Hoarders

Welcome to Day 1 of National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo). Here's hoping I make it through the month - although this being my third year, it shouldn't be that hard, right?

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I used to consider myself a sentimental person...until I discovered the insane joy one gets from throwing stuff out. Throwing stuff out is amazingly liberating - and your house actually gets cleaner as a result. There has been the odd time I've thrown stuff out that I wasn't meant to (including but not limited to 10 movie vouchers...) but most of the time, I throw stuff out with reckless abandon and I love every minute of it. Unfortunately for me, I not only married a hoarder, but I seem to have acquired a whole bunch of friends who are hoarders, and at least one of my children seems to have inherited the hoarder gene.

I love nothing more than attacking a part of my house and throwing crap out - but it's a two stage process. I fling all the items for potential chucking into one area, then sort into a "chuck now" pile and a "keep" pile. Once I've done that, I think about it for a few seconds, and I then chuck out BOTH piles. Sure, one or two things might escape my frenzy but not very many things. This is a totally different method to DH, who will sort things into the 'keep' pile, the 'keep forever' pile, the 'never throw away' pile and the 'think about it for so long it will grow into it's own pile' pile. He doesn't believe in throwing stuff out until his wife threatens to literally take a match to whole rooms of his stuff (and by now he knows not to test if I am just kidding or not.) (I don't 'do' kidding.)

Over the past several weeks I've introduced him to the emzee method of crap clearing, and he's dons a surprisingly good job of it. So much so that even HE had the balls to admit, "Finding stuff I've not filed since 2006 probably means I should file stuff more often." Gee. Ya think?

I am a very 'live in the moment' person in general - I'm not great at taking photos, I suck at journalling (present blog excepted) and I'm too busy living my life to record very much of it. It makes perfect sense, then, that I throw things out all the time to make room for other stuff, or just to keep from being suffocated by old stuff. The good news is, I mostly throw out stuff which belongs to me. (Okay that was a lie. I chuck out my kids' and husband's stuff out too, but they have so much crap they never notice.) (Kids who are reading this into the future: I'm not sorry about it, I've saved you from being suffocated under all that crap. DH reading this right now: I'm not sorry, you have enough crap for both of us. But I love you anyway.)

Enter the TV show "Hoarders" - have any of you guys seen this show? It makes my family and friends look like total neat freaks. It actually makes me terribly sad to watch that show, because there is a real emotional basis for that behaviour - and to think that these people derive some sort of comfort from keeping stuff like cat faeces and rotten food...well, it just boggles the mind. Mind you, I'm sure someone out there can find an emotional basis for me chucking stuff out like a madwoman, too...maybe (like most things in life) it's all about balance.

So - what have you chucked out lately? Or, what have you KEPT lately that you feel no guilt about? (And DH, your answer I already know - the gallstones.) (Everyone else: I am married to a man who keeps his gallstone in a jar on our bookshelf. I know, I know, I KNOW.)