Drowning in the Sea of Clutter

We begin moving to our new house on Feb. 1st. In an attempt to create an aggressive schedule of packing for my husband and I, we are now effectively a day behind our scheduled activities. It's unbelievable how much clutter we've accumulated in fourteen years of marriage.

I keep hoping that this move will result in us throwing away a lot of things, but so far we haven't even filled out one trash bag from everything we have in the living room and dining room. I'm really counting on the computer room and bedroom to produce the most trash bags, since those are the two rooms I hate the most in the house. Figures that those are the two rooms where I spend the majority of my time.

It's taking me quite a bit of time to pack everything, mostly because we have a lot of fragile items from several collections we've gathered over the years from around the world. I came across one item that almost entirely disintegrated, and I'm not sure how to pack it without causing further damage. We collect stones from places we've been to (well, almost everywhere. We did not pick one from Uluru out of respect for the natives who requested we leave it there). The almost disintegrated item is a stone from Petra, Jordan - beautiful shade of red, from the iron content, but it's more red sand now than stone. I tried to pack it gently, but I'm not certain it will survive the move. Another stone that got separated from its source of interest is a stone from the dead sea - the salt sheet that was on it came off. It's strange how the most fragile items in our house are actually stones.

Funny discovery in one of the drawers where we held our silverware - a broken mirror inside a beautiful brass frame which we got for our wedding. A delivery all the way from Israel, which broke before it got to us. Seven years of bad luck have passed twice over. I think it's time to find someone to fix it.

This packing business is all about discovery. Some of it was a very pleasant surprise to see some items we've purchased overseas that I still enjoy looking at and would buy again if I saw it.

I dread the day that I start packing the computer room. This is the most cluttered room of all. This is where everything goes when we have guests over. This is where everything goes if it doesn't have a dedicated cabinet for it. This is where I live. Where all my "to be read" books are on the shelves. And where I collect years and years of papers from work, bills, health records, printouts, manuals - things I'll never look at, but I keep thinking "I may need it." This is where all my professional magazines are stacked. Including a PC magazine about Windows 98!

My goal is to have at least five trash bags from the computer room and bedroom. Some of it is a true shame to throw because I'm sure someone else would love to have it. But I don't have time to go and sell it and charity doesn't take everything.

I may not have much time to write every day, but I'll try to upload a drawing once a day. Has anyone figured yet what's unique about the talent in these drawings?