Giving Things Away.

It's hard to give away 100 things.  I'm being very broad in my definition of single items because, well, I just am.  It's really more because of how anal retentive I am than anything else - I had a conversation in my head that went something like this:

Amy:  "K.  We're a-gonna give stuff away!"
Amy:  "Um.  Yeah.  About that - HOW precisely are we calculating this?"
Amy:  "Shut up, please and thank you."
Amy:  "So we're counting every item?"
Amy:  "Can we guesstimate?"
Amy:  "No we cannot."
Amy:  "Fine.  Alright.  What if we count every item."
Amy:  "Even a pair of baby socks."
Amy:  "Even a pair of..what?  No.  Those can group."
Amy:  "Group?  Seriously?  Girl..."
Amy:  "Ohmyheavens.  Alright.  We count groups of items."
Amy:  "Like, by recipient?"
Amy:  "JUST GIVE IT AWAY."
Amy:  "Alright, so what we're going to do is group by date of giving."
Amy:  "Fine.  Wait.  What if I have multiple recipients in one day?"

This is probably the point you jumped to when you realized several sentences back that I was actually going to type out a dialogue I had with myself.  In my own head.  For real. 

I'm up to item #10, which if I was counting actual items would be around item 40, I'm guessing, but we're not counting actual items, we're counting times I've given things away.  So if you come to my house, and I force you to take a box of boy's clothes and five commentaries on Mark and my second Swiffer and four cassette tapes - then I've given away one thing.  This means I am one tenth of the way to my goal, and I'm feeling good about it.  I have a bag of clothing to go to the Salvation Army box, two pairs of winter boots for a little boy nearby, a few more baby supplies for a friend who's expecting, and a box of cloth diapers to send to my sister - but at some point I know it's going to get harder.  Right now I'm still just getting rid of stuff that I can completely manage without.  But at some point we're going to have to really start thinning stuff out.

I'm all giddy about it, though.  I love the idea of clean, linear, empty space.  Space not filled with stuff.  Ahhh....linen closets that close.  Bookshelves that are filled neatly with books!  SHOES IN CLOSETS!  I know.  It's just that exciting!  I tried to purge (well, I DID purge, actually) when we moved from the apartment to our house a few months ago, but even so we still have too much stuff.  I remember being on the phone with my mother, discussing towels.  I carefully outlined all of the towel options available to us, folded on my bed, and then asked her which ones to get rid of.  "I think they're all useful" she said.  And this is clearly where I get it from, folks.  I tossed a few towels away, the really bad ones, and then just packed and moved the others, stacking them neatly on the top shelf of the linen closet.  You know - I have never used the towels on the bottom.  Never.  I pull one off the top, use it, hang it up, use it again, wash it, and it gets back into place without me ever having made it down the stack of towels.  I could get rid of a dozen towels and still have enough.