Where did all this CRAP come from?!?

The remodeling starts in two one weeks. The rooms to be remodeled need to be cleared, including the closets, while at least some of the remaining rooms remain livable for the duration. Toward that end, I started shifting my belongings this weekend. It is amazing what one accumulates over a 20 year period. I used to share this house with other human beings, but now it is absolutely FULL of my own crap.

The logical thing to do would be to get rid of some of this stuff NOW, but I am feeling rather overwhelmed by the whole remodeling process. Maybe the culling will occur when it all has to go back to where it came from, but I fear there is not that much I want to get rid of. Things like xmas decorations make their appearance for a couple of weeks once per year. Some of the clothes are for those random events, like weddings and funerals, when you hope what you have fits and is not ridiculously out of fashion. What about high school year books? Can I pitch them? Even the one with David Hasselhoff in it?

Somehow I became the keeper of the family memorabilia, in the form of letters, photographs, and home movies. The latter I have had transferred to DVD and distributed to my dad and siblings (all of whom are greatly appreciative). I hope to do the same with the photographs, once I sort through them. The letters I fear I will have to scan myself, a good retirement project. Meanwhile, all this non-digital shit takes up space in my closets and spare bedrooms. In fact, as I cleared out some closet space this weekend, I found MORE.

Anyway, the plan so far is to use the guest bedroom/yarn haven as my sleeping quarters while the other spare bedroom will hold everything from the master "suite" that I can do without for two weeks. The kitchen and family room stuff hopefully will fit into the dining room. With no kitchen, I will have to set up a kitchenette of some sort in the West Wing, with the coffee maker and toaster oven. My microwave is an under-the-cabinet-over-the-stove thing, so I may purchase a cheap one for heating soup and boiling water.

So that leaves me with one bedroom, one bathroom, the living room, the West Wing and laundry for living space, good practice for when I need to downsize, which hopefully will not be for another 20 years.