Any advice from those who have moved and will move much more than me?
Thursday, July 29, 2010
How do you decide what to keep?
We're busy packing up our apartment in preparation for our move in a couple of weeks. You would think that having just moved from overseas 2 years ago, we wouldn't have that much extra junk, especially considering we had to mail everything in boxes. But somehow, we have a ton of stuff. It's so hard trying to decide what to keep. After we moved back, I got a lot of boxes that my parents had been storing for me. They were full of keepsakes from high school and college. There are old photos, school writings, trinkets, etc. I also had a box full of pottery that I made in my 2 college ceramic classes. Our new place is smaller than our current place, so we need to get rid of stuff. It's hard trying to decide what to keep and what to toss. I hold something, look at it, and think, "I really don't care about this now, but in 10 years, will I care about it? I obviously haven't missed it for the past 10 years." I'm not really sentimental about keeping stuff. It makes moving so hard! I especially don't know what to do with all my pottery. I was so proud of everything I made, but how many ceramic bowls do I really need? Do I want to continue to let them gather dust, or should I try to sell them at a yard sale and trash what doesn't sell? I'm leaning towards keeping just the 2 or 3 most favorite items, and getting rid of the rest. Maybe I should take pictures of it all before I toss it, so I'll have a much smaller thing to hold on to.
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2 comments:
Shannon -
we received the same kind of shipment from my parents when we moved back, and I went through it last year, sorting and pitching. It's hard to decide! I think you're on the right track with your 10 year perspective. One other question to ask yourself is if any of your pottery fits in somewhere in your home? Can they be used in creative ways in the kitchen, bathroom, or bedrooms? Can you put a plant in them? Art is so much better when it's useful, not just something to dust (in my opinion)! Of course, I'm not so good at following my own advice... I can't figure out what to do with all the music boxes my grandmother (now with Jesus) gave me, so they're still in a box in the garage.
We had several piles for our stuff: ship to China, keep forever, keep now and decide later, give away, and trash. Stuff in the keep now and sort later pile got looked at again in a few days and sometimes moved into another pile, or sometimes I still couldn't decide so I waited another few days.
On some of the stuff you can't decide on, put it in one place and see if you can fit it into one box that you can store in the bottom of your closet. If you have enough space, put another box for deciding later.
We have a box in JD's attic for us to sort through next summer. :)
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