<p>Congrats–one room IS terrific! Hope you are having an appropriate celebration!</p>
<p>I’m home alone tomorrow so I’m hopeful I’ll make some good headway on the next room. It really does require being home alone. Except for the bedrooms of both sons, which I can’t possibly do without them, and my DH’s computer area. Which he’s been working on cleaning up since Christmas.</p>
<p>LasMa, I am doing the one-drawer-or-equivalent per day and it is really starting to make a difference!</p>
<p>I love opening a drawer and finding things in the same place I left them. It’s a miracle!</p>
<p>VeryHappy - I am jealous that you are able to finish an entire room. I can empty a room, clean it, put back only what is necessary, get rid of some things and then…stare at the stuff remaining in the pile and step over it until company comes at which time it ends up in a box, under a bed or shoved into a closet.</p>
<p>^^^^I refused to let that happen. Granted, it was a small room, but one we’ve used for years as the “spare room.” Extra closet, extra bureau, sewing room, DH’s reading room . . . . </p>
<p>I found a form (I don’t know the correct term) that one uses to iron curved seams when sewing. I haven’t used it in 30 years. Yes, that’s right – 30 years. It went in the trash. </p>
<p>I found dress purses that were my mother’s, from the '40s – I hope to sell some on eBay. </p>
<p>I found three robes for graduation ceremonies – two from each boy’s HS graduation and one for the boy who’s a college graduate. I tossed them in the trash. (I think it’s a racket that they make the student byu a new robe.)</p>
<p>And then there were the things that I just moved into another room, like the mink stoles and the fur coats from the '50s and '60s. Lord knows what I’ll do with those.</p>
<p>Also, I’m trying to live by the mantra that once it’s out, it can’t go back.</p>
<p>^ very impressive, congrats!</p>
<p>congratulations all you cleaner uppers. Your actions are inspiring me to some spring cleaning.</p>
<p>On a serious note: if any of you have letters or diaries which would embarrass you, do with them what you will. But if you have something that would hurt or upset your children, don’t put off destroying it until some future time. None of us know what’s around the corner, and we don’t want our children hurt by surprises.</p>
<p>Excellent point, hayden, and one which I’ll keep in mind as I start going through papers.</p>
<p>My D’s future is motivating me in another way as well. I don’t want her to have to go through decades’ worth of our accumulated cr@p someday. Maybe some of it would be of historical/sentimental value to her, but 95% of it is just garbage. No point in burdening her with all of these decisions which properly belong to us. </p>
<p>Keep up the good work everyone! You’re motivating me!</p>
<p>If it is hard for you to part with personal “artifacts” that someday may upset your children, PDF everything, save to a password-protected drive, and burn the originals. :)</p>
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<p>I always think of “The Bridges of Madison County” when the kids discovered their deceased mother had an affair and were very upset. It’s difficult to find out unexpected things about your parents, especially after they are gone and it’s too late to ask them about the details. </p>
<p>A friend in her forties discovered that her father had been married before - none of the kids knew about it. They were very upset even though the marriage was brief and there were no kids from the marriage. And the father was still alive, I believe he was the one who told them. I think they felt betrayed that he had kept an important piece of information about himself from them all those years.</p>
<p>Went through my cookbooks. I must have 20 of them that I never never never use or even look at. Into the tag sale pile they go.</p>
<p>Leaves me the eight or so that I do use, and one that was my mother’s.</p>
<p>My mother kept a journal from 1937, when she graduated from college, to 2003, when she died. One or two or three per year. When my sisters and I were going through and deciding what to trash (in her completely stuffed to the gills apartment) (with five days to completely empty it), I picked up one at random and read a few pages… like opening the door at exactly the wrong time. One sister and I voted for burning; my other sister wanted to keep them. She has nine book boxes worth. I’m afraid to ask if she’s read them.</p>
<p>I came home from that experience and threw out a whole lot of stuff. I have ONE book box of letters and mementos. Tax records I don’t need… gone. Old magazines… gone.</p>
<p>I have a steamer trunk in the garage packed with old photographs from my MIL’s family. Sad to say, we don’t know who these people are. It seems sad that family history will be lost if we throw them out, and they are quite old, but there are tons of them. And they don’t mean anything to anyone living anymore.</p>
<p>But a word of caution about throwing out your kids’ toys: I really, really wish my mother had not given away my Barbie doll (an original from the first year they came out). It would have been quite valuable today.</p>
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<p>Wow, I hate to hear about old photos being pitched. Are you sure that there are not other descendants who would be interested in those? I’m in the process of scanning in old photos. We did sit relatives down years ago and got quite a few names for some. Others are a mystery. But a distant cousin is thrilled to see these photos, as she’s a descendant of some of those people too. Maybe a family member would be helpful enough to research names to see if anyone would be interested? Or maybe a local historical society would be interested?</p>
<p>(I have old farm papers from 1900 and before, and I wonder if the local society would be interested in those).</p>
<p>I was thinking about historical societies. Some of the photos are of Florida around the turn of the last century. There are really old cars and buildings that have likely been demolished. So they could be of historical value.</p>
<p>TatinG- Don’t fret the loss of the original Barbie. I, too, had one, as did my cousin. We tried to sell- no real luck- my cousin got 15$ at an auction for one of them. The really valuable ones are in pristine, boxed, never played with condition. Same for all the original clothes, carrying cases, etc. </p>
<p>I have an original Patty Play Pal, an original Chatty Cathy, an original Howdy Doody, and an original Hopalong Cassidy doll. None in box- all, expect Hopalong, played with, but gently. I think the max I could get on any one would be 50$. I think the world is unloading their possessions on Ebay still, due to the economic decline. </p>
<p>Two years ago, I tried to sell a pristine collection (a carload full) of original Star Wars stuff from my brother- excellent condition, some still in boxes. The dealer told me to hang on to them since there was an excess of them on the market due to folks trying to raise cash. </p>
<p>Back to decluttering- I am now going through all the old clothing I discovered in the garage- three piles: one- rags or throwaway, two: donate, three: sell at a garage sale or consignment shop. I’m using the Space bags in order to reduce the volume. I don’t have much worthy of a consignment shop.</p>
<p>Here’s a good strategy: if you are keeping something for sentimental reasons but will never use it again (example: the dress you were wearing when your husband proposed 30 years ago), take a picture of it and toss the dress.</p>
<p>My sister-in-law and I were cleaning out our mother-in-law’s apartment when she went into a nursing facility. Among the choice finds were dry cleaning receipts from 1949, my father-in-law’s extra glass eyes, and her cat’s ashes.</p>
<p>Wow. I thought my keep sake hoarding was bad. I still have the top I wore the first time I met my husband. I am just now going through old receipts from a nice vacation we took in the Virgin Islands from 1983.</p>
<p>As for the Barbie and more generally, tossing out your kids toys. What really upset me about the Barbie was that my mother didn’t realize the sentimental value it had for me. She gave it away without even asking me if I still wanted it. It hurt that she didn’t know me better or didn’t care what I’d feel about it. (It’s not that she had no room for it. She saved things I didn’t give a hoot about). </p>
<p>It was a blonde bubble cut Barbie. She had the nightclub singer outfit, the red one with the pillbox hat and several others that I used to dress her in and dream as a little girl that I’d have clothes like that someday. Sigh.</p>
<p>I think people who think old things are valuable are completely discounting the cost of storing and moving and keeping the stuff. How much bigger a house do you need if you keep all that old stuff? How much did it cost to move? How much mental space does it take up? I understand that one or two things might not take up that much space–but it can add up. Right now my daughter’s stuff–everything she owns–is taking up storage space that would cost about $75/month (if she had to pay for it). Store it for a few years and it would take a lot of profit to justify keeping it.</p>