Project clean-up
Fortunately we are, completely by coincidence , doing a contest at work to gather as much as possible goods for the thrift store per department. So it's my goal to take something there at least 3 times a week...a chair, a box with books, a bag with old clothes. It was very easy in the beginning: an old unused CD holder rack in the guest room, an old knee-chair that I inherited from my parents long ago that was worn out and forgotten on the attic, an abdominal trainer hat I used as a teenager and that had moved down with me full of good intentions but that was also forgotten on the attic, our 4 old 3rd hand dinner chairs and an old office chair, ...
More time consuming and difficult is sorting the clothes in the closet...part of them moved up there because my own closet still had the pregnancy clothes in them (woooops, shame on me). But there were also some very very old clothes there that I clearly had not worn in ages. Some are easy to throw out...did I really have that many oversize blazers with shoulder patches?? And did I ever have a waist that small? But there were memories that came back. The flowery summer dress that I bought on Boxing Day in a mall in Vancouver, buy 2, get 3 together with my 2 host sisters...that I've still been wearing on some vacations long ago with some of my friends. I hurt to say goodbye but it is quite unrealistic I'll ever fit in it anymore :(
And the clothes that I wore on my graduation at university (we don't wear a gown). I thought they were so special but they looked rather casual and outdated to me now. I kept the tunique but the long skirt was so old-fashioned now. So it joined the other 4 big bags that are on the palette for the thrift store.
It was really tough to make some choices and I've probably still left too many clothes in my closet that I won't wear anymore after all (but I also rediscovered some that I already wore last week). I love how they all represent parts of my life and so many memories. They are much more valuable in such a way than shopping new clothes.
Anyway, the nostalgic me, also had to go through boxes of child clothes. There were still Kabouter's clothes on the attic, some used by Beertje and already outgrown by our little baby. And there were many clothes gifted, still too big for both our boys. In order to sort, I had to create chaos and get all clothes from everywhere and sort them in piles according to size and repack them in boxes. The children were both at some friends for one day so I was obliged to use my undisturbed time well. After a while there seemed to be piles of clothes on every floor and in every room which was a bit stressful but it finally started to get together again just in time before the children pick-up time, resulting in newly organised clothing drawers for the children and multiple boxes ready for storage.
The storage itself is also coming together. While I envisioned 2 months ago the horror of living for a couple of months in a living room and bedroom amidst boxes everywhere with no room to move around, we took the decision to rent a garage in the neighbourhood (with the option to buy). That gives us the option to store the things from the emptied floors that we want to keep without disturbing our remaining living space. It even gives us the back-up plan, if we fail to sort everything in time, to just put it away as such ...with a risk that the sorting never takes place and things remain in the garage when they shouldn't.
And last night my cousin's son came to pick-up 14 empty shoeboxes as he was searching cardboard online for a project and I was very happy to get rid of this pile filling up some closet space for nothing. Win-win.
And so little by little our project moves on with a big furniture disassembling weekend planned in 2 weeks. And in the mean time we keep dragging boxes from the attic from time to time that flash us back in time "Geesh, look , a box full of computer floppy disks". Or 3 boxes of diaries, letters and school material from Canada that I've kept as a memory...
To be continued
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