Townhouse Living

The amount of work I have to do always seems to expand or contract to fill the time I have in which to complete it.

I've been wondering lately if that is also the case with the amount of crap I have -- that it expands or contracts to fill the space I have. This morning I started trying to clean out our spare room, which is connected to the guest room, and therefore makes quite the bad impression when people come to stay. I've basically tossed all my random crap in the spare room.

Steve has the basement for his crap, but I don't really have a place for mine. Still, that's no excuse -- I don't like to see myself as a hoarder. I have a pile of purses in the spare room that I'm probably never going to use again. I should at least weed those out. The biggest issue is CDs. I listen to music on my iPod now -- I haven't bought a CD in years. I have 100s of CDs that are covered in dust. I've already ripped the songs I like from them and saved them to my computer. Do I throw out the CDs? Sell them on eBay (too much trouble)? Donate them? Stick them in a few boxes and put them in the attic until we move? And then put them in the next attic?

And what about my 1988 Technics component stereo? Apparently they don't make them with that kind of power anymore, my audiophile friends say. It also has a cool turntable. However, I haven't really used it in years. It's a waste of space. But they don't make them like that anymore, right? What if it's worth something someday? Even though it gets all staticky while I'm changing the volume. I can't even use the excuse that I need to own a turntable -- my dad bought us a combo turntable/CD player last Christmas. The gift still sits in its box in the basement -- no place to put it.

I'm paralyzed by this situation.