For ages, my parents have nagged me about the fact that I have a lot of stuff still at their house. They’ve been griping about it for years, but it’s primarily been an issue since they moved into their current house in 2004. It’s smaller than the house I grew up in, which means less storage space. So the fact that I demanded that they keep all of my Barbie dolls, Baby-Sitter’s Club books, and about a bajillion other things from my childhood? Yeah, it’s been kind of a hassle for them. And I get it. But for the longest time, I was living in an apartment, so I had no space for my stuff either. And even after Dave & I got married, what were they going to do, haul all of my crap out to Seattle for me?

Well, now that we have a house in North Carolina (which, OMG y’all, we have a freaking house!!), they’re saying that they’re going to load up a U-Haul and drive this stuff up to me. I’m also getting my Grandmother’s piano (which is so beautiful, and was made in 1910) and a very nice dresser for my guest room, so this is a pretty sweet deal for me.

The only catch? I needed to rummage through all of the boxes of crap so they’d know what to bring to me. Which meant spending a couple of hours in the extremely hot & muggy storage room off the side of their garage, sorting through boxes and labelling what I wanted to keep.

Here’s how that played out.

Toss:
* The box of toys that had molded. Yuck. I don’t need any of it that bad. It was particularly sad because it meant throwing out my Princess Leia Barbie doll as well as my John-Travolta-as-Vinnie-Barbarino doll, but seriously, it was not salvageable. Throw away, move along.
* The Barbie dolls that spent the last 20 years in the attic; their faces melted and their hair got all sticky and gooey. Eww. No need. (I am, however, keeping the Barbie clothes, because OMG there is some awesome 80’s style up in there.)
* My notes from my journalism classes in college. I kept the final papers, but notes I took in class? And random pop quizzes? No. Gone.
* My cassette tapes. There might’ve been a couple of gems in there, but I don’t think I even have a tape player anymore. And do I really need all of those hair metal tapes? Um, no. I can’t remember a single song by either Lillian Axe or Lynch Mob, yet I had both of their albums. Why? I honestly don’t know.

Keep:
* A few treasured stuffed animals that I’d like my kids to have.
* My books. Including school yearbooks. (I also came across an awesome photo album from when I was a kid, so if any of y’all knew me then and happen to be my friend on Facebook? You should be very, very afraid right now.)
* A box of letters and cards from various people over the years.
* All of the old school Fisher-Price little people, including all of their accessories (and dude, did we ever have accessories: the house, boat, schoolhouse, bus, etc. etc.). Catie promptly lost her damn mind over them and has been playing with them all day.
* My grandmother’s old jewelry and perfumes, which made me cry to sort through, because there are just so many memories attached to that stuff (she died in 1996). I honestly don’t want most of it, but it’s such an intense association of her to those things, I can’t stand the idea of tossing or selling any of it. So I’m hanging onto it. At least for now.

Of course, now I’m going to have to try to explain to Dave exactly why my parents are showing up with a U-Haul full of junk at our pretty new house when they come to visit for Thanksgiving. I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to spin that, but hopefully he won’t be too mad.