Saturday, September 12, 2009

The best part of today was being able to declare that two more places in our home are now "clutter free zones!" One of them is the kitchen counters (yowzah!) and the other is the laundry room (woo -- ee!)

These will not be easy areas to maintain because we all have the habit of leaving things in or on them. I anticipate having to police these spots for an extended period of time, but that's alright by me : ) I'm still joyous!

The funniest thing that happened today was when I was boxing up some things. I had cleared off the top of our incoming mail slots area and placed everything into a Banker's Box (labeled on the outside with the date that I put it in the box). Since the box was not full, I decided that I would add the bag that was hanging on my pantry doorknob.

This particular bag had been hanging on the doorknob for over a year (maybe closer to two ?!!)
It contained things that were left in our vehicle one time when I cleaned it out. This was a bag of
things that were not trash. I suppose that when I hung it up I told my family what the bag was and that they should look in it to see if any of their items were inside .... before I threw it away.
I may have said there was a deadline ... I probably did. I'm sure I intended to.

Anyway, this bag has been on that doorknob all this time. It has haunted ME (just me) because I'm the one who knows what it is. It may have been inconvenient to the rest of my family. But then again, they probably got to a place where they no longer even noticed it. I always knew it was there.

Today, I decided to free myself from the torturous feelings and put the bag into a box. First I had to unwind the bag (it had twisted round and round and tighter and tighter so that it couldn't be taken off). After it was unwound all the way and I lifted it off the knob, the contents fell to the floor (the old plastic grocery bag had ripped).

I could NOT believe what was inside: a knitted beanie, one glove, a felt tipped pen, one feminine hygene product, a very outdated Truck Trader magazine and some old flyers. All this time I assumed that whatever was in the bag, I would have to find a place for or make some gut wrenching decision about ...

The magazine and flyers went into the garbage. I put the rest of the items away (in less than 5 minutes). The most tedious thing I had to do was cross out where I had listed this bag on the label I put on the outside of the Banker's Box.

Note to self: do not label a box until you actually put the item(s) inside of it.