Chipping Away at the STUFF

Back in November, I wrote about my plans to clear out the office closet before this year's (American) Thanksgiving, and making calendar reminders to work on it monthly. I've done some work, but haven't done a ton so far; this weekend, I decided to take another stab at it. 

Again, my plan isn't to get rid of everything, but to assess everything, since just looking at what's in there, I can tell there are things that can go. I moved here coming up on eight years ago (!), and there are things I moved down here with and haven't looked at since.

My first stop was the shelf above the hanging space. This morning, it looked like this:

Yes: a mess of stuff. You may notice there are no hangers below, other than the hanging sweater holders: I moved all the hanging clothing into my mother's (enormous, walk-in) closet to assess those there before moving anything back in, once the space is ready. I've worked on that here and there, but that part of the project isn't quite done. 

Almost all of the clothing that was on that shelf, and a number of purses/bags, are going to the thrift store:

Here's what the shelf looked like after that:

I'm keeping some Bruins sweatshirts, even though I don't wear them often; also keeping the hat, and a few purses/bags. I decided not to tackle the photos/albums, nor the bag of journals and date books. Not today! Can't do it all in one day, as my back and my hands like to remind me (ow).

Then I took another look at that space, and at something in the closet below it that could go up, and now it looks like this:

Cat carriers belong up there!

I'm not going to lie, I have miles to go on this project. But this was a good day's work. My hands are glad that I stopped when I did, but I can feel good about this, and do more another day.