Saturday, September 19, 2009

Clean Sweep

Today...

  • 9 hours
  • 19 bags of clothes and linens
  • 17 boxes of toys, puzzles, kitchenwares
  • 3 wooden bed frames
  • 3 metal bed frames
  • 2 bureaus
  • 2 night stands
  • 2 bookcases
  • 7 framed pictures
  • 1 foot-pedal sewing machine base
  • 1 Victorian parlor chair in need of reupholstering
  • 1 air conditioner
  • assorted odds and ends
  • 1 lawn mower
All organized for our yard sale. Before you say, "yard sales are a waste of time", I don't mind having one every few years. And my garage is now neat and swept clean. The older I get, the less I want to own, the more organized I want to be, and the neater I like things kept.

OMG, I am turning into my mother!

The 9 hours outside was worth it, because my husband, after I did my best "Clean Sweep" impression and moved everything OUT of the garage into our driveway (and most of the backyard too!), looked at all of the stuff and said "I can't believe there was that much stuff in there. I'm sort of disgusted!'

My mouth dropped open. A mosquito flew in. I half-swallowed it, choked, and spit it out. He finally realized how much STUFF we had!

Trust me. This is funny. Hysterical. Because at least 60% of the stuff is from his parents' home (we helped his dad moved out last fall after his mom died, and Dad left the cleaning out to us) and his brother's apartment (we helped his dad clean it out after his brother died last winter). The other 40% are kids' things that the Baby has outgrown or the Oldest and the Middle Child want to get rid of (and I have no interest in keeping for the Baby).

HIS mouth dropped open when I mentioned the other 20+ boxes downcellar to bring out. His mouth closed when I told him that can wait until next week. There's also 5 boxes of my grandmother's children's books to list for estimates and an entire house to declutter to add to the pile.

What did I mind today? The lawn mower that he agreed to sell. Because we already have a perfectly good mower that was used this morning. This is the EXTRA one.

Who has a BACKUP lawn mower?!?

Even worse? I don't know why we ever had two in the first place.

5 comments:

Shelli said...

My husband has a backup lawn mower. It drives me crazy.

I love the feeling when I heave out a bunch of stuff. There's nothing like it.

WorkingMom said...

Shelli, thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one in a multi-lawn mower household!

The feeling is awesome, but it will be even better once we actually have the yard sale. Then everything else goes to charity, and I'll have my house back!

Tricia said...

We have a 'swap shop' at the dump here, you can drop off reusable items for others. Some people hang there all day and sell the items on ebay... I've left tons and gotten great items: pine table with inlay, extra changing table, toys, vases etc. We also have a separate book barn too, just books!

Just A Normal Mom said...

Amazing how much can be stored, isn't it?
***Ally

WorkingMom said...

Tricia - wish we had something like that; our dump is now only for lawn debris.

Ally - you're not kidding. I'm methodically going through the house trying to finish the purge but I'm getting caught up in the "let's get rid of this unused item". Hubby's afraid we'll only have 3 plates, 2 mattresses, and the clothes on our back when I'm done!