The List

I know this adoption will be filled with many lists. Lists of phone calls to make, lists of errands to run, lists of forms to fill out, lists of things to get notarized, and more lists of forms to fill out. Did I mention lists of forms to fill out?

This morning I started my first lists. It is called, "Things to do Before the Home Study", and it involves renting a dumpster. A BIG dumpster. We're not hoarders or anything like that, but we have some stuff that needs to be purged. We have pockets of this stuff in several areas, and if you combine all these pockets together it might fill a large room. These pockets develop from cleaning out other pockets.

Years ago, when I had a different house (and really, it was a different life, and I was a different person.) once a year I would clean like we were moving. You know, when you move you suddenly become a lot more selective about what is worth keeping; you can see with new eyes what's important to you and what's not. That Tonka truck from 1973 with two broken wheels? No longer important! The stack of "Country Living" magazines that all contain decorating ideas you like? No longer important!

When Dean and I combined houses, we each had to get rid of stuff that we had previously thought was important, and suddenly didn't seem like it anymore. And then there was other stuff that got put into storage in various area of the house because it did still seem important.

One of the storage areas in the house was the very large walk-in closet in the spare bedroom in the basement, and before we knew it the entire room had become a storage area. Have an item we're not sure where it should go? Throw it in the spare bedroom! This pair of shoes that should get donated as soon as I have time? Into the spare bedroom with it. But last spring we cleaned out that room, painted it, and moved Angela down there. We should have rented a dumpster at that time, but we really didn't have the extra cash to. I got rid of some stuff, donated a lot of stuff, and the rest got moved into stacks in our pool room. (as in billiards, not water!)  That means we haven't had the family get togethers we usually do, because we always have pool tournments and we can't do that when the pool table is surrounded by this stuff.

Stuff that we no longer need.

Seriously, if we haven't even bothered to look at the stuff for a year, we really don't need it, right? There are a couple of things in there we'll hang onto because they do have some monetary value, like the Harley collectables, but the rest of the stuff? I say PURGE, PURGE and PURGE some more!

There is the back porch off the basement family room. It's a 3 season porch that a few years ago we converted to a dog room for when we have a litter of puppies. It used to look like this:

Yeah, it doesn't look like that anymore. In fact, it looks a lot like the pool room does right now, so my plan for next week is to get a big dumpster and start the big purge. Anyone care to join me?