Purging

I think I might have mentioned that we are moving. We were actually going to move out of state, but we decided to stay in California. We are in the middle of escrow right now, we should close in the next 2-3 weeks. More on the house we picked another time.

I have not started packing yet, but I am in the process of a major purge. I’m doing this for several reasons. One, I can’t stand to pack and move things we don’t need. I want to get rid of everything we don’t use so we can start fresh on the new house. The second reason is that we are moving from a four bedroom house to a three bedroom house. I will no longer have a spare room, the room I call “where things go to die.” And third, the new house is a two story, so it does not have rafters in the garage or an attic for storage. I really need to par down the amount of stuff we have.

(And yet, the new house will have a formal living room, dining room, and a loft, none of which we have now, so we’ll have to buy more furniture. Lovely. Less storage, but more space to clean. More on why we picked THIS house another time.)

So, anyway, the weekend was filled with mass purging. Bug’s room, the guest bathroom, the linen closet, and the front hall closet are all cleaned out. There’s nothing in any of those locations that we don’t want or need. All we need to do is pack and move.

BK’s room was harder, only because half of his closet is devoted to my scrapbook supplies, sewing machine, and childhood memories for both The Agent and myself. For The Agent, this means three fishing pictures and his high school diploma. My collection is a little more… extensive.

Tough love was required. Some stuff was easy to get rid of: I’m married with two kids, I really don’t need the poem my high school boyfriend wrote to me. Other stuff was a little harder to get rid of, like my lesson plans from when I was teaching. I don’t plan on ever teaching again, but it seems a shame to throw it away.

“Agent, do you think anyone would want my old lesson plans? Should I sell them in the garage sale?”

The Agent could not imagine anyone wanting lesson plans I had written 15 years ago. He’s probably right. It’s all probably antiquated by now, anyway.

They’re all sitting on my kitchen island, waiting to be thrown away.

Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Baby steps.

The Agent will be running the garage sale, so I put tags on some items that he would not know about, like “grommet maker and eyelet setter… go to makingmemories.com for instructions.”  I didn't put prices on anything, The Agent can be in charge of that. I’m sure he’ll give away all my expensive rubber stamps for 10 cents each, but at least I’m getting rid of them.

The Agent looked over my piles after I was done for the day: keep, sell, and trash. In the sell pile was a ziplock bag of 6 novelty erasers with the tag “Novelty erasers from England, approx 30 years old.”

“Why do you have those?” The Agent asked.

“I had an eraser collection when I was a kid, and those are the only ones left. My uncle got them for me when he was stationed in London. I don’t know if they’re worth anything, but it seems a shame to just toss them. Maybe a kid will want them.”

The Agent studied them. “Maybe we ought to do some research. What if they’re worth millions and we’re just going to give them away? Check online.”

Right. Antique Road Show, here we come, with some erasers from the 80’s. Cool. Maybe my lessons plans are worth something, too.