Sentimental Value

When we started to prepare for open homes we ordered a 6 cubic metre skip and filled it up. Most of that was stuff from the yard and garage, debris left over from the fence replacement etc but some of the stuff from the shed were things we had taken in from others and never used and things we had put in there when they broke or were just worn out.

We approached it with a 'do we really want to take this to our new house' attitude.

During the year I read an article where an organisation expert was explaining things kept sentimentally as 'clutter' and in a way it resonated with me. I had so many thing's I had kept because 'such and such' gave it to me, other things I kept because I had already had them for 'x' years thus placing some false years served value on them.

I started to consider what sentimental and or emotional value something had stored in the back of my cupboard only to be taken out and looked at once a year ( if that ). Not having the item does not mean the memory associated with it disappears. ( this line of thought actually really helped with a melancholy 6 year old concerned about losing her memories along with the only home she has known )

There are of course some things that stay in my cupboard and are looked at infrequently as I see them as special and with Value beyond measure no matter if I look at them or not. My Babies health records, crib name cards wristbands etc from when they were born; their first shoes and clothes they wore home from hospital. Plus a few more things.

I'm approaching my packing with these kinds of thought's and the resulting effect is we will be moving on lighter. Some charity organisations, freecyclers  and day care will be gaining from our shedding. At this stage my packing efforts are much more about sorting and removing items that we will not be taking with just a little bit of actual packing though I feel I'm almost at a stage where the packing will begin in Earnest.

There has also been a somewhat distressing culling of Childrens books. This had to happen when I discovered where that 'wee' smell was coming from. We deducted our neighbours young son did not want to ask us to go to the toilet when we looked after him a couple of Saturdays ago so he just urinated into my sons bookcase : ( . I had been able to smell it and looked in the obvious places for the mystery 'wee' smell for about a week. Needless to say when we discovered where it was a few hundred dollars worth of book's had to be tossed away and I did shed more than a tear at throwing away books, some of which had been Little Miss's first hard cover books. I'm trying hard to shrug it off and think I'll be able to when given a few more days but it still breaks my heart a little truth be told.

We went and looked through our now partially empty new house yesterday afternoon - we are going to be so happy there! I loved quietly sharing some ideas about what we might do, together with LOML, sleepily before bed last night :)