I couldn’t sleep the other night, and there was nothing on the seven billion cable TV stations except for this show on TLC called “Help, I’m a Hoarder!”. I turned it on, thinking to myself, “well, thank goodness I’m not like those people.” Then a few hours later, I went to start packing so we can move this weekend (and during the day this blog is posting so I may not be commenting!) and realized umm…I may not be a hoarder, but I am one heck of a packrat. Either that or the stuff I own has reproductive abilities.

We’re in the process of moving, and because we haven’t put our first house on the market yet, we have the luxury of time. That means I have the hours (or presumably do) to sift through the stuff I own before I pack it away in boxes to move over to the other house.

Uh…yeah.

There’s a problem, though. I open up a drawer or a closet and my first thought is “I have too much stuff (aka junk).” So I start to go through the stuff/junk, with good intentions. I’m going to get rid of a lot of it, I tell myself. I’m going to apply the “Clean House” method (I watch a lot of Style Network, too) of Donate, Trash and Keep. Except the piles for the first two are small, and when I’m all done sorting, the pile for the third seems even larger than the pile I started out with. How does that happen?

Okay, I say. I will NOT put this much stuff in the box. I will get rid of some more before I start to pack.

Uh…yeah.

What is it they say about good intentions? Whatever the old saying is, my good intentions flew south for the winter, and I think they’re basking on a beach in Jamaica, totally ignoring my pleas to come back and help me make good packing decisions. Because when I pack those boxes, what I’m left with in the Donate and Trash piles is so pitifully small, I might as well call them dust bunnies.

I know exactly why, too. It’s because I stand there, and run through this insane thought process. The same exact thought process I saw on that “Help! I’m a Hoarder!” show. It’s the “what if I need this someday?” thing. You look at that woven cornucopia that someone gave you one Thanksgiving and think, well, maybe I will get really creative one day and have a hankering to make a table display out of a woven cornucopia. Perhaps I should hold on to this perfectly good woven cornucopia, just in case. Except, I know myself and know I am not the type to make some kind of cool table display out of a woven cornucopia. I like the IDEA of doing such a thing. Just not the ACT of doing such a thing. ;-)

Yesterday, I unpacked a few of my boxes when I got to the new house. As I was putting stuff away (stuff I haven’t used in years, but now, I tell myself, that I have all this space to display/store/house my stuff/junk, I WILL use it, I vow), I found three things packed in the box that were clearly in that Donate/Trash category.

I considered them carefully. Will I use these again? Might I need them? Will I regret getting rid of these items and thus, need to go to a store some day and have to replace them?

Uh…no.

And finally, feeling very proud of myself, I put them in the trash bin, stuffed them right inside the woven cornucopia (hey, a display in trash!). That made a whole lot of room on my shelves. Space I promptly filled with more junk. Uh…stuff. :-)

Shirley