Taming the Junk Monster

Do you know why I love baskets so much? I wish I could tell you it was because they’re made from natural materials and reuse found items or come from a renewable resource.

No, I like baskets because they’re a pretty way to store junk you don’t exactly know what to do with.

As I’ve told you before, my home is more chaos than order. And as a working mom, there are many piles of things I had meant to do something with but just never got around to it. The bigger baskets are wonderful to keep in each room so you can throw things in them for years at a time and then forget you even owned these items. So my goal this past month was to purge the junk and find as many ways to repurpose it as possible so as not to have it all end up in a landfill.

There is a basket on my dining room floor that originally was meant to hold decorative cloth napkins so that you could see the pretty colors even when the table wasn’t set. Last week I put the basket up on the table to see what was in it now. Here’s what I found:

3 DVD’s (two of which had no cases)
14 pens
6 pencils
1 Tiger Beat magazine from 2007
1 yo-yo
1 unwrapped Tootsie Roll (at least I hope that’s what it was)
1 deck of cards minus the king of spades.

Oh, and at the bottom, the unseen, dust covered, cloth napkins

Unload any of the dozens of baskets in my house and you’ll find a multitude of carnival prizes, birthday goodie bag treats, missing puzzle pieces, and unfinished crafts. Most of it, just junk.

My husband, bless his heart, suggested having a garage sale. I can’t think of a darker place in hell to be than sitting in my garage taking the time to dust off and mark a bud vase for 25 cents that no one will buy because they have 18 of them sitting in their own baskets around their own house. Nope, for me garage sales are a lot of work for very little pay off. But hey, if it works for you? Have at it!

Here’s how I tackled the Gang Green junk monster. First step is to send the kids with my hubby to the pool for the day so they don’t know I’m ridding them of the burden of Happy Meal toys they never played with in the first place.

Next I grabbed all the grocery bags from my own personal plastic vortex in my laundry room which is one big shopping bag stuffed full of hundreds of small bags. The Kroger bags were for paper recycling. That included the 51 card deck I found and the 3 Christmas cards left in the box, and puzzles with missing pieces, et cetera.

The Wal-Mart bags were for the Salvation Army donations. Home dec items I never put up. Picture frames I didn’t fill. One ceramic goose (don’t ask).

The Target bags were for all the small toys that were never that loved. This would make a sad Disney/Pixar movie but honestly, it’s them or me. Broken went in the trash. Then, I filled up my sink with soap and hot water and soaked all the usable toys so I wouldn’t stay awake at night wondering if germs from the last bout of bronchitis ended up on a Slinky somewhere.

Then it was time for distribution. The seven Kroger bags went into my own recycling bin. Then I headed for the Salvation Army drop-off with 5 Wal-Mart bags. Don’t forget the receipt for tax time! Then I stopped at my dentist office and donated a bag of toys for the “Treasure Chest”. Next, I headed to the doctor’s office with more treasures for the waiting room. Then I took the rest to the elementary school where teachers give them as rewards.

When I returned home, there was a big “Yay Me!” welling up inside of me and since everyone was still at the pool I high-fived the dog. He wasn’t nearly as excited as I was. But with the junk purged I had a new lease on life so I rearranged the living room furniture just for fun. When I moved the couch, I looked down to find the king of spades looking up at me. So I threw him in the nearest basket. Don’t worry, I’ll get to him soon.