Condensation
Lately I have been doing a lot of decluttering all over the place and one of the main things I was working on was making space in the garage for Mom's Christmas stuff. See, I decided that June was not a great time to sell Christmas stuff and so I didn't put that out at the estate sale. Also my mother-in-law has a lot of extra Christmas stuff she'd like to sell, so we decided we would have a yard sale of Christmas stuff at her place in November. As good as I have been about not being a pack rat since 1998, I still had 3 boxes of stuff that I have been carting around for + or - 25 years. Friday night between midnight and 4:00 a.m. I went through the 3 boxes on the right of this picture. The box on the left was just for trash.
The funny part was I had been wanting to do this for quite some time and had asked My Sweetie to buy me one of those clear container bins to condense this stuff into. He bought a giant bin the size of a large rolling suitcase. Well actually he bought 3 of them. I laughed when he came home with 3 of them and thought for sure I could fit everything that I wanted to keep into just one of them. Well that was just silly. I had the thing out and there wasn't really much to put into it as you will see at the end of this post. All the stuff in the picture above is trash. I did find some really cool stuff in my stuff, though. Like these dorm message slips:
My freshman year in college, was very 1950's like in that anyone wanting to visit you in the dorm had to go to the front desk. You were then paged and if you didn't come down, your guest could leave a message. The same with phone calls. There were a couple of phones at the end of each hall and you would be paged for a phone call and if you didn't go pick up, they could leave a message. Being a pack rat, I saved all my message slips. I get a kick out of reading them now even though I don't remember some of the guys, although I DO remember John Shell. I also found an envelope with a bunch of concert ticket stubs. The one that surprised me the most was the one from the Who concert when I was in 9th grade. And I don't even remember seeing Foreigner. I wonder what happened to my Styx, Moody Blues and Tommy Tutone stubs? Not to mention my Aerosmith concert, although I did see them again at Champagne Jam:
Also the stubs above verify my story about seeing The Stones twice in a row which I've either posted about or left on comments. I'm too lazy to look it up. My favorite find in the ticket envelope was my Madison Square Garden ticket to the Holiday Doubleheader college basketball game in 1978. In 1977, Dad and I had gone together, but in '78 it was Dad, my brother, his friend Jay, my high school boyfriend and me. That was also the year we stayed for the Times Square New Year's Eve thing. That was one memorable trip. I had always wondered which hotel we had stayed at, but in one of the boxes I found a little hotel soap for Hotel Edison, which I was VERY surprised to find still exists. I remember that if we pressed the left side of our face against the window we could see the giant Coca-Cola sign on Times Square. I also remember a lot of other stuff that I'm not going to mention here although I think Dad wouldn't mind me telling that story now that he is no longer "here." And besides today is his birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!). I'll save it for a few days.
So going back to my condensing of my momentos from those three boxes, I first started putting stuff in the giant bin. I put two notebooks and my Snoopy lunchbox in and then I realized the rest of the stuff could fit into a tiny box. That's when I realized I could just fit it all into my bedside table which had never been organized anyway. Well, here it all is and as a matter of fact, the stuff I kept is only in the bottom storage box, the notebooks on the left and the Snoopy lunchbox on top of the other storage box:
So how stupid was I to cart around those big cardboard boxes all of these years? A quarter of a century! Maybe it took me that long to be able to throw the rest away. I also discovered that I used to be a Herman addict. I must have found 30 or 40 Herman clippings. And I was meticulous, too. They were all cut out the same way. I don't even remember doing that. I do feel better about getting this done. It was nice to condense it down to the fun and important stuff. And now it's right there by my bed instead of mixed in with a bunch of trash in three different large boxes taking up space in my garage. What took me so long?
The funny part was I had been wanting to do this for quite some time and had asked My Sweetie to buy me one of those clear container bins to condense this stuff into. He bought a giant bin the size of a large rolling suitcase. Well actually he bought 3 of them. I laughed when he came home with 3 of them and thought for sure I could fit everything that I wanted to keep into just one of them. Well that was just silly. I had the thing out and there wasn't really much to put into it as you will see at the end of this post. All the stuff in the picture above is trash. I did find some really cool stuff in my stuff, though. Like these dorm message slips:
My freshman year in college, was very 1950's like in that anyone wanting to visit you in the dorm had to go to the front desk. You were then paged and if you didn't come down, your guest could leave a message. The same with phone calls. There were a couple of phones at the end of each hall and you would be paged for a phone call and if you didn't go pick up, they could leave a message. Being a pack rat, I saved all my message slips. I get a kick out of reading them now even though I don't remember some of the guys, although I DO remember John Shell. I also found an envelope with a bunch of concert ticket stubs. The one that surprised me the most was the one from the Who concert when I was in 9th grade. And I don't even remember seeing Foreigner. I wonder what happened to my Styx, Moody Blues and Tommy Tutone stubs? Not to mention my Aerosmith concert, although I did see them again at Champagne Jam:
Also the stubs above verify my story about seeing The Stones twice in a row which I've either posted about or left on comments. I'm too lazy to look it up. My favorite find in the ticket envelope was my Madison Square Garden ticket to the Holiday Doubleheader college basketball game in 1978. In 1977, Dad and I had gone together, but in '78 it was Dad, my brother, his friend Jay, my high school boyfriend and me. That was also the year we stayed for the Times Square New Year's Eve thing. That was one memorable trip. I had always wondered which hotel we had stayed at, but in one of the boxes I found a little hotel soap for Hotel Edison, which I was VERY surprised to find still exists. I remember that if we pressed the left side of our face against the window we could see the giant Coca-Cola sign on Times Square. I also remember a lot of other stuff that I'm not going to mention here although I think Dad wouldn't mind me telling that story now that he is no longer "here." And besides today is his birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!). I'll save it for a few days.
So going back to my condensing of my momentos from those three boxes, I first started putting stuff in the giant bin. I put two notebooks and my Snoopy lunchbox in and then I realized the rest of the stuff could fit into a tiny box. That's when I realized I could just fit it all into my bedside table which had never been organized anyway. Well, here it all is and as a matter of fact, the stuff I kept is only in the bottom storage box, the notebooks on the left and the Snoopy lunchbox on top of the other storage box:
So how stupid was I to cart around those big cardboard boxes all of these years? A quarter of a century! Maybe it took me that long to be able to throw the rest away. I also discovered that I used to be a Herman addict. I must have found 30 or 40 Herman clippings. And I was meticulous, too. They were all cut out the same way. I don't even remember doing that. I do feel better about getting this done. It was nice to condense it down to the fun and important stuff. And now it's right there by my bed instead of mixed in with a bunch of trash in three different large boxes taking up space in my garage. What took me so long? 
10 comments:
Good for you re decluttering. I find these boxes are like my security blanket, it makes you feel good looking at the stuff. I think that when you chuck some of it, it's like cutting bits of your past and it's hard to bring it back without the mementos.
I love the message from John and all those ticket stubs. You've seen some pretty good concerts! The shows and the groups were so much better back then, weren't they??
I've learned to photograph my clutter (if it's important "clutter") and keep that as the memory rather than the thing itself. I do that with a lot of the kids' school projects...or else I'd need a whole other room for stuff like that. You inspire me to throw more of my crap away. Today's a "tropical storm" day (like a "snow day" in the northeast), so it's a good day for cleaning!
You are an inspiration. I really need to declutter my stuff.
Maybe I should do Mr. Jazz's stuff, and he could do mine. The house would be empty in no time flat.
Must know: The ticket that reads "The C" would that happen to be The Cure? Or is it some other band that I won't get nearly as excited about?
Urban,
~~Yes, I agree. I'm very sentimental and looking at these old things makes me happy.
Scarlet,
~~I have an old trunk that's full of all of my daughter's childhood momentos. Fortunately I had only one kid!
Jazz,
~~It does always help to get rid of stuff when My Sweetie is there saying, "Throw it away!"
Ticknart,
~~It was The Cars and it was an excellent concert even though I was there with a stinky lousy person.
Ah yes clutter, we have had some boxes that never got unpacked from one move to the other. OK I admit, the boxes belonged to me. I'm the packrat at our place. There is a rule that states that no matter how big your living space you will fill it with clutter in a minimum amount of time ;o)
(Mrs. BB finally got fed up and persuaded me to chuck them. When I opened them I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I had kept them all that time.)
You always give the sweetest tributes to your dad! I love reading and hearing about your stories with him.
How interesting that you saved all of those message slips. I bet they are fun to read through now!
Sounds like some great concerts! I only went to 2 in my life. Yep, 2. Ted Nugent, Rush, & Trapeze, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I guess I didn't even like big crowds back then! Ha!
Big Brother,
~~I felt like that about most of the stuff, but some of the stuff I just had to keep. My method for keeping the level of "stuff" down is to pledge a box or bag to the charities that call for Saturday morning pick-up. We have about 3 that call us on a regular basis. I will say "yes" even if I can't think of anything, then walk around and find stuff to fill up a box or bag.
Carole,
~~I saw Ted Nugent at a Texas Jam once. I either went to two or three Texas jams, but apparently didn't keep the stubs. I think it was my last Texas Jam that turned me off of the whole concert thing although as an adult I have seen Elvis Costello, Sting, David Bowie and Bonnie Raitt. I knew those concerts would mostly have people my age there. I'll show you those message slips sometime, some are funny. One of my favorites was "Dave stopped by to apologize." I have NO idea what that was about.
I try to be organized, but I think I'm too organized and then my organization becomes clutter because there's too much organized souvenirs. Like, we have a little box of momentos from each trip we take. We now have 5 little boxes, or something like that. It'll probably take me a quarter century to downsize those.
Good for you for getting it all together. It's amazing how such a "small" project can make a big difference in your perspective of yourself. :)
Jammie,
~~Thanks for the post idea! Now I'm going to do one about souvenirs later this week. Maybe it will help with your problem?
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