Out With The Old

I got lotsa junk!

Between clothes we’ve outgrown, toys we’re tired off, velvet pictures of dogs playing poker, and a gazillion crocheted blankets from great grandma’s second cousin…..I’ve got plenty to get rid of. But what usually happens is that I look at it, think about getting rid of it, and then stuff it back into the bowels of the cupboard from whence it came.

I’m constantly hearing, “Mom, I don’t want this jewelry box anymore.” Or “Mom, this shirt doesn’t fit me anymore.” And, either one of two things happens;

I have no place to put it so it piles up in a corner somewhere

Or I find it tossed out of a bedroom door and laying in the middle of my hallway.


So, one day I got sick and tired.

I put two big bins in my laundry room and lined them with garbage bags. One is labeled Goodwill and the other is labeled to go to our local consignment shop. Whenever I come across something that I’m ready to get rid off, I march it down to the laundry room and toss it in the Goodwill bucket. Every time I fold the laundry and find that shirt that just doesn’t fit anymore and that I would normally just fold and make the kids put away AGAIN, I toss it into the consignment bucket. When the buckets are full I pull the garbage bag out, plop it into the back of the suburban and drop it off where it belongs.

I’m thinking this is a downright genius plan, right?

So, Please don’t burst my bubble and tell me you’ve been doing this for years. It’s taken me 13 years of marriage, 11 years of parenting, and numerous exhausted brain cells to pull this one out of my magical mommy hat.

Just work with me, people!

*****For more genius ideas that you’ve probably been doing anyway, go check out Rocks In My Dryer.