This May, Chris and I decided the house needed a major makeover. Especially since we had some potential tenants to rent our spare rooms. The list of “home makeover” items included cleaning/organizing the house (finally putting away our boxes of wedding gifts!) and landscaping the backyard. More on the backyard later.
My first spring cleaning project: cleaning out unnecessary stuff from the garage. When I moved in to the house from my apartment, there was a lot of my stuff that landed in the garage, in boxes, and the boxes have been collecting dust ever since. Chris had cleaned out his miscellaneous junk the weekend before, so now it was my turn.
I should preface this by saying I am *somewhat* of a pack rat. Not completely – I’ve moved too often to accumulate very much junk – but I occasionaly have a hard time letting go of silly mementos that have no apparent function other than I just can’t bring myself to throw it away.
I’m sure I’m not the only one. I mean, c’mon, don’t you keep your expired driver’s licenses and old college ID cards? A collection of movie ticket stubs from every movie you’ve ever seen since the fifth grade? Christmas cards from five years ago that you got too lazy to mail?
Well, anyway, enough about that. Let’s focus on the things I did throw away. And I promise, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
- 32 cent stamps (I supposed I could have used them to mail a postcard)
- A promotional poster of The Sixth Sense…IN FRENCH
- The address of my best friend in 4th grade
- Instruction manuals for cameras/phones/printers that I DON’T OWN ANYMORE
- Vehicle registration receipts for the car I sold 2 years ago
- A game of M.A.S.H. I played with my high school friends on a bus trip in 1992
- A fake $3 bill with Bill Clinton’s face
- Letters from pen pals I don’t recall ever knowing, it’s been so long
- A Ruby Tuesday receipt for some random lunch with friends – dated January 1, 2001
- More than $7 worth of coupons to I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt which expired 6/30/1996
And Chris thinks that I keep a lot of needless junk. Yeah, riiight. I have no idea what would make him think that.