Tackle it Tuesday - My Basement!
June 17, 2008 by Karen Weideman
Filed under Tackle It Tuesday, organization
My husband and I have been offered jobs in Eastern North Carolina. On the positive side, this will be much closer to my parents and the rest of my family. The negative part is that this will involve moving, selling our house, and purging through all of our belongings. We have way too much stuff and need to get rid of quite a bit of it!
The place where we will be living will be significantly smaller than the house we live in now. We don’t really need all the possessions that we have. It’s just very time consuming and painful (sometimes) to sort through everything and to make decisions to part with items.
The hardest items for me to part with are my teaching items. I have taught for about 8-9 years (I’ve lost count, lol). As you can imagine, I’ve collected quite a bit of curriculum, craft supplies, musical instruments, math manipulatives, children’s books, and other things along the way. If I go back to teaching, I’m not sure which grade I’ll be teaching. Some of the items I have are expensive and hard to come by. I’m determined though to see this through and to make some sacrifices.
The picture above shows the boxes for my moving sale. Trust me, this is only a small portion of what will be in the sale. Sad, I know. I already have about 10 boxes of things ready. We will be selling furniture, children’s clothes, children’s books, toys, books, knicknacks, and so much more!
This picture is of the other side of my basement.
I can’t believe I’m being this vulnerable and showing you my mess! Notice this picture is not displayed on the front page of Thrifty Mommy. :) This mess is a result of being a mom that is stretched thin. I have a 2 and 4 year old. Getting down to my basement and working is not easy!!!! I can’t begin to tell you the number of times I have started sorting through our things to have a kid at the top of the stairs screaming or crying and shaking the gate. Now we have no gate, so they just come down there with me. I’ll put stuff in the yard sale pile and they’ll start pulling it back out. “Why are you getting rid of this? What’s this for?” Ahhhhh! If only I could afford a sitter. :sigh:
This messy project is for this coming week. Wish me luck! What are you tackling?
images by Karen
LRN
What a big job! My mom said that, every time my dad got stationed at a new base, she was able to purge.
This was first “tackling Tuesday,” and I started WAY smaller than you LOL. This is on my summer agenda…and your right, it is so hard to get rid of stuff. But good luck! This will be a great chance to start fresh
Good luck with moving and your new jobs! It’s stressful, but it’ll be worth it!
I am in Eastern NC and I enjoy your website very much! I am in Greenville! Where will your new location be?
You have a sitter. DH should take the kids out for a few days. Maybe he will get a lot done this weekend while you are gone
What a HUGE tackle! Best of luck with that!!
Congratulations, Karen! Moving is a huge pain but it sounds it will definitely be worth it for you. I hope it goes smoothly and painlessly
I would like to offer a suggestion about the teaching items - I spent close to 10 years teaching in the prison system. my fellow co-workers and I were always glad to receive ANY type of curriculum/teaching supplies. We had students whose abilities ranged from Kindergarten to college and it was always difficult to get a variety of items for such diverse needs on our limited budgets. (For many of the inmates we worked with, prison was the first time they had access to a “quality” education and to staff who had a genuine interest in seeing them succeed academically.) If you decide to donate any items, please think about donating to prisons and/or jails in your area. (It is tax-deductible and numerous studies link lower recidivism rates to educational opportunities.) Thanks for listening!