slow process, slower for us because things have value for us, but if our children had to go through this stuff, I'm sure it would be faster. Get some hauler specialists, and instruct them to haul it away. It might come to that eventually, but the hunk and I will make a start on it first. Onward.

Anny