The Urge to Purge…
Following two weeks at the cottage..my sister sent me an email today about getting your older loved ones to get rid of stuff.
It’s been an ongoing thing everytime we’re at the cottage, or visiting our grandmother..we try and raid the cupboards.. even clear the shelves full of empty food containers that they just can’t part with.
We’re talking empty margarine containers, peanut butter jars.. and takeout plates.
I guess it’s a family thing. My basement still has boxes unopened from our last move.. oh…from ten years ago.
And I can’t part with some Martha-type magazines.
But what gives with the old food containers?
My entire workplace could leave the cottage with leftovers in those babies!
It has become a contest between sisters -who can toss the tubs without getting caught.
My Grandma is the original recycler, reuse.. and then reuse some more..
But in my crazy, busy household full of boys, a place already littered with Lego, lunchbags, backpacks.. and missing tupperware lids, I truly don’t feel the need to hang onto extra stuff - and toss it promptly into the blue box. Gone!
I also love it when charities call monthly to pick up stuff. Bye-bye clothes and books.
I’m hoping Julie Hall will save this mother-daughter relationship.
She is a professional estate liquidator.
She is out with a book called” “The Boomer Burden: Dealing with Your Parents’ Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff”.. Hall says the sheer amount of stuff (some of it
can be valuable) piled up by Depression-era etc. parents is often overwhelming.
She says its often due to a generation that doesn’t get rid of much and some of them are downright hoarders.
I smell one big garage sale… coming soon. My boxes and some yogurt containers might go free of charge.
lisa