The Big Spring Clean

Even though I make an effort to not buy more than I need, I still wind up with a lot of crap that I never use, that just takes up space. Thankfully, it's less than I would have had otherwise. For the past few weeks, I've been rooting through my stuff and doing a medium-sized purge. There is something so satisfying about taking a bag full of stuff you haven't used in forever out of the house. It's like the moment when I finally bought an iPod and got rid of all my CDs--my apartment was airy and seemed huge. I dig it in a big way.

So far I've gotten rid of:

Clothes--I mentioned this before, but so far I've got two big bags of clothes and shoes I either haven't worn in a year, or never liked in the first place. I have a pair of shoes I love looking at, but once I put them on I hate them. I finally put them in the bag to take to the Salvation Army and I've never felt so alive! The clothes purge is ongoing because I'm trying to try on all items that I haven't worn in a long time to see if they still fit/look good, and I don't really feel like trying on more than 20 outfits a day. This way I can make my peace with anything I'm on the fence about too.

DVDs-- The local library put out a call for DVD donations recently, and it got me realizing that DVDs that I own that I'll never watch again, or may watch one more time, could just as easily be donated and then re-borrowed from the library or netflix, should I ever want them. So I went through my collection and found about 20 DVDs that I either haven't watched, or will not watch again. My shelves already look better.

Topsy Turvy-- Last year I bought a Topsy Turvy, that upside down tomato grower thing. I have a lot of gardening guilt i.e. I want to garden, but I'm intimidated by it, but I also don't have a space to do it and am not ambitious enough to seek one out. Every spring, my friends start talking about seeds, and I think I should grow stuff too, but I just won't, I know this now. Maybe if I ever have a yard I will. So I bought the Tospy Turvy precisely because I don't have a yard, but I also don't have anywhere to hang it that actually gets sunlight. So I'm giving it to a gardening co-worker, and he's going to give me the tomatoes. That's a total win-win.

I'm feeling pretty darn good right now--maybe even good enough to tackle that storage space... though probably not.