DONATE, SAVE, TRASH, REPEAT

These are pictures of our basement.  These are the piles we have started on with our daughter.

The possible sale pile starts here

Saving the dolls pile

Putting the furniture together to sort it out

The "going to go through" soon pile

Three bags of trash and seven now empty Rubbermaid totes

Christmas stuff and I don't know what else stuff

On the left is the space for holiday totes

Games to sell or donate

 Carly hasn't been the collector/hoarder.  It's been me.  We just went through one Rubbermaid tote that had nothing but papers, drawings and art work that she did when she was in daycare (age 3-5!).  Oh my.  I did learn to take pictures of things as she got older and than I threw a lot more away.  One tote had baby blankets in it that she swears smells like vomit.  Did I wash this stuff right before packing it all up 20 years ago?  I did just now.  One tote has tee shirts that I just knew at the time she might want for her own daughter to wear (Disney, Hershey, Puerto Vallarta and more)--we are having someone make a quilt out of them.  Another tote had my favorite outfits that I dressed her in when she was a baby to age five.  Some totes have her dance costumes, tap and ballet shoes along with my dance outfits when I was nine.  Ray's report cards from elementary school were mixed up in there (he talked a lot in school according to the teacher's comments).  Carly is currently going through all of her American Girl doll "stuff".  She kept all of the outfits in the boxes together.  She is thinking she will save the dolls and some outfits and try to sell or donate the rest.  I just looked up on Ebay what my Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys hardback books would sell for ($35 for a set), and a barely used sewing machine.  She is sifting through two totes of beanie babies.  Back in the day, she (or her dad with her permission) sold five hot beanie babies for $950 (and no, we didn't invest it in mutual funds!), so that she could buy a Persian kitten and name him Cody.  The kitten, supplies and first year of vet costs were paid for by her and her beanie baby money.  Now the beanies sell for a few dollars here and there.  She is feeling a bit sappy in the musty basement.  But she wants to get it done and make a few dollars :)

I have many totes to go through, also.  My Barbie airplane and camper are in totes (they sell for very little on Ebay since they aren't in original boxes).  I just found two dental hygiene books (but not from when I was in school--pitched those years ago--but from my teaching days).  Ray is hanging onto his yearbooks for now.  I am going to scan my pictures MAYBE.  I have already scanned a bunch, and I think I know what I looked like in high school, so we'll see how motivated I get with the yearbooks.  I am so done with the basement, I will probably start looking over things, calling my sister and asking what she wants back and then donating things.  Or I may put items up on facebook for my neighbors (games, books) to view and take/buy.  I DOUBT I will have a yard sale.  I am unsure about this.  Maybe in the fall.  Probably not.  The one thing I regret is that my mom asked me fresh out of college if I wanted any of the board games my sister and I had played when growing up.  Of course I didn't.  Where would I put them?  And she didn't ask my sister (she was married at the time).  So she pitched them.  Now I want those games.  The original games in the original boxes.  Board games are just so cheesy these days.  And here I am, just trying to unload.  Not the good board games though!

The back of the basement has always been the "save" pile.  Totes of Carly's things, and totes of ours.  The side has always been holiday totes.  Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations along with a tree (we stopped having live trees when our cat, Cody, came around).  The other side of our basement is where we have profited by storing someone else's "stuff" for the past five or so years.  He was paying $300/mo to store his things for ten years in New York City (it wasn't climate controlled). He has been storing mattresses, a couch, suits, clothing, tables and all things I am sure is still in such great condition (NOT) paying us $150/mo (our Panama money haha).  We have him given him a "you need to remove your things" deadline of November 1 this year.  (To clarify why he doesn't have his stuff with him...he rents one room of a house, and there isn't any space for all of his valuables that he hasn't seen in over ten years.)
My sister and her fiance used to have this part of the basement when she moved in with her fiancé (then when the space became available, we started getting paid by this one man to house everything here).  Now my sister has an oval braided rug, a suitcase, and two boxes she needs to come and get OR it goes with the other stuff into one of the three piles.

My sister's pile

The side of the basement that we get a monthly check for

I cannot blame either my sister or this man for holding onto things, since I have done the same for so long.  BUT I have a clearer head now.  And I know that a mattress standing on its side for ten plus years isn't going to be a comfortable mattress, and a couch that has had boxes dropped on it and loaded up all over it isn't going to be a comfortable couch. So my yearbooks that have gone untouched for thirty years, or my Barbie collection that Carly played with for a very short time is no longer of value to me.   Lighting up the load, cleaning up the house, seeing things go to those who will appreciate them now are what is valuable to me.   I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  This feels good.  It is getting easier.  And once Carly gets into her apartment, little by little, I will make my piles in the basement and be sappy for a few minutes.  Then I will snap out of it, want to give things away to those who need the "stuff", and look forward to my next goal of retiring/moving to Panama with just a few suitcases in hand and perhaps a box or two!