You know why I love weekends? Aside from the family time, of course, which I look forward to all week - but weekends?

I have freecycled the crap out of the house - figuratively and literally.

It's become sort of an addiction. I've got three more bags of stuff to go, and I spend the morning going through closets and the basement looking for things to get rid of. Seriously - we've accumulated SO MUCH over the years that we've never used, haven't used in ages or don't even know we have. It feels good to get rid of the clutter, and it feels even better that it's going somewhere where it will be appreciated.

We've also cleaned out the coat closets and have a pile to donate to Anton's Cleaners for their winter coat drive, and I've got some new toys ready to go for the Salvation Army Santa drive.

There's just something so cathartic about not just tossing, but recycling. Though I get really irritated at our recycling guys - they come by and assume that since we have so much recycling, some of it must be trash, and they only take half. Grrrrr!

My goal in all this purging is to get down to only what we need and then work on reducing what we use from then on. I know half of this is a control thing - if I have order, I feel some sense of control, and we all know how little control I feel lately - but the other half is really wanting Sammy to understand that something doesn't need to be new to be useful, good and appreciated, and that we have a responsibility to take care of the Earth, if only in our own little ways.