De-junking

I've been really excited for Spring Break.

Not because we're going anywhere cool-- we're not. Not because we're sleeping in-- not doing that either. I'm excited because I rented a dumpster and Spring Break is going to be Spring Purge at the Garrett house. And yard.

Most people move at least a couple of times in the first 15 years of marriage. I have one sister who has had 7 addresses in their 14 years of marriage. Not us. We've lived in the same house for almost 13 years.

Our house is 4,000 square feet. It seemed like a mansion when just the two of us were living here. It is still pretty big for just a family of 5. However, all of that extra storage room coupled with never having to move has left us with a lot of crap.

Hence, the dumpster. (Thanks, Uncle Jeff!)

I've been tossing stuff for three days and it feels great-- kind of like when you eat something bad and you puke it up. You're really tired after, but you feel much better, you know?

So yesterday, I de-junked the boys room, cleaned out the very scary shed, dismantled and tossed the rusted swingset, then got to work digging out the old basketball standard to make way for the new one that the boys got for Christmas.

That little project took 45 minutes of digging, an hour of breaking cement with a 10 pound sledge hammer, and another 30 minutes of cursing while I tried to tip it out. The swear words finally did the job, and I got the dumb thing tipped over.

Just in time to realize that it was way too heavy to pull out of the hole.

I called my dad and Layne and asked for help. However, help was already on the way.

An hour or so later, a couple of darker skinned guys show up in a green truck with a trailer. (I am declining to state their race, as I wouldn't want to post any racial slurs on my blog :-) They asked if they could go through my dumpster to get all of the metal out to recycle it. I said sure.

They took about half of the stuff in the dumpster before I got a bright idea. I told them if they could get the big metal post out, they could have it too. You'd think I offered them $100. (Maybe I did-- don't know how much you get for stuff like that.) They worked and struggled for 30 minutes or so and the job was done.

They were happy, I was happy and Layne and my dad were REALLY happy.

Today, I have a crew here filling up the rest of my dumpster with branches, weeds, leaves and other crap from my yard. (This was my splurge from our fortuitous tax refund.) My yard is looking great, my house is junk-free, and I am one seriously happy camper.