No. That is not “Eek a mouse”. Or “Eek a snake”. That is “Eek…the dreaded crawlspace!!!”
You know what they say about the best laid plans, right? Well, I wanted to garden but the weather had other ideas this weekend. We did get quite a bit done on Saturday despite off and on showers. I got the annuals planted, the rest of the flower beds cleaned out and about half of the mulch spread. Steve power-washed the deck and the patio, as well as all the furniture and all 3 cars. :p He also put down that weed-b-gone stuff and used the string trimmer on all the edges. It was alot of work, but it looks great and the pollen is finally washed away.
Now today…IF Mother Nature had cooperated, I would have done more mulch, walked in the park with friends, finished setting up the downstairs furniture and enjoyed coffee on the deck. But she had another idea in mind…apparently the same idea she has for the NEXT 7 DAYS!!! Grrrrr. So it was indoor projects today.
As I told you all, I have been a bit lax on my decluttering. And I’ve really gotten away from the whole concept of “27 things” at a fling. And I really really REALLY needed to get up into the crawlspace. We have a large indoor very dry crawlspace that is a great storage area. I try to keep one step ahead of the clutter up there, but its not always easy. In fact, this very space is what inspired my first round of decluttering in 2002, when I went to put the Christmas stuff away and couldn’t fit it all in. Its been much better these past years, but one of the things we store up there is old papers, stuff you need to keep for 3-7-10 years but really don’t need unless you get audited or refinance your house. So…it was time. Way past time.
Up I went. The issue with the crawlspace is its over the kitchen and only accessable by ladder, which means its sort of an event just to get up there. I always take my cell phone with me in case the dogs knock the ladder over and I get stranded. I can always call 911. 
I took with me my small little pile of papers to store. I am actually sort of organized up there…a box for school stuff, a box for legal stuff, a box for financial stuff…ummmm.
Yeah.
Again, I ask the question, WHY do we keep all this stuff? The same question I’ve been asking over and over as my project moves on. Car repair bills from cars we no longer own. Checkbook registers from the dawn of time. Paystubs from jobs that no longer exist. In fact, the first two numbers of the year on them wasn’t even “20″.
And so, out it all went. Now I have a large box filled with stuff to burn, and another bag of papers with no ID on them is in the dumpster.
This job took me the better part of the day. OK, so I did some baking, Facebooking and napping in between, but really, this was a huge project.
Is it done? Not really. See, I still need to go through the boxes that contain the memorobilia of our parents and our lives. I don’t want to throw this stuff out. What I want to do is sort it and figure out someway to honor and cherish the memories. But this is a project for another day.
So this week I will start a fire in the outdoor fire place and put the last of the paper brigade to rest. I promise, no, I swear, I will never let it get this bad again. Its a lesson learned.
