Paper Party

To say I am materialistic might be an understatement. I like things, I like neat things and sentimental things and old things and gadgety things. And I have a really hard time getting rid of stuff. I always get sucked into the "what if?" mentality. What if I could use that for something later, what if I need that later, what if I fit into that later, etc...Even though we have the space for stuff in our house now, I'd really like to begin shedding the clutter that we have collected. I don't know that I'll ever be considered minimalist but I would like the pendulum to at least start swinging in that direction, if only slightly. It was almost unbelievable to see how much stuff we moved from Palatine. I just kept wondering how we had fit so much stuff into that little place. Not only that but we moved tubs of stuff from our parents homes too. So we decided now that the weather is turning and our major outside projects are finished for the year we will turn our efforts inward and do another round of purging. If you can believe it, I have stored nearly every piece of paper, notebook, handout and folder from school. All of school. Kindergarten through college graduation. I started going through those tubs this month and I've realized how totally unnecessary all that paper is. I have, however, gone through it page by page and pulled out the few things that I think are worthy of keeping. Probably about 98% has gone to recycling. Last night I finished going through my tub of college work. Here is what has become of all of the hard work, time and effort I put into college. An hours worth of rip roaring, paper throwing, crazy fun for my three kiddos. They had such a great time making a disaster of my work. And then I got to teach Jack a lesson about how while it can be very fun to make a mess, when we are done it must be cleaned up.