October 15, 2007

So it Turns out I’m a Pack Rat

In anticipation of the holiday season, which will be here before we know it, I decided to organize some closets today. Both closets had a ton of gift boxes and gift bags, bows, and ribbons, and it was a real challenge. I don’t know why it suddenly became urgent to get organized. It reminded me of the whole nesting instinct, except there is no baby on the way. It was probably the coffee, way too much coffee today.

For years now Mr. BBM has been frowning every time I walk in the house with more wrapping paper, bows or gift bags, especially the gift bags. About a year ago, he decided to organize the gift bags. He made a pile of ones to throw away and I put the nix on that and fast. He wanted to throw away my baby gift bags! I don’t throw anything away or give anything away when it has to do with one of my kids. I have every onesie, every outfit, every piece of baby paraphernalia that you could possibly imagine, and yes, that includes the gift bags. My entire neighborhood could give birth to baby girls and I would still have leftover gift bags.

Because my hoard of gift bags has never been organized by me before, I had no idea just how many I had or exactly what I had. So, I’d see a gift bag I liked and buy it. I’m often throwing a gift into a gift bag as I make my way to the party (Procrastinate much? Why yes.) so I have a ton that I swear I’ll use but never do. I never quite understood why Mr. BBM was so annoyed with me about those gift bags.

Today I think I finally get it.

I counted my gift bags, which are all organized now into four bags/categories: holidays, birthdays, baby/wedding, and general. Care to take a guess at how many gift bags I have?

If you guessed 90, you would be correct. I would have had more. I actually threw about ten of them out. What, only ten? Hey, that’s 10%. That’s progress for a gift bag pack rat. Progress, I tell you!

Yeah, I definitely had too much coffee today.

When I was finished throwing out all the trash from the closets (receipts, old gift tags, wrinkled up wrapping paper, bent beyond recognition gift bags), I threw out three full bags of trash. When I decide to clean a closet out or embark on an organization mission, I finish what I start.

Then there are people like my neighbor.

Last week, she decided to clean out her cat’s litter box. She used a hose in her front yard, which is directly beside my front yard. Instead of drying the thing off in the back yard or drying it off immediately and taking it back inside like I would have done, she did this:

That’s her litter box strewn across the sidewalk in front of my house. I had to sidestep in order to get my groceries in the house. This isn’t the first time either, but that’s for another post.

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