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Purge | Pad Patter 6.23

QuiltyMom said:
Oh, it's so hard! I don't blame her.

We went to a downsizing seminar given by the guy who hosts the Hoarder's tv show. The most important thing he said was we're in a strange scenario today with so many different generations living: those who went through the depression, their children who learned to "save everything in case you ever need it", and the younger generation doesn't want the stuff at all, only throwaway IKEA junk. It's especially hard when everything we have reminds us of someone who's gone, which the kid's don't know or remember. BUT the silver lining is that the kids want the MEMORIES in place of the stuff. Take a photo and write the story. Tell the kids about things, show them places, etc. - but make sure it's documented. So, that's what I'm trying to do. Knowing all that has helped me go through things. My DD wants nothing, and if she does want anything it'll be a decade or so from now. She left the house and took nothing - only wants new things that are "hers". My DS, on the other hand, wants anything we can give him because it's free, but he's a minimum of 5 years away from moving out. So, lots of stuff!

I like the Fly Lady and her 21 Fling Boogie: Take a bag and go around the house and put 21 things in it that need to go. It can be 21 chewed up pencils or 21 broken rubberbands, but it gets you used to sorting through things quickly when you need to do it.

But I still can't let go of the leaf, twig and crayon drawings I made when camping in the Redwoods when I was five years old... and I'm approaching 60! lol!
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I really need to talk to her about coming to her house and taking photos of lots of things, talking about the stories, and writing them down. I think that may help her. Thank you for sharing that! My mother's house is just over 2500 sq ft and it is full! My sister and I both live in houses that are under 1500 sq ft., and our grown kids live in smaller places than that, so none of us have the space to take all the things she doesn't want to part with. It is really hard. My son and daughter both offered to trade homes with her and told her they would take care of her things :giggle
 
We are the worst at saving stuff just in case we need it again. :giggle I am currently setting up for a garage sale mostly so I could purge a bunch of stuff from my house, but then it turned into a garage sale to raise money for our church and a bunch of generous people donated stuff to sell at my garage sale and now I don't have room to purge my own stuff. Ugh! Lol! I'm going to fill my stuff in as things sell this weekend and then the rest will have to go to a resell shop or Goodwill. We definitely need a HUGE purge at our house. I really want to do one room at a time like you did Jan, but I haven't seemed to get started on it yet.
 
It's too bad we all don't live closer to each other, because it's so much easier to sort and purge when someone else is there to help say "toss" or "stay"!
 
I started this over 2 years ago when I was going to remodel my kitchen and bathroom. I was having new flooring put in at the same time so that meant I needed to empty items in the living room as well. A few months later I had flooring put in the 2 bedrooms and my office so the purging continued.

Last summer was the basement and garage. Once the flooring was complete I started on the basement. A lot of stuff was recycled or is in the shredding pile in the garage. I have been waiting for warmer, no rain days to go sit out there and work on that. I had the dumpster in August for the big stuff. A lot of stuff was put out in garbage as well.

My parents built this house in the mid-60's and they were pack rats so there was a LOT of their stuff in the basement as well. I found stuff from Dad's Navy years (1948-1952) that I'm guessing he forgot he had down there. That case also had letters Mom had written to Dad when she was on a 3 week trip with her parents just a couple months before their wedding. Things like that I have kept or scanned. I also took pictures of things and wrote down the story so I can scrap them when I get my scrapping mojo back. I found a book that belonged to my grandma's sister... guessing my grandma got it and then my mom. I gave it to the sister's granddaughter. She was a librarian and has a nice book collection that it is now a part of.

I am now of the mindset that I do not bring anything into this house. I see cute decorations and curb the impulse and do not buy. My new motto is "Less is More". Now that I'm almost 2 years into retirement and I know more of what type of clothes I wear constantly, I should go through my closets again. I have gotten rid of so many clothes over the last 5 years that the closets have space in them so it can wait until next fall/winter.
 
IntenseMagic said:
Same here. That's why I end up doing it almost every summer and always have just about the same amount of junk to get rid of. My shed out back is like your garage. It's crazy, and as soon as we get some decent weather I'm going to tackle that bad boy. I figure if I get rid of it while he's not looking, he'll never miss it hahaha.
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What a plan! :yesss Now if I could just make our garage disappear. Oh wait, then I couldn't park my car in there. There IS enough room for that. Plan B coming up.
 
IntenseMagic said:
I figure if I get rid of it while he's not looking, he'll never miss it hahaha.
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Oh, I would love to do this in our garage. He replaces things in rental properties and then can't bear to throw them out. Seriously, if it is bad enough to not continue in a rental, why keep it?
 
We have gone through several small purges lately... but it's time to get serious. We are planning to downsize once Clara goes off to college next year and I don't want to move stuff I don't have to move. Plus this move will probably be to a high rise building which means storage is a locker in the basement. I know once it's that far removed from my daily life, I'm going to forget it even exists, so why keep it. Pare everything down (except holiday decorations) to what can be stored in our unit and get rid of the rest!
 
ugh! we're doing this at the moment - the kids toys from several years back are being culled again and it's kind of emotionally difficult even for me to say goodbye to them but i know it will be freeing when they're gone
 
Last week I spent the whole week organizing/purging different areas of our house. I do stay on top of things for the most part but I like to take one week during the summer to really clean and go through things I don't normally do during the regular school year. I organized my pantry, the kids closets, purged toys, garage and fridge and freezer!
 
We are constantly purging in our household. I've always done it, so Jay, Olivia, and Daniel now do it as well. Hmmm, well, Daniel takes a bit of prodding to get started, but of the four of us, he's the most brutal about letting things go. He has a HUGE Lego collection, and that never gets touched. But other things, he's very quick to say keep or go.

My rule is mostly to get rid of two things for every new thing that comes into the house. It's easier to follow this method if you have a bin or basket to pop those things in to take to the Goodwill or other donation centers for resell. And I'm not always great at doing it.
 
Oh how I love a good purge! Nothing like cleaning out that Kitchen Junk Drawer or the dresser drawers. I purge probably every 6 months and love how that makes you feel less overwhelmed. I like everything to have its place but am not always good at keep it that way. I think that comes from years as a Visual Merchandiser what happens at work stays at work, but when I do sort my clothes and tidy up office supplies into their own little compartments it truly makes my heart sing and so much easier to see what needs replenishing if at all.
 
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I love to get rid of things! The rest of my family does not.

I just went through all the kids' books since they're not here this week and donated all the ones that were too young for them, not their favorite, etc. The rest that were trashed or missing pages got chucked in the trash. The bookshelves look so nice now!
 
So here is a little update from me. Lots of work yet to go...
Left pic: before, Center: after 7 hours of work, and right pic: the boxes to be donated - not shown are the bags of trash. After I had worked 4 hours or so, the daughter tells me that she wanted to keep some of that stuff. So all those boxes to donate had a second go-through. Sigh.

I also decided to clean out the storage areas under the eaves on either side of the window. Lots of roach poo in there and many things we have not seen for the past 10, 15, or even 20 years.
declutter progress.jpg
 
LeeAndra said:
I love to get rid of things! The rest of my family does not.

I just went through all the kids' books since they're not here this week and donated all the ones that were too young for them, not their favorite, etc. The rest that were trashed or missing pages got chucked in the trash. The bookshelves look so nice now!
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I have a ton of books that I need to donate. I haven't tackled that one yet!
 
I like the idea of purging, but I don't know where to send the things I'm purging. LOL

That's where I am right now; I want to throw out a ton of stuff but my husband wants me to box it up to donate. I don't want to go through that extra care and work for stuff that I expect will just get thrown away / separated at the end. So right now, we don't do anything. I'll give in eventually -- it's my first project for this summer -- but I'm not happy about it. I will just have to remind myself that it fits my ultimate goal, to clean out the basement, and I can make *him* deal with removing all those giant boxes. (And while he's at it, he can take care of all those other boxes I purged into in past yeasrs that never made it out the door. It's really tempting to just throw away a little every week and see if he notices. :P If only some of those toys weren't so big!)
 
IntenseMagic said:
I have a ton of books that I need to donate. I haven't tackled that one yet!
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I found out last summer that there is an organization in a neighboring city that takes books. They then have a book sale and all monies made are for college scholarships for high school girls or middle school girls for math/science camps. It is put on by AAUW and they collect books in June and July then have a book fair in late August/early September.
 
We are constantly purging a little at a time. Right now, I'm doing an ebay blast with American Girl doll stuff. We are on the quest to really reduce, and just when I think we've done well, a new place looks cluttery! I think it's a task that is never ending, and I think that's okay. We have been carrying a life time of momentos and things, and slowly, when we are ready to give them up, they go. It's amazing to donate/sell/throw away stuff that you've been holding onto for years and realize that you don't need them anymore.
 
IntenseMagic said:
Nothing like a move to spur a good purge!! Good luck with the rest of move and on your new adventure!!
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I have a funny story about moving. Back in 2012, we had to move from California to Nevada. Too long of a story to go into, but we were SOOO TIRED from packing up a 2500 sq foot house and it was getting really late at night. We sealed up the last few boxes and passed out. Fast forward to 2013 when we finally moved into a rental, we emptied our storage unit and filled our garage with stuff. As we unpacked each box, we brought what we needed into the house, broke down the box to pass down on Craigs List, and then on to the next box. I opened a box labeled "Kitchen" and inside was our trash, broken hangers, and used Bounce dryer sheets. Apparently I was so tired, I packaged up our trash!!!!
 
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