I have a basket sitting in my living room that houses a tower of my children’s schoolwork. Throughout the school year I ooh’ed and aah’ed as my kids pulled the papers out of their folders, then tossed them on top of the growing tower. Now that the school year is over, it’s time to do something with that tower. It’s time to purge.
I promised myself that I would keep only the most unique artwork, the funniest writing assignments, and the schoolwork that showed off my kids’ academic progress. But when I finished examining each paper to determine whether it would land in the “save” pile or the “recycle” pile, I discovered I had failed miserably at my attempts at purging. The sentimental sap that I am, I wanted to save everything!
My mom saved everything that held the slightest sentimental value from my childhood. Yearbooks, charm bracelets, dolls, t-shirts, a suitcase filled with half-naked, half-melted Barbies. Those items, alongside buckets of my brother’s Legos and Matchbox cars, took up valuable real estate in my parents’ attic until my parents got sick of them and passed them on to me (where they now take up valuable real estate in MY attic).
Unfortunately, I can’t save everything like my mother did. I can’t save all of my kids’ schoolwork and all of their cutest outfits. I can’t save the dollhouses and stuffed animals and Thomas the Tank trains and Barbies. We are a military family after all, destined to PCS multiple times before we reach our final destination. It’s simply unrealistic and impractical to think I’m going to lug all that stuff from house to house to house until my children are old enough to inherit them.
As I sit here and look at the pile of my kids’ schoolwork that didn’t make it to the recycling bin, I can’t help but think of all the purging I’ll have to do when it’s time to PCS again. I know it would make my life a whole lot easier in the long run to tackle the PCS purge gradually, to get rid of unwanted stuff now, long before the PCS — instead of waiting until the movers arrive.
With that in mind, I guess I need to revisit that tower of schoolwork and do a bit more tossing. I might even keep going and start bagging up all those Transformers my son hasn’t touched in years or the puzzles my daughter has outgrown. And sorry, Mom, I think that Strawberry Shortcake house you’ve kept in your attic since the 80’s might soon be on eBay.
Do you wait until a move to PCS purge your unused junk or do you tackle the PCS purge gradually?
About Heather Sweeney
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I have been doing it gradually… I keep finding new stuff to throw or give away. I went through everything about 2 months ago, and now I have gone through it again. I have realized a lot of the stuff I wanted to keep I hadn't touched since the first time I went through, and I didn't really need it.
I am currently trying to figure out how to organize everything for the packers so everything I want together, will be. I wish I could pack most of the stuff myself, and then just have the movers take it, but insure everything I pack!!
With kids I do it every couple months with their clothes and toys. But still do a huge purge/sale before PCSing. And now that we have arrived, doing it again. Because even though I had stuff grouped and organized they still dumped and mixed. So we are currently going through every little thing we own and purging some more. Helps that we don’t have a garage to hide, I mean store stuff in. And I want to be able to walk in my hose without tripping over or running into a brown box!
One way to keep all the school art is take photos of it. That way you can get rid of the paper and have a photo that you can later print out and put into a scrapbook for the children. You could even do that with the toys. Another thing to do would be to journal about the toys, art, etc.
Kids are work is scanned put in a folder on my external hard drive when the folder had 50 pieces of art work they go into a photo book and printed. One of each kid. Perfecto! Easy less clutter and a great memento as they get older!
Whitmartin- so you PRINT OUT pics of art work??!! I haven’t replied to ANY comments on the web in like 3 yrs, but holy moly that is really, um, unique.
I print in hard cover book form like from snapfish or mpix.com
I scan and take pictures of what I want to save which is almost everything. Then I can feel like I am saving it, I have record of it but I don't have the actual item anymore. Digital scrapbooking so I have the files to be viewed whenever. I will probably drop a fortune in getting everything printed in books after he retires and we stop moving but for now a flash drive and CD/DVD's take up far less room and I can keep them in a fireproof box.