The Utter JOY of Cleaning

I must say, I like cleaning...NOT...

Don't get me wrong, there's a beautiful sense of peace that seems to just spring forth from a cleaning job, well done.  It is what is driving the whole "Minimalism" craze right now...and I'm all for it.

But the process of GETTING THERE...that's another matter.

When you were raised by dust bowl survivor parents who saved and reused just about EVERYTHING, its hard to get a good head of steam built up about cleaning.  When I moved my parents a few years ago now, and found the infamous "can-o-nails," it struck me that part of my problem is my upbringing.  I was told, from a very young age, that you saved and reused EVERYTHING...not just the stuff most likely to actually be useful...EVERYTHING...

So when I grew up, I too saved everything.  Books (17 full height bookcases loaded to the gills with 11,000 pounds of books and magazines).  Electronics (I have a separate HOUSE just to hold all the dead VCRs, TVs, etc. that MIGHT be useful).  Wood (I recently had to throw out some that had fell victim to rot).  It just didn't matter.

This is the level of unlearning that I must go through.  Several other bloggers have outlined some very simple rules that I've been trying to put into practice over the last few dozen hours of intense work.

• If you've not looked at it recallable history, toss it.
• If you are unsure of something, put it in a box and mark it with today's date.  Seal the box and store.  If you don't reopen to box in a month, you probably didn't need it in the first place.

But part of my heart is still bound up with this stuff.  My books, for instance, are crying out "give us to the library for their collection."  Ah ha, I said, a good plan.  However, upon talking with the local library folks, they have an internal process where three folks in any one department review any incoming book.  It has to pass mustard for all three of them before it goes on the shelf.  Otherwise it is off to the "Friends of the Library" sale.  <<sigh>>  I just cannot have my books out of my house and still accessible in the library I guess.

That's part of my pain.  Here in southern Oklahoma there just isn't a good market/outlet/etc. to donate most of this stuff to.  I'd love to have a "Maker's Space" somewhere near by, that I could offload most (if not all) of my electronics stuff (both the new stuff as well as the dead VCR's and the like).  I'd love to have my library, pretty much EVERY LAST book, be granted placement in someone else's public library space nearby (so I could use it when needed, but didn't have to personally store it all).

Further, as this end of the state doesn't even have a e-Waste disposal facility, all I can do (sadly) is toss it in the dump.

Sad.