That Girl's New Year Activity

According to Big J when New Year comes I automatically shift into cleaning mode. This is probably true. There's just something about starting the new year with getting rid of unneeded "stuff."

This year's purge was brought on in part by the fact that we are having guests next weekend and the guest room was filled with crap that we needed to get rid of: too small clothes and shoes, outgrown toys, and a menagerie of household items that have been collecting dust.

I dug into the closet in our home office that houses some books, files, games, camping equipment, and luggage (no, it's not a walk-in -- that would be too much to hope for!), and I found two full boxes of papers and articles from grad school. I thought I had gotten rid of everything, but clearly I wasn't in my normal super clean out mode when I organized the first time. Today, I got rid of one of the boxes and am planning to have one of my grad students organize the rest.

We also went through some photos and I found this great album that I had started several years ago. It's inspired me to organize and make our photos more accessible, as opposed to keeping the photos in boxes.

It feels good to get rid of things that we have outgrown or are outdated. But it also makes me realize how much stuff we have, how much we don't use, and how much we don't need.