Stuff never stops

Life around here has been interesting lately. Mostly I’m trying to just catch my breath and let things settle down after the holidays. Because things are still crazy, even though Christmas passed us by more than a month ago.

We live in a nice apartment, with a decent amount of closet space, and yet if we bring anything new into the house, we have a hard time finding space for it.

Our bedroom is the only room that I can justify, and it’s still not great. I have a lot of stuff in my closet that I never use, not to mention stacks of reading materials by the bed. What’s worse is that our closets have now become home to some of our sporting equipment, because … well, we just have a lot of sporting equipment.

The three closets in our hallway are stuffed. Two contain a lot of useful household stuff, like toilet paper, light bulbs, sheets, towels, candles, tools, etc. But the big one? That has a lot of stuff I should probably get rid of. Tons of yarn I want to make into a blanket (or two or three), my trombone that I never play anymore, gift-wrapping supplies even though I almost never wrap gifts, crafting supplies. Sure there are some useful things, like one entire shelf of blankets, much of our canned food supply, and suitcases.

The office – don’t even get me started. My cedar chest is full of stuff from my past. High school, college, my baby stuff, stuffed animals, stuff from my wedding. Bookshelves are full of old law books that I never use and probably will never look at. An armoire full of paper – mostly useless books, high school yearbooks, files for the work I do for my husband’s company, computer paper, photo paper, a drawer full of pictures that need to be organized, and two drawers of random computer stuff (cables, mice, keyboards, blank CDs, power cords, and I have no idea what else). And the closet in there – well, our chest freezer is responsible for taking up a lot of space, plus the skis, biking stuff, rock climbing stuff, a box of winter clothing, and the majority of the rest of our sports gear.

The worst part is our storage closet in the carport – that’s the worst and I absolutely dread clearing it out.

How do I even start getting rid of this stuff? And more importantly, what do I do with it? Who will want 6-9-year-old law books (and has it really been that long since I was in school)? What about all those leftover champagne glasses from our wedding (with our names on them)?

Help! I’m drowning in stuff.