Antiheroine

CNN featured  Confessions of a Compulsive Declutterer (originally on Oprah.com) today.  I have to agree with a lot of the commenters that this woman has gone too far, and her behavior is damaging her children and predisposing them to become hoarders. 
Despite the name I've given this blog, and my intent to examine the objects in my life more closely, my "obsession" is a bit of a misnomer, as it is of my own choosing that I am at a point where I desire to overevaluate and document what I am discarding.  I hope for my end result to be a home filled with things I love, unobstructed by things I thoughtlessly failed to dispose of.

Getting Rid of It - 1/30/2012

Today I left this "bookcase" by the dumpster.  I made it about fifteen years ago when I was living in a 280 sq ft studio and the five real bookcases weren't enough.  This was "customized" for whatever bit  of space I put it in at the time. For the last ten years it  has served as shelving in my balcony patio storage space.

  

I left it next to the dumpster in hopes that someone else may get further use out of it.  Maybe I should have sold it on Esty as a primitive?

Also gone, eleven books accepted in trade by the friendly neighborhood used bookstore.  I'd have preferred cash, but I think they are just doing trades now.  I'm planning to watch their inventory for some books I have that I've read until they are falling apart, and actually would be worth replacing.

Another item I "dealt" with is a card I bought two months ago.  The intent was to write a nice letter/note to a high school instructor whose passion for his subject was phenomenal.  I didn't go into the field, but never lost interest completely and I took a very enjoyable class on the topic last fall. So, I bought the perfect card, so I could tell him he'd been a lasting positive influence.  As if it weren't tough enough to compose the damn thing, I decided I need to write it by hand.  So I drafted it on the computer and wrote it out the old-fashioned way.  It wasn't all that long, but probably took me an hour and a half.  Anyway, I'm happy and surprised I got it done, because it is exactly the sort of thing where I would shuffle that card around for years, until it got warped and torn and stained and the intended recipient died, but instead I did it and it is in the mail.