Every two weeks, my town’s DPW comes along collecting “Big Trash.” It’s a day in which you could put out a circus clown car full of wiggling eels and they’d dutifully cart it away. (Side note: I love love love my town’s DPW). I enjoy purging my house of stuff, so this is a recurring meeting in my phone: if it’s every other Wednesday night, it’s time to start hauling some junk out to the curb to make my house feel light and clean. (I think it may be time for another 27 day challenge, btw. Getting rid of 27 things a day for 27 days. I did this last year and it was amazing). Thursday mornings I watch from my window as my old stuff gets thrown in the truck.
I’m not much of a shopper, so I’m not sure how it is that stuff multiplies the way it does, but it’s a never-ending battle against clutter. And I’m not even that much of a neat freak.
Today I got rid of: my son’s old mattress, a bunch of pillows (I’m starting to sound anal, I realize, but, yes, I change out all our pillows every three months. Fresh bedding is very important to me). Also gone: a mirror I got in Target ten eons ago, a giant old clock I ordered online which stopped working like 2 weeks after I got it, two bags of solidified mortar mix which probably came with the house 17 years ago, a bag of old clothes too shabby to donate to the Goodwill (think… soccer shirts ground into the mud and clothes to paint in) and two containers full of weird stuff that didn’t seem to fit into regular garbage day protocol.
Anyway, my holding pen for stuff I purge during the two weeks in anticipation for Big Trash Day is my garage, so it was particularly satisfying to get everything out of there today. I was moved to take a glamour shot of my garage, because, damn, peeps, I am proud of the sexy, well-organized hook system that I installed. This is what a woman’s garage looks like. When I noticed that the flash caught my bike’s reflector to make a spot of shine, it felt like the garage was just showing off at that point.
Ready for winter! (And, yes, those are shovels instead of a snow blower. I must be the one person in America who kind of likes to shovel snow). Three for the three of us. When these guys go off to college, it may be time for a snowblower. We’ll see.
