Purging

We have been spending a lot of time purging things at home and for RGBisme's mom. She recently made a move from a large house to a much smaller apartment in an adult living community.

The amount of stuff we can accumulate around us over the years can be vast. Taking time to go through each item, and make sure it is dealt with in a satisfactory manor can be very tedious. Even just moving wanted items short distances can be back breaking.

Friday night we set out to finish emptying his mom's attic attic. The ricketty pull down steps provided and added challenge. We probably shifted 60 some boxes with the last 20 weighing at about 30 lbs each. We had broken into a sweat pretty quickly so when I realized the heaviest work was at the end I had my doubts as to if we would be able to complete the job in one evening. Heavy boxes of books she allowed her other son to store in the attic were stowed way back in a corner. It's sad that he has a bad back and couldn't help.

We didn't let it get the best of us and cleared it all to the main floor to be dealt with by whomever wants to decide what it is to be done with it all. With what RGBisMe had done the week before there are boxes filling what were many of the living quarters. His mom is slowly sorting things into piles. There is a sell pile, a burn pile and a give away pile. The burn pile is really just some old rags and papers so it's admirable to be placing all of the other items rather than adding to a landfill.

I have to admit that I get very frustrated in trying to give things away or take them to the proper recycling centers. The difficulty in recycling clothes or taking big things part is that I do not drive a car*. Using Freecycling would be a lot easier if people were a little more reliable. I hate having to have a back up or two if the original claimant of an item does show.

I am going to try to be careful about how I accumulate things so that getting rid of them is less of a headache in the future.

* Much thanks to Maga11 for driving me to the solid waste authority to get rid of some heavy scrap metal today.