Marvelous thoughts way past bedtime

I just got my first "small house" book...and oh my god has it given me so many ideas!!! My house is filled with so much crap, and I hate it. The two weeks that Mike and Kaia are gone are going to be filled with editing and scrap booking.

so here's one of my ideas:

when I come across something I love, purely for the memories, but is kept stored away, either because of ugliness or simply no place to put it, I will take a picture of it to scrapbook in a "Memories" scrapbook. Then I will give the item away. Exceptions will include things I want to keep for my children, but really, neither of them will ever want my old Converse high tops from 4th grade that I have kept for so long. But those shoes represent the year I met Andrea. A year of extreme happiness in my childhood. However, I think I also have a picture of myself in those shoes, next to Andrea in her matching ones. A page in a scrapbook with that picture, and a close-up of the shoes, with an explanation, will take up much less room than the shoes themselves, which will never be worn again.

my closet. an area that must tell so much about my psyche. clothes from so many different styles and eras in my life. clothes that are SO HARD for me to give up, though I never wear most of them. Some I don't even like, but keep "in case". In case of what? I suddenly need an illfitting, faded undershirt in a color I don't like? When will that happen? I have plenty in colors I DO like, that FIT. And if I had less clothes, I'd be able to organize them better, and find that shirt that actually fits. I have about 5-6 tank tops that I don't wear. in case, yes, in CASE someday, though I don't now, but someday, I get a shirt that needs that particular style of tank top under it. sheesh.

I have two entire dresser drawers stuffed with clothes that I HAVEN'T OPENED in at least a year. They are clothes that I admitted to myself I don't wear, but I might someday. They are clothes I like, but have no use for now, in my life as a cell-phone selling wife of a college student. Ahhh..but someday I will be the ultrasound tech mother of two brilliant children and wife of a software developer who can choose her own kooky style, and then I will want to wear those clothes often. really. no, really. that is what I tell myself. And I do want to keep a FEW of those clothes. But I might wear them NOW if they were out and visible, taking up the space of those tank tops and disliked undershirts.

I look around my house and feel claustrophobic. I feel suffocated and as if I am about to be buried in all my crap.

I will change this.