In a panic, last night, I realized that if we are well and truly going to be putting our house on the market next week *GULP*, this might be the last recycling day between now and that date. Therefore, it was incumbent upon me to race around the house and ruthlessly reduce the old magazines which were cluttering up the whole house, stashed in lopsided piles in odd corners and in each bathroom and the guest room and next to my bed and, well, you get the idea. In a burst of energy, I rounded up something like 9 shopping bags full of old Sports Illustrated, Architectural Digest, Consumer Reports, Westchester and NY Magazines, and various other random publications and conveyed them to the curb for disposal.
I have barely scratched the surface, I realize, of what needs to be done to make the house ready to show, but it felt good to get started.
Tomorrow, I'm afraid (and I really mean afraid), may be the last bulk garbage disposal opportunity before the house lists. Thus, tonight may be a really late night as I attempt to make some snap decisions about what stays, what goes, and what gets run to the curb tonight.
All the fun and drama of packing up an entire house but compressed into 2 nights.
In the back of my mind, I hear my late grandmother's voice, passing along the words she used to tell my mother when my mother was sent off to clean up her room: Be ruthless.
Wish me luck, for it is against everything holy for a pack rat to be ruthless.
By the way, how come nobody is ever told to be "ruth" anymore? How come ruth fell out of the language except as a first name?
Posted by Random Penseur at March 30, 2005 11:42 AMI feel your pain, RP! My philosphy has always been to keep something in case I need it. I think that perspective underpins George Carlin's quip that a house is just a place to store all your crap. Then, as you add more stuff, you need a bigger house. So you're not alone.
Posted by: GrammarQueen at March 30, 2005 05:09 PMwell....it could be a middle name :)
Good luck with that. I'm also a fellow pack rat. I used to rent the house I am in now, but when my landlord put it on the market I decided buying it was easier than cleaning out the basement.
Posted by: nic at March 30, 2005 07:36 PMlol, nic.
I was a pack rat all my life until my last move, three years ago. I finally let so much stuff go -- stuff I'd been carrying with me whereever I went since friggin' college!
A U-Haul full of crap went to the Asylum Street dump. (Well, not FULL, of course, but, y'know...)
It was very liberating and refreshing.
Y'all get it. It is tough to dispose of some of these things. Ruthless, I tell you, ruthless.
Posted by: RP at March 30, 2005 09:39 PMHow abuot you set one really big box aside and put stuff that you want to keep in there? What doesn't fit, goes?
Worth a try. :)
Posted by: Hannah at March 31, 2005 08:35 AMLiving in Asia taught me how to live with just essentials (as everybody else did) in a simple and uncluttered way.
I have tried to keep that lesson alive living here. It is truly freeing, thought at times when I look around I feel that I still have too much.
You will be in my prayers to receive a ruthlessness few have ever seen. May you be liberated of your Pack!
Posted by: michele at March 31, 2005 09:24 AMI am ruthful over your impending material tragedy.
Posted by: Jim at March 31, 2005 11:03 AM