100 Things

Although I can't find it now, the other day while I was cruising through Facebook stuff I thought I saw that one of my friends had joined a FB group called something like "100 Things." I quickly read it and moved on, but it has stuck in my head since. The idea of the group is that we all have at least 100 things in our life that we need to get rid of. They weren't talking about anger, self-pity, bad diets (all the normal New Year Resolution fodder) but actually THINGS -- junk that we keep around that we don't need, don't use, don't want ... and yet we keep it just the same. Cluttered lives.

Now anyone who knows me at all knows that I am the Queen of Clutter. I can't help it -- I just know that if I throw something away today, next week I will wish I still had it. Never mind I had forgotten that I ever had it in the first place, it was hidden so deep in the bottom of the drawer or back of the closet, and the only reason I found it was because I was clearing stuff out that I didn't need and never used. But in thinking about this I have concluded that it usually costs less to buy a new [whatever it was I just tossed out] when I need one than build more closet space to store the ones I don't know I have now ...

Christmas Day is not a great day for cleaning, but I have found it is a most peaceful day to do things like this. The phone will not ring, nobody will come in the door looking for something I need to assist them with, I can't go to town for groceries or banking or other business errands, and I am not even cooking today (thanks to the wonderful brunch Kelli and her mom served up for all of us this morning!) So I started in my dish towel drawer because I asked for new ones to replace some of the ones I originally got for bridal shower gifts (over 31 years ago!) that are now so so thin. Then I moved to my sock drawer to make space for my new socks and send the holey ones I never wear to the dump.

Most people have their chance at this sort of cleaning when they move to a new house and I don't think we will be doing that anytime soon so I'll have to do it on my own. I will not promise that I will get rid of the full 100 things (although I probably have 500 that could go), or that I will do it all in January, and I refuse to report here all that I finally got rid of (it would be just too embarrassing!), but I need to do this.

We'll see how long I can keep it up ...