Random Cleaning Spree = Disaster (very long)

Yesterday, after I attended a friend's wedding shower, I was suddenly inspired to clean my closet. The condition of my closet has been horrible for about the past half-decade. My closet has a few uses other than just a-place-where-clothes-go. It's also a place to "temporarily" store things after I returned from college, or a place to put snacks to eat later (fat kid!), a place to shove hand bags which I will obvi use later!

Confession 1: my closet hasn't been cleaned by me, ever. When we used to have Hedwig, our gay, black, lazy man maid from Swaziland, he would occasionally go in there, straighten things out. Part of his audition to be our maid was to clean my closet and what a success it was. What I didn't know until about.. 1pm this afternoon was what a lazy sneak he was. I have about 20 year old art supplies stored in the corners of my closet which is a 5x4 room. There were binders and books and trash up on the shelf.

Until yesterday, the only thing I was using in my closet were the bars, which were in danger of caving in. The shelf was stocked full of things I hadn't touched in 5 years and the floor, well... the floor was covered. Like... covered to the point where I had enough room for my foot to go in, balance and then hang stuff on the bars.

These are the things I discovered lay on the floor: a bag of underwear that I put in a trashbag freshman year in college and put in a laundry basket - clean but haven't been touched in 5 years. Notebooks from various classes in college, art supplies (I already mentioned those), a asthma nebulizer, headband making equipment, 20 pairs of shoes, some Chinese phonebooks from 2002, piano books, Chinese books, quiz bowl encyclopedias, pens and papers from GHP 2003, random trash.

Now my primary question is this: what do I do with the binders that I have that are still in good condition? The packrat within shudders at throwing them away! They're still good! They have knowledge inside. I don't want to be wasteful - are they biodegradable? I'm never going to use them again - I should get rid of them, but HOW? Do you want them?

I need to donate my random children's books and romance novels. I have about 350 of them that need to go. Tell me if you want about 325 romance novels and 25 SVH, Animorphs books. Craigslist free stuff anyone?

I'm 12 hours into cleaning and I think I've got about 12 more to go. This is all I've done today. The original intention was to just reorganize my clothing, since I keep discovering clothes that I own that I don't wear, but want to. I have pulled out all of the things in closet and am not in the process of refamiliarizing myself with my own clothes and sorting them into categories. I used to just color code, but then all my black clothes ate each other and I just re-discovered ten things that I own that are black (my favorite color). My friends have helped in suggesting to be how I need to sort them, but I think most importantly what I need to do is build in more closet space - I will do this at the IKEA one day sale on Sunday.

First though, I do need to finish throwing away 20 year old art supplies, 10 year old lotions, and worksheets from 10th grade. I suppose there's no point in keeping my Latin binders anymore. R.I.P. Mrs. Ingram :(

Confession 2. I am a pen klepto - in every bag I own, which is quite a few - 50 is a nice round number?, I have found pens. Dozens of pens. Pens I bought, pens I stole. Pens and markers and pencils and erasers and paperclips...... I am never allowed to buy another pen again. (Speaking of erasers, what to do with my eraser collection?)

I keep finding cute tins full of crap that I was too lazy to sort through in the beginning. I look through them now and I still don't know what to do with them. I feel like the day I realize what to do with all my junk is the day I will finally reach nirvana.

I have accidentally embarked on a journey that will lead me to a better life? and kill my back in the process. Wish me luck.

Progress so far - my handbags!