Despite the phone ringing at 5:45 AM, I’m in pretty good spirits. Despite having cycle day 2 cramps and bloating, I’m energized and ready to start the day. Despite the pending snowstorm and the fact that there could not be a worse Nebraska winter week to move, I’m motivated to get rolling.

Yeah, school was cancelled which equals a five day weekend for my kids and today I’m going to take advantage of that and have them dive into the pile with me and help sort the treasure from the trash. After last night, I’m pretty sure I’m a keepsake hoarder. I pulled all the plastic totes out of the storage area in the basement and looked in each one to evaluate the contents. Then I stacked them according to “keep” and “sort” along the wall of the basement so I could vacuum the storage area. Then I sat down on the floor and counted them – I have 24 plastic totes (medium sized ones). 😳🙄

The sorting and packing so far has been relatively easy. Asking a series of questions led me straight to the answers I needed…

1. Do I use this “thing” whatever it is regularly?

2. Will we end up with duplicates?

3. Does this have value (monitarily or sentimentaly) beyond functional use?

I’ve taken literal carloads of things to the goodwill. Though we may end up sorting and donating a bunch more when we finally organize the kitchen and garage with both our sets of things in view, I think we’re in pretty good shape. However, with this basement pile, I feel like I’ve met my match.

I’m literally paralyzed with what to do. I certainly can’t use anything in these 24 bins. Not anytime soon anyway.

I suppose You can tell a lot about a person by knowing what they have in their possession so here’s the list for posterity and insight into the life and mind of Miss SugarCookie. Here is what is currently in those 24 boxes:

1. My parents fine China.

2. My paternal grandparents fine China.

3. My collection of CDs.

4. Antiques from my maternal grandmothers house, antique glass and two of the dolls from her doll collection.

5. A second box like that with toys I used to play with at her house when I was little – essentially toys that were my moms originally. Dolls and doll clothes.

6. Other collectibles that might be worth something someday but no idea really – a super Mario chess set, teddy ruxpin, unopened box with a transformer in it.

7. Collectibles from my childhood – hello kitty keroppi stuff, where’s Waldo stuff.

8. Keepsakes from my childhood – HS cheer trophies, graduation cap and certificate, random albums with photos and signature book.

9. A second childhood keepsake bin with my baby strawberry shortcakes.

10. A third bin with my cabbage patch kids.

11. A fourth bin with my shortcake dolls and cloths.

12. A bin of wedding keepsakes – the photo albums, guest book, video tapes, the set of love letters Brian and I wrote to each other when we were dating and he was in the Air Force going through basic and tech school.

13. Random photos and photo albums from the family.

14. Photos and photo albums from my life with Brian before we had kids (5+ years).

15. All the crib bedding, blankets, and bumper pads used by both of my kids.

16. A whole other bin of blankets people made for us or that my kids were attached to.

17. A bin of baby clothes and shoes from Z.

18. A bin of baby clothes and shoes from C.

19. Dresses from Z from various ages.

20. Keepsakes for Z age 0-5, including random pre-school and kindergarten projects.

21. Keepsakes for C (same list).

22. Photos and albums and scrapbooks for both kids.

23. Times two.

24. Times three (so many picture!)

That’s it. Now I have to ask myself what I will ever do with all that? Who will ever care or want it? Will any of it ever be useful to anyone? These are very different questions than I had to ask myself for the rest of my house. And answering those questions is tough.

Will anyone ever care or use all the baby stuff? Maybe. If my kids ever have kids they will probably not want or need it but what if I wanted to have a crib at my house for grand babies? I mean, I’ve saved it this long, so what’s 10 more years? Maybe the clothes can go though, or only keep ones I remember were for special occasions.

What about all that junk from my childhood? I’m sure none of it is worth anything (probably).

What about all those photos and albums? Seriously, I rarely look at any of that. Though I have serious reservations about what I would do with these. When it comes to “things”, someone else might want it, but pictures are not anything anyone else is going to do anything with. They serve no purpose beyond reminding us of another time in the past. But you can’t throw them out… that feels so wrong. I have some strange superstition that if I throw out pics, something bad will happen. Not sure why.

Anyway, so that’s my task to get done today while my kids are off school again and we have another “snowstorm”. I told Jim my goal was to reduce the stack by 1/3. That’s 8 bins for those who are keeping track. Yikes!!

If I’m gonna fight this beast, I’m gonna have to come prepared.. perhaps a large macchiato and fresh supply of bags to shove stuff in for the goodwill. It’s going to be a doozie!

Time to Battle,

~Miss SugarCookie