Flowers, gardening, cleaning, yep its spring

I have spent the past few weeks cleaning up everything from the backyard to my armoire. Doesn't it seem like Winter makes us nest and Spring makes us purge? It is time to store the blankets, winter sweaters, coats and woolly slippers to make room for 'gulp' tank tops, shorts, flip flops, summer dresses and bathing suits. I have a great way to get this done pretty quickly. If your anything like me (maybe its my age) you have 'stuff' that you don't need, don't use, probably will never use but for some reason you keep it because you think that you may have to have it sometime. AND of course as soon as you get rid of it, you do need it. Story of my life! I like to call myself a gentle pack rat, meaning, I do keep way too many items but at the same time I do not have a problem getting rid of things, its just taking the time to actually go through it all.

I start with the bedroom since that is where things tend to accumulate fastest. I use under bed storage boxes, a trash can and a donate bag. EVERYTHING in the dresser comes out. I just pile it on the bed. I then go through each item and decide A)Is it worthy of keeping until next year, B)Is it salvageable and will someone else like this? C) Is it trash? I then throw these items into the respective container. Now, you have to make this fun so set the containers around the room and play basketball with your items, roll them up and jump hoop them across the room (also fun for kids). After this task is done, maybe 30-45 minutes, immediately put the containers where they belong, otherwise you may be tripping over them for the next few weeks (uh, gee no I havent been there).

My office is next, I started that yesterday. 2 trash bags (recyclable, garbage), 2 boxes of giveaway's, 1 giant pile of "shreddable's" later, I am getting near completion. Of course I have to make this fun too and since my husband loves his new super, duper, indestructible shredder, that pile is saved for him. I like to treat that stuff as paper airplanes tossing them "Shred it baby!" In the box of giveaway's I have 2 CD towers that are full of software that is no longer useful to me. Not sure where the CD's are going but the towers are going to WEAVE thrift store. There is a desk lamp I don't use anymore, some file boxes and bins (since I am going totally green and paperless, I don't need space for them anymore. yeah). All of my contact information ie; business cards, flyer's, etc. get entered into my contact database file and then tossed. I have DVD's and Thumb drive's I need to send to client's. Those are sitting in my 'out' box. Wow, this is looking like a nice place to work again! It is 11:00 AM, I am done organizing for today. Well, I still have vegetables to plant....