Throw it out! Don't save all that stuff!

We are still packing.  Pat has come three days to help.  Lisa came Saturday and packed anything that didn't move.  Her husband Todd has been here two days helping Marty and Erik move huge heavy furniture/boxes to the storage unit.  Monday Pat will be back and Kirsten is back in town and will come help pack. 

So much has been packed up.  So much left to do.  I have to call Waste Management Monday and ask them to not stop our service on Tuesday.  We need it extended another week.  We have so much to throw away.  I really think we need another bulk pickup.  We keep finding stuff that I thought we had gotten rid of:  an HO Train set, my great grandfather's ugly mantle clock, my grandmother's scrapbook. There is the stuff that isn't ours.  We found a brand new suitcase,  portable picnic tables, a camp stool, a fireman's ax.   Then we have tax records back to 1978, you only have to keep them 7 years. I shredded crap stuff for hours today.  Marty throws nothing away except clothing.

We have gotten rid of stuff for the last three moves.  But if you have storage you don't get rid of enough.  We have pictures, scrap books, high school and college yearbookd, baby clothes made by family members now gone.  I even have love letters from my father to my mother.  He died in 1954.
This time we have cleaned out a little better.  We better we have to pay for storage this time.

Young people, pay attention.  Don't save every thing, don't keep every paper from the sale of a house.  That house is gone, no longer yours.  You do not need all that paper work.  Then do you really want to keep all those notes from a business meeting? Is that program from a Rock Concert worth the space?  Why are you keeping that pressed rose?  Are all those books worth the space, donate them.   Be ruthless, weed out.  If you bring one thing into the house, take one thing out.  Trust me, when you are my age, you do not want to work this hard cleaning out a house. 

Marty and I have kept some very ridiculous sentimental things: the peignoir set from my wedding night, a Dixie cup covered in aluminum foil that looks like a bell that Erik made, Marty has kept books from church groups and an Atlas that was outdated in the 60's.   We have a rule if you cry, you can keep it.  Erik and Jennifer will have to throw out these items.  They won't mean anything to them and they can just toss them. 

So I repeat:  Do not keep everything.  If you don't have to keep it for the government, toss it.  If you haven't worn it in 6 months donate it.(this one Marty can do with no problem).