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Show rjaumshells il By BRENDA BAUMGARTNER - A pack rot philosophy 3 I know of only one person who is as big a pack rat as I am. That person per-son is my mother. I grew up in a house that could not throw anything away. Our philosophy was, "Well, I may need it someday." This pertained per-tained to everything from clothes (I still own several size three bell bottoms), to toys (my mother sends my children my old toys, and I can't throw them away because of the , sentimental value), to well, let's just say my family will not throw out anything unless it's made out of paper (unless the paper is in the form of a box, because you never know when you might need a box). The only difference between my clutter and my mother's is that hers is organized. My clutter is spread in a neat layer all over my living room floor. My mother's is filed away in boxes (as I said before, don't throw out boxes, they do come in handy). i. She will ever so often send me a box with a note saying, "Thought you might need some of these things; if not, just throw them out." This is her way of getting rid of clutter without the guilt of throwing anything away. Now it is my clutter, and because I feel I may need the leather clogs, red wig or Jackson Five fan club poster, I will keep it in my closet with the other boxes from Mom. My husband is just the opposite of me. He hates clutter and can throw out anything even if it was his great-grandmother's favorite oil painting that she hid behind during World War I. My husband's constantly coaxing me into having a yard sale. But after our last yard sale, I will never listen to him again. I sold my twin strollers, two walkers, two swings, two cradles and all my tiny, twin clothes. I found out a week later that I was pregnant and, yes, it was twins again. Moving is about the only time I am able to unclutter my life. I get so sick of packing that I ultimately throw out the collection of McDonald's happy meal toys, 20 wmjitrhrd socks, three broken crayons and a pair of lensiess kiddie sunglasses. Unfortunately, my children have inherited my gene for clutter. Because of this I established a new rule in our house anything found on the floor goes into the garbage. They have realized after losing several Cap'n Crunch frisbees that Mom is serious and they had better be more aware of what they leave lying around. A friend gave me another good idea that will help children learn to appreciate their things. Put all items left on the floor in a large plastic garbage bag and then put a price on them. This works especially well with shoes that have been dumped in front of the T.V. "You want your shoes? That will be $1... You want your other one too? That will be another an-other dollar. " Of course, realize that before doing do-ing this that your kids can use this strategy also. Paying money for your dress shoes five minutes before a job interview can be extremely ex-tremely humbling. . I still have boxes of clutter in my storage shed. My husband threatens every week that he is going to dump it all into the front lawn and stick, a "yard sale" sign on it. I have held him off for now by convincing him that some day I'll sort my way through it. You see, I just know that there must be something inside one of those boxes, behind the macrame' plant holder and on top of the puka shells and mood rings, that I will be in desperate need of.. .someday. |