Stuff, stuff, stuff ................

Stuff……stuff…..stuff……ARGHHH.

My son is moving back to Toronto after having lived in Saskatoon for two years. My son and Buddy, his 2 1/2 year old Labrador, that is.

And so, in order to get ready to have him with us until they get settled, get a job and an apartment of his own (one that will take him AND Buddy) we began to move things around. And discovered – as if we didn’t already know it – that we have WAY TOO MUCH STUFF.

It’s not as if the stuff we have is of great value. The massive newel posts that my husband always thought would make a great four poster bed (yeah, sure if you live in a castle!); dresser drawers that neither son wanted to take when they left home and so we kept – and filled the drawers with, you got it, more stuff; pieces of marble that the boys were given in lieu of payment for a construction job they did several years ago; a chess table that my husband made for me before we were married - and when I say ‘table’ I mean TABLE. It’s a coffee table sized chess board. The chess men are gone (actually only went into the recycle last year when he accepted how badly deteriorated they had become) but the table remains. Sentimental? Sure – but take a picture for heavens sake and let’s move on. But I digress. He has enough tools to put Ty Pennington and ‘This Old House’ to shame and enough DVD’s to open his own Blockbuster. But to be fair it’s not all his stuff. I have more books than many small town libraries; had to pack some of them into 4 large bins to make space in my son’s room. We still have my mother-in-laws old kitchen dishes – she died in 1987. We have at least a half dozen coolers and we hate picnics. We have enough wine glasses to cater a formal wedding and we seldom entertain. I’m sure you get my drift.

We have WAY too much stuff. My view is to get rid of much of it. The coolers, the wine glasses, the chess table – things we haven’t seen or thought of for 10 years. The space saved from getting rid of that stuff will mean that the things we’re keeping won’t seem so overwhelming. At least they’ll have a place to be kept. It’s really hard for my husband to give up things – to get rid of anything. After all, he may just make that four poster bed some day. It’s a challenge and more stuff comes in every day. He has trouble resisting a bargain – came home last week with a gravy separator, a scale and new kitchen silverware (which came in a large wooden box) and so the stuff continues to grow. And then you get stuff in the mail. Today I got an ‘appreciation’ gift from a company that I found myself thinking ‘hmmm, this may come in handy some day’…..arghhh ….. throw it away!

Stuff……stuff……stuff…….

Gonna starting culling.

Will keep you posted.