day twenty-one

I actually had to think a little bit tonight about what I would throw away. A lot of the obvious stuff I have already thrown away. However, when I was going through books the other night (which I donated to the Salvation Army last night, along with a bunch of the stuff that has appeared on this blog), in that box of books was another collection of mostly college-era papers and personal items, like letters and cards and my letters for making the Dean's list. I wasn't able to get rid of as many as I was able to the first time, but at least I have pared all that college stuff down to one box. I also came across a lot of the old decorations I've put up in the past; they are mostly collage type items, that seems to be my favorite way to decorate. I kept most of the decoration stuff, but that stuff may end up in the bad stack before the thirty days are up.
Perhaps counterintuitively, everything seems more cluttered right now than it did before. However, there are a couple of reasons for this I think. One, a lot of this stuff was in boxes in a storage area, and so they were not in open, but now that they are, I can see how much room they were taking up, and I am waiting to re-pack those items for the end of this project. And by bringing all these old boxes out of storage, I am finding out how much of a smaller footprint I could be making, or how much of one I have already been making. Another thing is that once the thirty days are up, I should have plenty of room to store whatever's left and reorganize everything, but right now, a lot of what didn't get thrown away is sitting out waiting to be stored again, creating a lot of extra clutter. But undoubtedly, with all the stuff that's been thrown away, it should free up lots of space and should be far neater around the house after I'm done. Also, as soon as all the stuff I sold on eBay is shipped, that should help out, as a lot of that stuff is sitting about. The nice thing is that things are going in piles, which should be easy to store again, especially since I've already cleared out a storage bin or two and they are just waiting to be reapportioned.