A couple of years ago, Dex and I went through the house, attic to basement, porch to shed, and pitched out a large amount of stuff. Old crappy who-needs-it stuff. I organized the attic. I decluttered. It felt excellent, especially the part where we stood at the attic window and tossed junk onto the front lawn. SMASH - old computer monitor. SMASH - weird picture frames (sans glass). Everything got loaded into the back of the truck and hauled to the dump.

I’ve experienced similar joy in boxing up vast amounts of baby items - clothes, toys, gear of all sizes - and shipping it off to my sister in the past year. I have tubs of clothes waiting for my neice to grow into, plus many tubs of more darkly colored clothes put aside in case I have another nephew one of these days. If not, off to donation land it all goes.

Some of my friends take their old kid clothes to the consignment shop. Too much work for me. I’d rather give it to someone who really wants it. I was lucky enough to be given a good amount of stuff for the kids, especially with the twins, so I’d rather pass along the kindness.

I am in that mood again. I want to pitch about half of what we have. Spending a month in Colorado with minimal stuff really opened my eyes when I came home. It’s different, of course… I’m not going to throw out my canning supplies just because I didn’t have a garden this year (and may not next, we’ll see). But there are nooks and crannies still harboring things.

I just found a buyer for our old double stroller. I have a couple of therapeutic aids to give to Davey’s school if they’ll take them (if not, I’ll turn to my online Down syndrome group for takers). The rest of the stuff? I just want it gone. Take it, anybody. I put an unwanted table out by the “curb” (we don’t actually have a curb on our street) with a FREE sign. After a few hours, it was gone, sign and all. I have more baby gear, stuff too big to ship to my sister, that needs a new home.

Edward and I spent a little time in the attic and perusing the shed for items to chuck. We came up surprisingly short. There are some things, but I was impressed at how well Dex and I cleaned out the excess that previous time. Impressed but a little frustrated. I really want to get rid of more stuff.