The Great Purge of 2020

It hardly seems possible, but we've lived in our house 30 years last October.  Kids grew up, and we put the old stuff in storage. Kids left and we put what they couldn't take with them in storage.  Furniture we didn't need?  Put it in storage.  Clothing we couldn't wear any more?  Storage.  Household stuff the kids might want someday?  You guessed it.  Storage.  We emptied - and refilled - the garage several times over the years, then branched out into storage units.  We. Have. Too. Much. Stuff.

So last week, the husband and I were discussing the situation and he agreed that it was time to do something about it.  Of course, I've been casually talking about it for months years, and maybe the inevitability - and expense - of it has finally made some impression.  I was more than pleasantly surprised at his easy acquiescence to the plan.  Grateful too, of course.  So Saturday morning, I actually started in the bedroom and purged some things, just to get off to a good start.  Then we grabbed breakfast and headed over to our storage units.  Yes, we have 2!  Yikes.  We worked like crazy.  No photos, sorry.  I hate to admit that I didn't even think about it. 

I'm no Marie Kondo - who could, or would want to, live with only 30 books? - but I felt pretty ruthless about getting the stuff out of there.  We filled the bed of the pickup 4 times and took 4 loads of stuff to the thrift store to donate.  We filled the bed twice more with trash.  We only quit when Doug came back after the 4th load and said that they stopped taking donations at 4:00.  I had at least 2 more loads ready to go!  It was so depressing to have to put all. that. stuff. back in the storage to wait until next week.  But, on the upside, that storage unit is now organized enough that I know what we're keeping and what we're donating.  Each child's stuff is waiting for them to go through it and do their own decision-making. 

The other storage unit isn't so overwhelming.  It contains a shocking amount of Christmas decorations - which obviously need to be culled and purged - and I know we will keep almost all the rest, but it will fit in the other unit, and shouldn't take more than a day to do.  So, from 2 units to one is a good start I think.  I'm hoping to get this part completed by the end of the month.  Yay for monthly savings!

Naturally, we both came home exhausted and sore.  We have definitely found muscles we had forgotten about.  

Then, after zoom church today, we worked on the house a bit.  My SIL needs a quiet place to work from home while he is here, so we rearranged a bit so he had a quiet work space with a decent internet connection.  Our internet is good, but is kind of spotty on the other side of the house, so internet was definitely a priority, and was a huge factor in the space we chose.

One of the things I always do Memorial Day weekend is bring home the bin of toys for the grands to play with during the month they are visiting.  Yesterday, while we were sorting and purging, we found 3 more large tubs of books and toys.  That is the mess you see in the photo above.  I sorted the toys from 4 large tubs to a large tub, a medium tub and a bookshelf. 

I threw out will donate tons of magazines and books (even quilting ones!, although I really can't see myself making a lot of those 90's style quilts - ever! and the hairstyles, fashion, and countrified designs made me laugh) to make room for the kids' books.  After 10 or 11 weeks of quarantine - their schools closed more than a week before ours did - one of the things grandma is going to make sure of is that we  reading every day while they are here, so finding the books was a thrill.  We will do the library (it's on their wish list) if we can, but we're still at 25% occupancy, so it's a bit uncertain. 

Of course there is more to do tomorrow, but I feel pretty good about what we've accomplished so far.