welcome to purge-atory. (part 2)

the ever mounting "TOSS" pile.

purge weekend certainly did not unfold completely as planned. whereas my paperwork stash did make significant gains (via significant losses), i mostly succeeded in moving things from one shelf to another, and squinting a lot at my shelves while attempting to determine exactly how i wanted things to look. i did scrape off a good chunk from the living room bookcase (which has been notoriously overrun with crap since day one), much of which actually ended in the donate pile (see inset).

i also nearly broke all of my bones falling off the counter… which i was standing on in socks (socks are slippery) to clean out my kitchen cabinets. but did find yet a few more things that can go (if anyone wants a popsicle mold shaped like rocket ships, you might want to hit the forest ave. goodwill this week).  it was probably worth the almost shattered pelvis.

after that though, things kind of unraveled. i was off to old port fest for fried mushrooms and panic attacks (WHERE DO ALL THESE PEOPLE COME FROM?), and then accidentally ended up having beers for 6 hours with some very smart and chatty friends. needless to say, when i stumbled home around 11:30, i was in no mood finish putting my toys away.

still, some positive things have still emerged from this somewhat wrecky purge weekend:

1. laura at fore front fashion has graciously offered to show me the ways of fashion minimalism. (can you say closet gutting session?)

2. the boyfriend actually did keep his promise and got all of his shit out of the living room.

3. 2 loads of trash and goodwill donations have already left the house, with the promise of more to come over the coming week.

4. i used my hangover as an excuse to eat cheesy pazzo bread for breakfast.

welcome to purge-atory. (part 1)

day one of the purge was less than remarkable. just like those sad folks on hoarders, i got sucked into a microproject that yielded limited results. to my credit, i did clean out an entire file cabinet of old bills and pay stubs.  (on a side note, if anyone wants to steal my identity, this upcoming trash day might be a good time). also, my house is not going to be condemned if i don’t finish my purging by the end of the second day.

yesterday was also further complicated by the boyfriend deciding that he wanted to join in the purging by bringing up 7 fully packed storage bins or childhood crap  from the basement to the living room and starting to dig through them. he is definitely the hoardier one of the two of us, and i got really stuck on trying to get him to throw his shit away. i actually at one point uttered the phrase “why did you just put that kite string in the ‘keep’ pile? you don’t own a kite.”

the fact that his stuff was all over the living room (making it impossible to move or clean) stressed me out horribly, and i became very mean. apparently, the boyfriend also becomes very mean when other people hover over him and try to force him to get rid of his stuff. it was a brutal afternoon.

after some vegetables and a full 9 hours of sleep however, i am looking at my shelves with renewed scrutiny, and am surprising myself with how much i am willing to give away.  today will be better, i’m sure of it (i’m not sure of it).

look for and update on the results of day 2 later today.

secret stash.

so, i wrote a post for the goodwill of northern new england blog today about my insane vintage fabric collection… but i’m not sure when it will be put up. unfortunately, my broke207 post for today is the B side to that post. and of course,  i don’t have a back up plan.

so today, you’re just gonna have to watch the outtakes of the of the movie before you actually see the feature attraction.

i’ve been watching a lot of hoarders lately, and it is SCARING THE CRAP OUT OF ME. i’m a shopper, a collector, and a lousy housekeeper. i do actually delight in throwing/giving things away, and my house is never so messy that it can’t be cleaned in an afternoon… but as a card carrying member of the OCD club, i worry that something traumatic could happen and all of the sudden that switch could click on in my head and *bam* i could be living in this.