FauxSteMarie

Throw stuff like that out when they are not looking. Chances are they won't miss it for 2-3 years. When they are rooting around looking for it then, inform them you tossed it 2 years ago. It will hard for them to get angry when you tell them you tossed it long ago.

Two years after I cleaned out the house of kid stuff, my son looked for his Alf. It was gone. I offered to get him another on ebay, but he didn't want one. The fuss ended in about 5 minutes. Other than Alf neither of my kids missed a thing.

susanteach

We just bought a little townhouse and do not have enough storage for all of our books. It was hard, but just yesterday, DH and I went through our books and decided to sell all but the hardcover books suitable for display in our new wall-length bookcase.

We are set to have our first ever garage sale in two weeks! We'll only throw away what doesn't sell.

brandie346

Eight or nine years' worth of Time Magazines.

Croque_Madame

Well, I can't throw away any of my Paris books, which have expanded to fill two shelves. 13 year old grandson, who's been to Paris with me twice, has already laid claim to the whole collection as the only inheritance he wants when I go to that Great Patisserie In The Sky. (Granddaughter's got dibs on the cookbooks.)

I so love reading the travelers' tales, or browsing through the big photography books, catching glimpses of ordinary Parisians frozen in a moment of their lives, unaware of the camera's eye or the viewer's subsequent scrutiny.

I love the black and white photography books that compare images of street corners, buildings, neighborhoods, "then and now", citizens paddling through the streets in time of flood or hurling bricks in protest, or just leaning contentedly toward one another, head to head on a park bench in the sun, murmurring beneath their hats.

I love the biographies, the histories of turbulent times. The descriptive letters sent home from Paris over the centuries by visitors scrowling in disapproval or giddy with unexpected discovery. I love the archaic language, the convoluted phrasing, the time devoted to the notation of detailed observance.

I love old faded postcards with abbreviated messages from tourists who have no idea that today other people are reading what they wrote to Great-Aunt Gertrude so long ago, when they were young and enthralled. I try to patch the hastily scrawled clues into stories, imagining the rest of their lives, how things turned out for them.

My grandson needn't fear any scattering of his promised loot. Paris as it was, Paris as it is, Paris as I may find it next time, is in those books and too deeply in me.

LoveItaly

Ah Nina, another thing I have never tossed, Croque_Madame's post reminded me, and that is hundreds of postcards that I have received over the decades from Europe. They are very precious to me. I also have all the letters sent to me from various friends in Italy, again going back decades. I am very sentimental.

Sue_xx_yy

Nina66, I am topping an old thread with which I think you can identify "Purging Travel Paraphernalia..."

Nina66

Sue, thanks for topping your thread, it's hysterical. All packrats should read it.

Nina

FauxSteMarie

Just remember, when you clean up the house, it will make eventual downsizing much easier. Almost all of us will have to face that day.

And, if you kick the bucket before downsizing, it will be easier for your heirs to throw it all away anyway.

We all have a right to our possessions only for a certain period of time after which they move on elsewhere.

SB_Travlr

Too right, FauxSteMarie. I spent a month in England last year clearing the family house so it could be put on the market. Both parents were packrats, so rejected my efforts to downsize while they lived. (And it was their stuff, after all.)

I came away from that with two things:
1. A resolution not to saddle my children with that eventual task, so simplify while I have my wits about me (well, most of them anyway!) and
2. Realization that it's much easier to purge someone else's possessions than your own... We started on our attic (done) and garage (a work in progress). Still lots to do -- project for eventual retirement, maybe? Maybe it's time for a professional organizer?

rex

<<Nina66, I am topping an old thread with which I think you can identify "Purging Travel Paraphernalia..." >>

..."topping" only works for a few hours. Providing the URL works forever.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...2&tid=34722265