Dejunkification

Yesterday was a long, busy day. And I got a sunburn. But it was so worth the effort and effects.

When we moved here we had two kids and considerably less stuff. Skyler was 22 months old and Wes was 3 months old. We brought what I'd say was too much stuff. I say that now, but back then it seemed about right. It all fit in our small apartment back then so it couldn't have been all that much.

The amount of stuff we own has changed.

A lot.

In our years here we have purchased a lot of stuff. Some of it is for the boys, some for Angie and me, some just because we ... well, actually, I have no idea why we have some of this stuff.

When we moved from our apartment into a 3-bedroom mansion, we felt like we had all the space in the world to hold stuff. I have to tell you that the spaciousness of this house is due partly because there is less storage space than typical homes. Each room has a little closet, but that's it. No game closet or linen closet. I even busted out my inner handyman one year and put up some shelves above the washer, dryer and deep freeze. That was about a 15% boost in our storage capacity. And it felt Grrrreeeat! (Think Tony the Tiger.)

Time went on. So did our purchases. We filled every nook and cranny in our domain. I still remember the day at the store when we were deciding on buying something for Wes. I think it was the activity center we got when he was ready for it. Anyway, there we were in the store and since I was the one who kept reorganizing our stuff so it could fit in all our closets and under beds, I knew we were out of room. And this type of toy thing is pretty big. I remember turning to Angie and saying, "where are we going to put this thing when it's time to put it away?" Her answer and my acceptance has haunted me for years.

Yes, years.

She said, "We'll find somewhere." I guess I thought she knew something I didn't know. Well, that began our life of not putting everything away. It has been a stressful topic for me. The more time goes by and the more stuff we have accrued for our growing family, the deeper it hurts.

So let me tell you what we did yesterday. We dejunkified our shed! I better rewind a bit and tell you that we bought a shed kit and got some help putting it together in our back grassy area (it's no yard). This was a life saver at the time. I guess I thought that would act as some sort of magical bag of holding and solve all my storage problems. It didn't. It couldn't have. Not when we just kept buying things.

With a potential move on the horizon (after graduation and finding a job...no news yet), the question on our minds is, "How much room will we have for our stuff?" It is so stressful. Partly because we have looked into the cost of living in expensive places where tiny homes will be all we can afford. And it basically comes down to how much stuff do we want to keep. Sure, there are things we can get rid of. But if we move into a house that can hold it all, why get rid of the stuff in that gray area? You know?

We've debated having a Yard Sale or a Yard Free. We've talked about donating stuff or giving it away to friends. Or listing things on craigslist. We ended up deciding that the best thing to do for our emotional state and the speediest solution would be to go through the shed and quickly decide if an item was for keeping, donating or garbage.

We spent about an hour pulling everything out of the shed and putting it into piles. The result was thrilling! The pile of "get rid of" was huge! I felt that dormant organizer wake up inside me. I could see where things might actually be moved from our living space out to the shed! The end result wasn't so quick to come though. It took a few hours to go through boxes, throw away certain portions and get the rest ready for recycling. That included breaking down boxes so they fit in my car. It was a tight fit, but so worth it in the end. The van was chuck full, too, with everything going to donation. I spent the next hour driving both vehicles to their respective destinations, finalizing the freedom of space.

I do love space.

Empty space.

Living space.

Outer space.

(That's been a joke lately about where we could move to get away from our 10 days of power outage, another partial day of power outage, 5 days of losing our Internet connection, etc.)

We would benefit from taking the counsel of modern-day prophets to "live within your means" and apply it to the volume of our home. I'd like to enjoy the stress-free lifestyle of fitting in our house just as I enjoy living within our income.

Any stories you'd like to share about dejunkifiying your life?