It's time for a serious purge around here!

I am in the process of a serious house cleaning. I have let things pile up for years, and finally I've had enough. We bought a new sofa last weekend that we deliberately asked to be delivered on August 31st...but that is only because there's NO WAY it would get in our house if we didn't give ourselves a huge window.  Last year we had some plumbing work replaced (just old, needed it and wanted to prevent a future issue!) and I had the plumber go through my office wall, which backs up to the bathroom. Because of that, I had to clean out my entire supply closet (invitation and design supplies) literally with 4 hours to do so. I wasn't smart enough (nor did I give myself the time) to sort it before I moved it out, I just piled it up. And then it sat in my living room, dining room and other side of my office til now.  A little over a year later.  I finally decided to do this now in prep for the couch.

I could not even believe how much  I had. I mean, this is like almost a decade of past work overage, none of which was returnable so instead of recycling it I just held onto it in the event I could use it later. Well...later came and went. And never did I find a job that it could work for.  So now I am finally in the process of sorting it to do something with it.  I spent all day yesterday, after doing all the moving I could into the living room from other rooms to contain it at least to ONE room. I sorted all day into the evening. I finally have it relegated to 10 paper boxes. Ribbon. Envelopes. Cardstock. Cover stock. Pocketfolds. And so on.  I also managed to keep an enormous amount of the printed material for past work, I guess in the event I wanted more for my book? I make 5 extra for myself on every job, 4 for the folder, one for my book. Sometimes Ill put 2 in the book, or give one to the reception hall and wedding planners that refer me sometimes, which each have books of my past work (which reminds me...I need to update those...). But they run me about 10-20% overage just in case there's a screwup cut in the bunch or there's some kind of issue, like I mistake the measuring on mounting and have to pull two apart and ruin both...stuff like that.  So I'd say I tossed at least two full boxes in the recycling container too. I felt like I made a TON of progress. 

Today I spent some time sorting my magazines, yet another alarming collection of mine, though I do keep a good track of editing that, I try to never keep more than a year of any fashion mag, and I keep only the best wedding magazines, mostly Martha Stewart and higher end stuff. But that's still staggering.  Lesson I learned today: lift with your legs. Friendly PSA for the masses...