La Purga

No, not the thing from Angels and Demons. I have spent the better part of the last two weeks purging myself of a lot of junk. More specifically, of the junk that has accumulated over the course of my childhood and adolescence by myself and my family.

The garbage men didn't like us at all last week. And I'm willing to bet they won't like us this week either. We threw away a LOT. I'd love to say that we recycled everything we could, but the bottom line is that we had three piles - keep, give away, and trash. Anything that I wasn't interested in and wasn't obviously of use if donated to a thrift store or the Sacred Heart yard sale went into the trash. I was pretty proud that I was able to get rid of as much as I did.

I parted with a lot of things that, deep down, I really would have loved to have kept. Because everything had a memory and a story attached to it. I know deep down that I can't keep everything and I have to make room for new things. I think the fact that I have a definite limit to my space and still want lots of my own things, it made it easier to get rid of things. Plus my compulsion to make things match was also a driving factor!

I did keep a lot of things. For the most part everything is in the "blue room" downstairs. I will eventually move them up and put them away, but for now they are happy in their little room. Getting everything moved in and settled will probably take a little time but I'm determined to make it happen before our open house next month.

There is one rather large item that has taken up residence in our bedroom and that is Jeff's old treadmill. I'm actually kind of excited about it. Somehow he is too tall for it (I think his stride is just too long) but it's the perfect size for me. I'm kind of excited about the fact that I could (in theory) do all the useless things I do every day but do them while I walk from the comfort of my bedroom. We'll see how well that works out for me.