Purge

You know when you are in that mood to just clean out, reduce, simplify?  I have been on one of those kicks.  Sean and I have an obscene amount of keepsakes that we keep hauling around with us, and it just doesn't make sense.  When we returned home after Christmas, I decided I was going to start to tackle this project that always shows up on my list (for years now) and it never gets done.

I attempted it once in Boston, but clearly wasn't in the right frame of mind to do it.  I remember feeling like I wouldn't be able to get rid of enough pictures to make the endeavor worth the time.  Well, this time, I was ready.  I got rid of 22 photo albums and reduced our pictures to three wedding albums and two large boxes of photos, one for Sean, one for myself.

I just found some plain white photo boxes at Michaels, and they were buy one get one free, so only $2.50 each.  I went ahead and bought the four that they had, and got a raincheck for four more.   The boxes are pretty tiny, so I think Sean and I will need three each for all the photos we are saving.  More boxes than I was hoping to have, but much better than the 22 albums that were taking up lots of large Rubbermaid containers in the attic.

Friends have asked if I will regret anything that I got rid of.  I feel confident when I say no.  I just took way too many pictures back in the day. 

My strategy was basically to keep at least one picture from each event, get rid of poor quality photos, doubles, etc.  I took scrapbooks apart and kept only the pictures that I wanted.  It is funny how most of my printed pictures trail off in the last four years or so as I am HORRIBLE about printing digital photos.

It was a major undertaking for us, but it has me on a roll to continue down the purging/simplifying path.

Sean sent out a link the other day about a professional de-clutterer and how she would be worth paying $150/hour.  After my big purge, and after seeing how Sean has about 10 large boxes/trunks of keepsakes up in the attic, and I am think I am now down to two boxes, I think HE might be in need of the de-clutterer more than me!  He would absolutely disagree with the previous sentence :)