Packrats

I have moved 4 different times in the past 5 years and this one is definitely the biggest pain in the butt, packing wise. All other times we used a U-Haul and/or my dad's truck. We were going to get a U-haul this time, but then decided to go through a moving company because we figure the extra cost is worth not having the hassle of packing/unpacking it ourselves, driving it and paying for the gas for 3 days, plus having to get someone else to drive our 2nd car and pay for their hotel/flying back expenses. But the cost of moving stuff per weight + all the additional "fees", plus the size of the apt we're moving to is forcing us to REALLY cut down on what we're keeping....

And it's making me realize how much of the "trait" I've inherited. My mom is a classic hoarder. Not as bad as most that you see on those TV shows, but it's pretty bad. And I can tell from my other relatives that the justifying of "holding on to things" definitely runs in our family. DH and I used to be pretty messy and lazy and so with the first couple moves it was like just shove random things in a box and take it along. A couple years ago, I finally went through my closet and gave away a lot of clothes-some I'd had since high school! And then last summer I did some serious heavy-duty cleaning out of everything, throwing away unusable stuff, donating un-needed clothes and other stuff, and neatly organizing everything else. I was pretty proud of myself but for the last couple days I've been going through more stuff and been thinking, why did I decide to keep this? For example I had THREE file boxes of papers. One has the most current stuff and I use that but discarded some older things we don't need. But the other 2- well one of them had papers from when I was a freshman in college: why did I keep that??? And I talked DH into helping go through stuff because he kept a lot of papers and notes from college. He got rid of a lot but still wants to keep some. 

Then I'm making some tough decisions about things to keep- whether or not the "sentimental value" is worth the space it's taking up. For example some gifts that I never used, and most likely never will get to or want to, I'm donating. And then yesterday I decided to throw away stuff from my wedding box- I kept the guestbook, napkins, and flower petals (oh and my mom insisted she pay to get my wedding dress preserved so that helps a little with space) but got rid of the unity candle, cake topper, things like that. I know they're supposed to be "keepsakes" but I decided it's just not worth it. 

We've given away a LOT of stuff but I feel like we still haven't made much of a dent in anything. Tomorrow DH wants to go through the kitchen and thinks we can "make everything half." But as we both love cooking, I can definitely see this being an issue. We already had a tiny spat about which big stew pots to throw away. DH says "we're getting rid of everything we don't use" but the tough decision will be about a few glass serving dishes that we have never used, but they were a wedding gift from my friend who died a couple years ago. I don't know if I can let go of them.