My weekend was really busy sorting out the loft. It has recently had lights fitted and been boarded so this has meant I have had to do a lot of moving. Sometimes moving this to there and then back again! The guys needed some space to get started, so, I did my first tip run last week and got rid of some unwanted ‘stuff’. This made me sort out all of the things I’d stored and saved, which has been on my ‘to do list’ for years.
The charity bags have been filled up and collected and loads of old toys have been re-homed, to the delight of some young children. The collection of video tapes is now sorted and I am in the process of converting these to a digital version and storing them on a YouTube channel. It will take me a while, but I am already having fun watching some old footage and sharing these with family members.(They will get bored eventually!)
We collect so much, throughout our lives, and store many things that should be thrown away, given away or sold on, and for no real reason. I have boxes of pictures, photo albums, random packs of glossy prints and a lot of them I have no idea who they are. I’ve stored all of the pieces of art my children created from their first days at school all the way through to their last exam results.Their hand prints on A4 card, items they built for the plays they participated in and so much more “stuff’.
As soon as my children get their own places, I will hand over their ‘stuff’ and they will then store it in their lofts and add to it when they have their own kids!
Why do we do that, why do we hoard things? Just in case we might need it again, maybe it will become valuable in a few years, or because we are emotionally attached to it and can’t bring ourselves to discard it! I decided that, after having to sort some things out when my Mum died, that I wouldn’t put my kids through that. This weekend has been cathartic and satisfying. The loft is in a great shape, loads of space and it will be easy to find things in the future.
I will resist putting more stuff up there and filling all the space again, but it is so tempting to keep things!
Once I’d arranged for the loft to be done, I knew I’d have to sort it all out, it made me take action. Before that, I wasn’t motivated to go up there and begin this boring, laborious, task. Not I have finished it, I am so happy! I keep going up, the new, stairs and stand looking around at the space. I still have some more toys to go, photos the look at and some items, that belong to other people, moved out, but it’s nearly there.
What project do you need to get on with? Do you have some old videos hanging about somewhere, never to be seen again?
Have a great week, look at that ‘to do list’ and make a plan.
You might bring joy into someone else’s life by re-housing some of your items! (See the picture above – a happy child with a ‘new’ toy!).