Clearinghouse

Today has been less an exercise in housecleaning than in house-emptying.  Yes, three loads of laundry (and apparently I can still dress just fine with that much out of commission - itself a commentary on the excess of a single-person homeownership situation ...) - but a nice stack of trash and recycling out and to-go-out.  For some reason, during a period when I was selling a lot on eBay, I developed a mini obsession with keeping EVERY box in the house, which means the entire dormer nook in the front of the guest room is stacked with useless cardboard.  RECYCLING IT.  I'll never ship that much to my brother, and - everything this year I was planning to sell on eBay I have decided to give away.

The Jones sheath dress I wore only one time (for my confirmation at church, actually).  Someone needs that, and I'm self-conscious about the slit in the back of the skirt.  I am never going to wear it again.  It goes.

My aunt's leather trench.  I miss her deeply, I loved her so much - but as an artifact goes, this one is not a beloved memento, it's just an ill-fitting vintage piece I'm cheating some very cute (short-armed) girl out of rocking to pieces.  It goes.

The quilted tapestry jacket with marvelously soft, long mongolian wool trim.  It's adorable - but it's too trendy for me.  Its sleeves, also, are a bit slim for my granny arms.  It goes.

The SIZE SIX London Fog trench my mom and dad bought me 24 years ago (I still remember where, remember the day, remember we went to a show that night; I remember how that coat fit when I cinched in the belt).  But it is a size six - and I am not, and don't even want to be.  It goes.

The beautiful red wool suit I bought last time I was unemployed - and have never worn even one single time. The heck - that's several inches of closet space.  It goes.

Even the flattering twinset mom bought me two or three years back.  It's comfortable - but I really have worn it as much as I will.  It's *just* outside my real preferred style.  So.  And the satin blazer I've gotten more than my bargain-money's worth out of.  The wonderfully soft, velvet-trimmed suit jacket my coworkers have never seen because I busted the back seam out of it once (and I thought that jacket fit fine) - which, though it's been beautifully repaired, I fear to wear for doing that again.  Good grief, it goes.  The skirt that wasn't a set but that goes with that, I should give up too - need to get that one out of the closet.  I haven't worn it in too long.

The jewelry I never wear.  The pieces from mom.  The one or two miscalculations from eBay, too.

The amount of stuff going out of this house - I already have two HUGE shopping bags of stuff out in the trunk as it is, and the list above is on top of those things, and will cram the trunk chock full - is pretty serious.  It will feel good.

On top of this, I've done a lot of just organizing.  The guest room, for two months, has been a riot of clean sheets waiting to go back on the bed my friend used when she came for the JRW Conference in mid-october, of summer clothes not put away, of Christmas decorations and their boxes, of the hair moved for the tree's spot in the living room.  It's oppressive, living in a house otherwise sort of nice, but knowing THIS ROOM was lurking silently upstairs.

It goes.

If these things don't go, I will be mired in them.  And so much of it would be so nice for somebody else.

The edifice of cardboard boxes - well, maybe they will just be nice for the Earth, for me to take them out of the realm of waste and excess ...


***


Christmas, of course, will bring More Stuff into the house - but one great advantage of middle age is that every year there is less of that to manage, for me.  Heh - some years, hardly anything at all ... but that is an amusing set of stories for some other time.  *Grin*

So it is the right time to lighten my home's load.  Just yesterday I resisted the temptation to buy a new sofa for *such a deal* (seriously - nice, clean, comfy piece, and I'd have paid $55 for it).  But I don't need to take advantage of every deal out there.  Today I am gladder to have the sofa already here.  Another day, it will be time to let it go, to find a new/old one in its place.  But not this week.

Today is my day of solitary worship - steward to the material blessings given me.  And part of that is knowing when to give those blessings to others.  Tonight, I will revel and relax, nothing more than a bath and early bed.

Tomorrow, one last piece of shopping, then a friend for the evening.

Christmas Eve - for the first time, perhaps, ever - I have taken time off.  Time with another friend, and probably the nighttime service, a joyous celebration.  The exquisite sound of my priest's voice, singing.  Her love, all our love.  And, yes - Christ.  A worship in fellowship.

Then Christmas day, just me and the fur-bearing kidlets, relaxing (... heh ... ?) at mom and my stepfather's house.  I plan to make my dad's coffee cake.  We'll eat, we'll open gifts, we'll laugh and share and just be, pretty quietly.  It is a small holiday, just the three of us.  Penelope and Goss will liven it up I am sure.

Then home.  A quiet night.

And back to the real world.