End of the weekend

After the happenings on Friday night (our 38th wedding anniversary), we have commenced a huge clean up/ throw out campaign. We have a massive recycling bin, now completely full. The trash bin is surprisingly empty. The main shells of the cupboards have gone to the recycling depot, we weren’t certain how much they had been damaged / weakened by the fall, however we have saved the shelves and the doors for future use.

We are really counting our blessings. More and more we are aware of what might have been, so the cupboards in our guest room will be removed soon, just in case!

I have already found a room for the shelves that were underneath the cupboards. I have found space else where for the majority of the contents of the cupboards, the rest has gone to recycling. Why were we holding on to so much stuff. To quote an eBay Id I saw recently – HoarderNoMore. that now describes me.

The study is now cleared, well vacuumed (lots of glass, china and bits of wood!) Looks quite tidy here, but it is already starting to fill up.

screenhunter_01-oct-09-11-46

So my question is – how do I decide to clear out things that mean something to me, but I rarely, if ever, use.

My mum’s sterling silver tea set. I don’t drink tea. I certainly no longer set an afternoon table with china, silver service, linen tablecloth and wee scones and cakes on a Sunday afternoon… So in the loft (another story), I have linen tablecloths, several sets of bone china, silver teapot , jug, sugar bowl, silver teaspoons etc. I can’t quite bear to dispose of it. It is superb craftsmanship, but at the same time, what good is it doing in the loft or in my cupboards??

Then there is the cut glass bowl that is 30cm/12in across, and weighs 14 pounds (6kg). Beautiful, but I use the table in my dining room, so I can’t use it as a centrepiece. And so it goes on. I inherited a 12 piece Royal Doulton dinner service. Dinner plates, salad plates, small plates, soup bowls, serving dishes et al. There are two of us. On the odd occasion, I might have 8-10 (twice a year). I am not into extreme frugality where you have 2 or 3 plates each, but if I counted how many plates we could choose to eat off, I think it would be more than a month before we needed to wash any dishes.

Come the day when we decide to retire to a 2 bed apartment, I’ll have to make the decision. Just now, I’ll just maintain the status quo, but quietly reduce the amount of stuff we keep.

And here’s to another day