Living with a Pack Rat

My husband is a MAJOR pack rat. I can’t stand it.
Open a drawer and what do you find—napkins, tons of them. Open a closet—the floor is covered with an overflowing shopping bag full of bills and papers that never got filed. Two large dressers are so full of t-shirts and clothes that the overflow of clean laundry has no home. Instead, It lives in random laundry baskets tucked in corners or on a table that become a rotation of clean and dirty

This weekend I hit a WALL. I can’t stand that there are at least THREE rooms in my house that I don’t let people see.

I started with the paperwork, filing and organizing. I had to get permission to use my own discretion in trashing things. I got the blessing I needed. Four garbage bags and four hours later, I had organized the paperwork, the desk and the floor of the closet in the den.

I wasn’t about to stop there. I started pulling out all the clothes, belts and ties from the closet and threw it on the couch in the living room. The living room became my sorting area for all of my Husbands clothes—the stuff he can’t fit into anymore, the apparel that is so ugly no good wife would allow him to keep and the sentimental T-shirts that don’t justify space in the dresser.

We spent hours sorting into three piles, goodwill, sentimental, and wearable.

Here’s the sad part – we have THREE garbage bags full of clothes for Goodwill and I didn’t even touch one of the dressers!

Now if you were paying attention I cleaned out the following from ONE ROOM:
Four bags of garbage
Three bags of clothing for Goodwill
One bag of additional garage sale items

One room down, two to go...