When I was growing up, my father had a big old metal desk. It was like the ones they used in the military. For the longest time that desk sat in a corner of the dining room. And as often happens with flat surfaces, it became a catch all for paper, mail, etc. Every once in a while Dad would get fed up with the clutter and clean it off. This was not a simple sort & put away. It was a Declaration of War on the clutter. Trash bags were filled and taken out. Unfortunately, Dad didn't always pay attention to what he was throwing away. Eventually my mom learned to go through the trash bags that he generated to make sure important documents such as birth certificates weren't in them. One of my brothers named my father's temporary but reoccurring affliction as the "Urge to Purge". It became the stuff of legends in the tales told about my father.
Lately, I have begun to wonder if that affliction is hereditary. I find myself feeling like I am drowning in my belongings. This has led me to contemplate backing up the truck to the door and shoveling out the house on more than one occasion. I admit I can be a bit of a hoarder. To make matters worse, so is my husband as well as both of the adult children still living at home. If they aren't hording, they most definitely enable the rest of us.
So here I am feeling a little claustrophobic in my own space because of my own habits. My studio has become cluttered once again and I don't even want to discuss the closets in the various bedrooms. My affinity with crafting has generated numerous supplies that I don't really use that often. Not to mention tools and books.
I am definitely feeling the Urge to Purge. That being said, I have decided to get started before I get to the frantic mindless tossing of everything into trash bags stage. I want to be more selective about what I purge. I am proud to say that I actually started this week. I had 5 magazine holders and 2 storage boxes of magazines. It was time to purge some of them.
Part of controlling massive stashes is to limit what comes in. I used to have subscriptions to 3 quilting magazines. This past month I decided not to renew one of those subscriptions because I didn't really care for the patterns/articles. That leaves 2 magazines coming in every other month, not 3. I used pick up a random quilting magazine from time to time. Lately, I don't buy it unless there are several patterns in it that I like.
With the influx of magazines cut back, it was time to purge. Now I didn't just haphazardly toss anything. First, I sorted the magazines by title. Any of the magazines from the canceled subscription were tossed. I already knew they didn't appeal to me so there was no sense in keeping them. Besides even if there was a pattern I liked in them, I wasn't likely to make it after all this time.
Next I determined, did I really want to keep all of the magazines that I was still subscribed to? That answer was an easy Yes. Both of these magazines have interesting articles as well as multiple patterns that I like. Not to mention the how to techniques. With that choice made, I sorted the magazines by month and year.
Funny thing is, I had more than one copy for several of them. The copy that was in the best shape was saved and the other discarded. I think I must have picked up the duplicate copies when I thought I had let the subscription lapse. The duplicates were all several months to a year apart.
Lastly the random magazines that I picked up here and there. These took more thought. I went through each magazine. I discovered that with many of them, I only really liked the quilt on the cover. One pattern is not enough to keep a whole magazine. I decided that if I liked a pattern enough to keep it, I could tear it out and put it in a binder. Strangely enough, I didn't tear out one pattern.
Now I did keep any magazine that had 3 or more patterns that I liked. But as I was going through them I discovered that many of the quilts were in more than one magazine, at least the patterns were similar. I don't need multiple magazines with the same pattern.
So to make the cut a magazine had to have at least 3 patterns that I liked and those patterns couldn't be in another magazine that I was keeping. I am now down to one magazine holder and 2 storage boxes and the storage boxes are not full. I feel a little lighter already.
Now onto one of those closets. The trash run to the dump is going to be huge this week.
What do you do to curtail your massive stash?
