Back In Cleaning Mode

Even though my allergies have me feeling like total crap I’ve been really busy doing more Spring cleaning around here.  This weekend we took advantage of the long weekend and spent Saturday morning and this morning tackling the garage.  Ben has the tool trailer loaded down with stuff to drop off at Goodwill tomorrow, and we can finally see the concrete floor in a few spots. 

A majority of the stuff in there isn’t even ours.  It’s stuff that either my Grandparents left here for us because we might find a use for it (and my Grandma doesn’t throw anything away) or it’s junk other people have brought over to see if we want before they trash it.  When people drop by with stuff that’s in good condition I almost always take it just to prevent it from ending up in the landfill.  I might not have a use for it, but I know I can put it with my donation stuff and haul it all off in one trip.  That’s also why we usually have enough to fill the tool trailer during each trip.

This year seems to be the year for collecting Christmas lights and toys.  I kept some of the Christmas lights that were given to me because I can recycled the small strands into craft projects, but I have no use for a majority of the lights that were in the garage. I know the trim on my house is brown, but I don't need a bunch of boxes of brown wire christmas lights that don't match the lights we use.

Then there were the boxes of clothes.  My aunt decided to clean out her closet a few weeks ago, and I came home one day to find a bunch of boxes of clothes sitting on the porch with a note to keep what I wanted and give away the rest.  Now my aunt is about my size, but she wears a bunch of what Ben calls “churchy” clothes.  The boxes were full of dresses that look like they walked out of an 80s camp meeting and big bulky shirts.  I pulled maybe 4 shirts out of 6 boxes because they looked comfy to sleep in.  The rest of the clothes went straight to the donation pile and left us today as well.  You may say “but they’re not in style”, but oh around here those clothes will sell like hot cakes to all the little old church ladies. 

I know anyone who stops by my house and sees my garage probably thinks I’m a hoarder, but I promise I don’t belong on one of those shows!  I just don’t want all that stuff going to the landfill if someone else can use it, and there is no reason to make umpteen thousand trips to the donation box if we can fill the trailer with a load once every couple months. 

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