My daughter, Jenna, is a born pack rat. I swear, from the time she could walk, she has been collecting odds and ends in little containers and backpacks and boxes. Even now, at age 11, she has an aversion to throwing things away, which needless to say, does not go over very well in this house.
Today, since it was rainy and windy and a terrible day to do anything but stay inside, I knew exactly what we would do. I went upstairs with a large, black plastic garbage bag and managed to convince Jenna to put down the 3rd book in the Twilight saga (which she is reading for, like, the 4th time… at least she is reading is what I keep telling myself) so we could get rid of stuff.
We started at her desk and managed to work our way through the magazines, books, chapsticks, body lotions, notebooks, cosmetics, hair products, wallets, bags (yes she is her mother’s daughter), and nail polishes. That was just her desk mind you. Her dresser top was covered in so many earrings and bracelets and necklaces (plus more chapsticks and bags) that we had to spend a good 45 minutes just unsorting them.
The 1 black plastic garbage bag proved insufficient… if you must know, we filled 4 of them. A few things, though, Jenna would not throw away. We now have a purple bin filled solely with body lotions. And for her vast collection of chapsticks, we used a large cosmetics bag (it is so stuffed we cannot zip it closed). But she refuses to part with a single one of them.
Jenna is now depressed because her room looks so bare. And I am ecstatic for the same reason.