BYE BYE VHS TAPES!

Once I decided that the tapes will all go into the bin it was hard to not run out and dump them right away. I decided to wait as I would rather be left with a few tapes for the next load of trash than with food scraped of plates that has no where to go. It was hard for me and I finally decided that second to last day is good enough. With Pickup early Wednesday morning everything else can sit in the bins in the house for a day if needs be.

So I stuffed them.

Will you look at that. Completely full. Yet, not overflowing. A perfect fit. Yes, I had to pull of the paper covers and put them in the recycling bin. As I did that right away, I figured it is okay.

Here. Proof: 

There is just one problem. I have not come across "The Hunt for Red October" There is no way that I parted with it previously. I really hope it is still at my parents house. Because if it isn't, it is hiding in my attic and there is no way it would be on it's own. It would be with at least 30 friends and this would start all over again!

ATTIC PROGRESS

I am happy to say that I am making progress. Yes. I still need to throw each piece out individually. Yes. It would be so much faster if I could just take one quick glimpse and throw out the whole lot. No, that is not going to happen any time soon.

I went into the attic, opened a box and started throwing things out. I lasted longer than I thought. I also got more out than I thought I would. Unfortunately you can't really tell a difference as the box is still there. It only contains half as much as before, but it is still there. 

A lot of things went that I could not bring myself to toss before. Lots of Fast food chain toys. One would think we eat there once a week. 

I filled up a small carrier bag and got it right out of the house as the trash can was empty. Now it I could only get myself to do this twice a week I'd see progress!

VHS TAPES

I was tempted to say that VHS tapes were "so last season" but I am afraid that's DvDs. And VHS is so much older. A year ago I had a few potential takers still, but when I casually dropped the word on social media about getting rid of them, no one volunteered to give them a new home. I got the message. Thank you. So it is good bye for good. Thanks for the great stories. 

I wanted to keep 1 tape (the one that has our wedding on it) and was a little worried about having to dig through the 2 boxes and whether or not that would shake my determination to get rid of them. I opened the first box and wouldn't you know it. The wedding tape was the first I touched. I took it as a sign.

The next obstacle was that I still nursed the hope that the dumpster divers might pick them up. So I wanted to set them out on the street tonight. I transferred them to card bord boxes and happend to come across Lord Vader. 

For the fun of it I entered the ISBN on the site I use to sell books and wouldn't you know it. They pay me 3.50 for it! I'll take it. Greedy me immediately assumed that there was a fortune to make and I started entering other numbers. Well. After 3 I gave up. Some of these tapes are old enough to not even have an ISBN number. I am proud of myself for stopping after three and some good came from it after all. Nicole's full name and address, yes Nicole, hand me down VHS tapes from YOU! were on the tape. So I scraped them off. 

Now here is the grand ending to the story. Luke abused the tapes as building blocks, he had permission. So after I had written the last paragraph I started to put the tapes back into their individual boxes and found yet another sticker with Nicole's name on it. As I started scraping it off, I thought:"This is totally ridiculous!". It really is. I just grabbed the rest of the tapes and boxes, threw them in a box to collect them and on Tuesday night they are going in the big trash can and that is it. No hoping  that some random soul will rescue them. Even if tow of them are still in their original cellophane wrapping. IT IS NOT WORTH MY TIME! Now THAT is progress!

FACING THE PAIN

I hate feeling stupid. I guess nobody likes feeling stupid. I hate it. When I feel stupid I usually make things worse by telling myself just how stupid I am. I think that might also be the reason why I don't want to face the attic. Everything up there that needs to go is basically a wrong decision. It should have been tossed months or actually years ago but I parked it up there. So every time I threw something out I have to admit I made a stupid decision back then.

I have come to terms with it in as much as the stupid decision was made whether or not I deal with it now. The only thing to make it worse is to postpone dealing with it even more. I have decided I am strong enough to face it now. Actually I decided that about 3 weeks ago and it took until now to actually do it. I picked out a few random things that were thrown into the trash I have upstairs and hauled down 2 boxes full of VHS tapes. Yes. VHS tapes. Next destination. Trash.

MY DAILY BATTLE

How on earth am I to declutter if just half a day of not keeping up on daily chores makes my house look as if it blew up and I haven't done a thing in  3 weeks? It is so frustrating. I really am struggling with this. I used to start upstairs in our bedroom, but then, when we switched rooms with the girls I never really was able to keep it up. I know I have whined about this before. I have finally decided to completely turn things around and just start downstairs. Since the cleaning lady started things have been more under control down here and I think it is the only way to go. Wish me luck and asked me how it went in July.