And so it begins.  The massive disaster that is packing our house.  My sister came up to help us for three day, packing our kitchen, dining room, hall closet, and Robbie’s room.  That left me with the basement.

Oh, the basement.  Where I came face-to-face with my cleaning strategy for the past five-and-a-half-years.  You know, the old throw-everything-in-a-box-and-put-it-in-the-back-of-the-basement strategy?  Except, after so long, there was no more back of the basement.  In fact, everything had crept pretty darn close to front of the basement.

There were bins upon bins upon bins.  And boxes.  And bags.  And random things on the floor.  Baby clothes that brought back memories of my sweet little boy.  Christmas decorations from my childhood and my grandmother’s house.  Student work samples from my first teaching job eleven years ago.  Junk mail from 2006.  W-2’s from 2001, 2005, 2006, 2010, and 2011.  My birth certificate.  Robbie’s birth certificate.  You know, the usual stuff you find in a basement.

Three bags of baby clothes went to a student who just had a little boy.  A carload went to the curb and slowly disappeared over the next several days.  A carload went to GoodWill.  Four huge boxes of paper were recycled.  Oh, and eight large garbage bags were thrown out.

There are still two bins to go through because, well, I kind of used that I’ll-throw-everything-into-these-two-bins-to-sort-later strategy.  I’m hoping to get to “later” soon…