SOME PITFALLS OF

Everyone speaks of downsizing in positive terms--pass along unwanted items, my trash may be someone else's treasure, make room in closets/drawers/storage space (not sure what the space is for), and so on.

Downsizing being one of the bandwagons I hopped on a while back, I've been working on the tasks required to achieve the removal of unwanted, trash-to-treasure, space-occupying Stuff.

Take yesterday, for example. Really, go ahead and take it. I don't want it back.

Here's how it all fell out:

--I made a firm decision to clean out the two 4-drawer filing cabinets that have accumulated their trash/treasure over a period of years. (This was intended to be a manageable task for a morning. Or maybe the week.)

--After my morning walk at the Y and a session with my journal and breakfast, I was ready to tackle those filing cabinets.

--Dressed in old clothes, face mask for the dust, and vinyl gloves to protect my hands from whatever might have migrated into those eight drawers, I moved the car to the driveway to give myself more room, and I opened the first drawer.

From there it seemed an easy-peasy task. Look through the Stuff stored in the drawer, decide if it was recyclable, disposable, or keepable. (Sorry--I wanted a parallel word. Just roll with it.)

All went well into the first and second drawers, but I discovered quilting magazines and even hard-bound books cowering in the third drawer. Those required closer examination.

Then there were the seven 3-ring binders that were perfectly good items to have on hand. (Not sure what I'll do with all seven; maybe use them for stocking stuffers at Christmas.)

Also found art supplies, along with sketches I'd made in the early '80s--they looked like something from an art class that I vaguely remember taking.

And another find was a package of long-lost brown lunch bags--they're used by some quilters for small trash bags for clipped threads and snippets of fabric trimmed off--not so big they get in the way, and easy to attach to a sewing table with masking tape. When the bag is full, it's whipped off, the tape closes the trash inside, and the whole thing goes in the big wheelie bin.

What delighted me most was a brand new, perfectly preserved, 2004 J. C. Penney catalog. I set it aside to browse through later.

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So what are the pitfalls, you ask?

#1 - Distraction. I never got to the second 4-drawer filing cabinet. There were so many neat things to look at that I used up my energy in the hot/humid garage on the first cabinet and had to quit after an hour.

#2 - Satisfaction too early. The trash pile (after an hour's effort) was sufficient to fill three garbage bags--though "fill" is misleading: I can't lift a full 55-gallon bag, so each bag was only about a third full. They made a resounding and satisfying plonk in the trash bin, though. I have a feeling I'll be buying more boxes of bags soon.

#3 - Discovery of Usable Resources. Some of the quilting magazines and books will have to be read, that's all there is to it. They've been around long enough to have some value (to me) as the patterns will appear new--never mind that the magazine was published in 2006.

Thus what I'd considered an hour's work (both filing cabinets) turned out to be two hours; since I did only one filing cabinet, I expended only one hour of effort. (Caveat: If I apply that equation to the rest of the garage, I may still be sorting and discarding in 2025.)

And let's not even consider the house, which has its own accumulation of treasures, etc.

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I'm thinking of staging a Trash Party--everyone brings a big trash bag, wears old clothes, and we all downsize together. I'll provide the lemonade (hot weather) or coffee & tea (cold weather). Feel free to bring your own food.