I'm Stuffed

Three years ago, Chris and I decided that we needed more space. Not space as in away from each other, space as in a bigger house. It's not that we added to our family or had someone new living with us or were living in a small house. We just had accumulated too much stuff for our current home and needed a bigger house to put it all in. So we moved -- literally -- ten doors down (on account of not wanting to be away from our dear friends who were living next door), and we settled into our new home, which gave us two more bathrooms, an additional bedroom, and a TV room upstairs.

We were convinced three years ago that this would be enough space to accommodate us until the house was paid off.

In preparation for receiving a foster child in the near future, we are moving ChellBell into the "mother-in-law suite" (seriously that's what it's called) in the back of the house, where she'll have more room, more privacy, and her own bathroom (now see why it has that name?). Up to this point, that area has been our Stuff Room.

Oh, you're not familiar with that term? A Stuff Room is like a junk drawer, but just much, much bigger. It's the holding pin for things needing to go into the attic or needing to find a home somewhere in the rest of the house. It has been a storage area for all of my fabrics, which could rival Joann's, along with scrapbooking needs (funny, I don't scrapbook...), frames that either need to be filled and hung or given away, old black and white photos from my grandmother, boxes from the American Girl store and Build-A-Bear, work out equipment, and a few lamps (I'm obsessed by lamps. Seriously, I have more lamps than shoes. Enough said).

With this time off from work, of which today is the last day, I decided to start sorting through the Stuff Room and get ChellBell's things transitioned. I've successfully cleared out the room and gotten most of her furniture moved in.

But the stuff... well, the stuff hasn't found a new home yet, and is now just strewn about wherever there is space for it. Which is driving Chris crazy. Understandably. He even asked if we need a storage facility. That's scary. Three of us living in this house, and we're contemplating storage.

Stuff is a funny thing. I'm not very good at throwing certain things out, because I'm convinced I will need it at some point. And usually I do, in fact, need it right after I throw it away. I have a really hard time ridding of anything that ChellBell has made or written. Plus, I have this habit of accumulating fabrics and evidently scrapbooking papers and stickers and stuff that looks pretty on the shelves but has no practical use in my already-far-too-committed life.

So the stuff will probably end up in the Goodwill pile. And the recycling pile. (Just giving you a heads up if you need any new lamps, because the local Goodwill should have a fantastic selection by this weekend).

I envy those of you who have this natural ability to organize, throw out, and effectively use your space without the need for a stuff room. Please tell me -- WHAT IS YOUR SECRET?

Oh, I know... You have storage, don't you?! ;-)