I posted the above picture on Flickr yesterday, with the following text:

"I have a walk in closet in my room, which has gone largely unused because it just got stuffed full of junk when I moved in. I decided a while ago that it needed cleaning out, and finally managed to get to it today. It generated a huge bag of trash, a huge bag of recycling (magazines and the like), and about half a box of stuff I'm putting on freecycle. It also yielded a bunch of stuff I'd forgotten about or had been missing. I'm excited about having more closet space, and a second dresser which was unburied in the process."

I started to elaborate, and thankfully remembered that my mom sees my flickr, and removed some of what I had written and decided to post it here instead.

(Aside: Brad and I were talking recently and I was saying that I had turned into such an irregular blogger, and he was saying that flickr seemed like a better medium for me, especially with the daily photo project, because it's picture and backstory in one, and to some extent I think he's right)

The walk-in quickly became the catch-all for any mess I didn't have time to deal with before someone would be seeing my room- be that friend, housemate taking care of a cat, or a date- just stick it in the closet and deal with it later. But I've been in this room for a little over 2 years now, and all that stuff adds up. I knew there was stuff in there that needed to be thrown out, stuff I wanted to give away on freecycle, and I knew there were a coupe of boxes that I had no clue what was in them.

I found stuff I'd been missing- my Barnabas Project baseball cap, my snow hat and gloves, several summer pj tank tops, and a couple of pairs of shoes. Also some postcards I'd bought, some books I'd been meaning to read, and half a box of unmatched socks (which, when added to my other half box of unmatched socks, yielded more than a few complete pairs).

I also found stuff I'd forgotten about- a funky spice rack I bought like, 2 years ago, a vase set that I LOVE but has been packed away since I lost my job back in 2003, a box of halloween candy that is at least 2 years old (went straight into the trash), and a pregnancy test (unused, but also expired, so I threw it out too). It was that last item, when I read it in my flickr posting made me say "oh, um... I should change that, my mom reads this." Because I didn't really feel like fielding that phone call...

I'm excited to finally have the closet in useable order (well, after my sister's visit this weekend- it's going back to being the hiding place for a few more days)- I'll be able to hang up all my SCA clothes, keep all my luggage in one place, and actually put all my shoes away in a close without fear that the closet monster will eat them.

Nice job! I've been doing that recently, what with putting our house up for sale and all. It's not fun.