I Don't Care What You Think; I'm Keeping This

I am exhausted. In the best possible way. The household purge continues and today I reached a point where I could actually begin to move some furniture. Mostly that consisted of relocating four loaded bookcases from the den to my bedroom, which I accomplished with the aid of my old, grimy Moving Men furniture sliders. If I hadn't thoroughly reorganized the utility closet earlier in the week, I wouldn't even have known where to find that battered box of sliders, so yay for serendipity!

Before moving the bookcases, I took everything out of the cabinets below the built-in, non-movable bookcases, eliminated what I could, and reorganized the rest. Those three cabinets were full of office and art supplies. Two of them still are, but one now holds the few games I'm keeping and eight or ten unopened jigsaw puzzles. I found a like-new leather day planner in there and thought how useful that would be for one of the young women in the family--and then I realized that everything I used to do with the day planner, they all do now on their smart phones. I discovered enough manila envelopes in a wide range of sizes that I'll probably never have to buy one again. The same goes for sticky notes and index cards. There were four plastic shoeboxes, each containing an assortment of crayons, colored pencils, markers and chalk. One day after the big move is complete, I'll sort them all out by type. For now I'm keeping all of them.

I found stuff when I moved the bookcases, too:  mostly rolls of a dust-and-dog-hair mixture that had accumulated under them, neither visible nor reachable from the front. Also under a bookcase were the stiff, leathery, well-preserved remains of a five-lined skink. Those bookcases sat next to the backdoor, so the skink probably darted in when the door was open and sought shelter in the nearest dark space. I wonder if the dryness of the dust and dog hair mummified it.

Tabletops and counters are still covered with items to be given away or donated to thrift shops. A visitor would be justifiably horrified at the mess, but I'm beginning to see beyond it now, to imagine how it will look when all those things are gone from here and we have a functional, comfortable home again. Working towards that goal has been good for me, both mentally and physically. It's amazing what the right motivation can do to get a woman off her backside.

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I could have reclaimed space in my home much faster if I'd taken a hint from the title of this week's Saturday Song Selection, but three lines of the lyrics sum up the reason why I'm sorting through everything carefully and hanging on to more than I need:

"No matter what you think about it

You just won't be able to do without it

Take a tip from one who's tried."

Of course, the song is about love--not decorative items stored in a spare-bedroom closet--but we all hear what we want to hear, don't we?

The song is "I Threw It All Away" by Bob Dylan.

Click here to read the lyrics.

Thanks to 3vignano for posting this video on YouTube.