A Decluttering Collapse

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I got off to a good start but life like to give us the unexpected. I should have expected it. I knew we were going to have to deal with a ton of boxes from my husband’s work, I knew it was coming soon, yet when it arrived it derailed everything. He had to prep computers for something like 300 students? It might have been more. So all the computers arrived and all the computer bags arrived… at our house which is just a regular house, where we live and do stuff. I think we have 1700 square feet for the five of us which is normally ok. The boxes took over. There’s an office-type space in the kitchen and it was full, floor to almost ceiling, with big red boxes. I wish I’d snapped a pic but I didn’t. Here’s the point I remembered:

This is when there were only 8 boxes left. You can see the windows and everything!

So each red box contains a bunch of little boxes containing a laptop and assorted cords. We have other boxes that contain laptop bags. We unbox a red box of laptop boxes, unbox each laptop, scan it, label it, etc etc, and put it in a laptop bag which gets labeled, then re-box the laptops in their bags by dorm assignment. Then we tape up the big box, label it, and get it to the school. As we do this we are left with all the individual laptop boxes which must be saved to mail them back in like 3 years, so the amount of clutter grows and expands and takes over everything… until we box up the little boxes and get them to the school too. I have a pic, again not taken at peak-boxage:

The boxes are on top of the dog crate and they were, again, up to the ceiling. There are more on the shelf there and there were even more taking over the counter in the laundry room and on top of the pantry cupboards.

At the point that I took this picture we had sent back over 100 of these little boxes already. Also, as we fill the big boxes with laptops we move them into the front hall until we can’t safely put any more in there, then we have them picked up ASAP.

We can squeeze by the boxes so it’s ok! The lighter boxes at the back are the boxes full of boxes. It gets pretty hilarious at certain points, like when I tried to bring groceries in.
A small sample of the recycling. We went twice a week to drop off cardboard and that was pretty much ONLY the boxes the laptop bags came in because we reuse the others to send the computers to the school.

We’re almost done at this point, I hope, so I can stop treading water and get back to making some progress again. I’m reviewing Sink Reflections; by Marla Cilley in the meantime, trying to keep my mojo alive. Soon the last of the boxes will be gone and I will restart my decluttering efforts and get this place in shape.

Note: the banner for this post is by: “clutter” by Sean MacEntee is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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Published by tempestdreams

I am a lover of books and the written word, of art and nature. I love to paint, to write, to read, to knit, crochet and to game. I aspire to garden but am terrible at it. I finally got mint to grow! (yes MINT) & Golden Raspberries! I am a whimsical free spirit shouldering great weight with as much fire and energy as I can muster.

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