Hidden Treasure

For about a month now, I have been on a mission. Trying to get all of my "junk" sorted. Sorting through old boxes of unorganized madness from years gone by; particularly the year that I moved out of my apartment in a procrastinated panic and just shoved any and everything I could fit into random boxes... only to have them sit for 7 years.

I knew there were lots of important papers in those boxes. Papers with information an ill-intended person could use to rob me of my $115 savings account. And somewhere in those random boxes, I knew there were many little treasures. Some I would want to keep, and many that I would like to hock on Ebay for a quick, and much-needed buck.

Transporting the boxes of junk from my mother's house to my house, led to the typical messy aftermath that seems to occur every time I take on one of these "get your shit together" projects. You know, when you set out to organize the closet, and suddenly your bed is piled high with clothes, shoes are everywhere, and your once peaceful room is now a chaotic disaster?! I can't be the only one who does this...

I was smart enough to bring a couple boxes at a time, in hopes of preventing said disaster. This worked quite well, until I got to my gigantic old hanging file box. Within minutes, my home office desk had disappeared under a pile of papers, old checkbooks, junkmail, homeless office supplies, and appliance manuals. The task became so insurmountable, that I simply turned the light off, and turned my back on the mess for about ten days. After an evening spent cleaning my house, I am proud to say that I have officially conquered Mail Mountain. My desk is not only clear, it has returned to its previously organized state, and was even sanitized.

During my cleaning rampage, I managed to clean out both drawers of my bedside table. Something that had been eating at me for a shameful 15 months! I just could not find time to tackle such a mess! And wouldn't you know, it took me about 20 minutes to sort through, and clean them. Weird stuff was in there. Lots of pizza coupon flyers, casino flyers, and other junk mail. I must have shoved that stuff in there to give a visitor the misconception that I was more organized and tidy than Ms. Martha Stewart herself. Now I'm stuck with an empty bottom drawer. What ARE you supposed to keep in your bedside table? Besides old pizza coupons, of course!

For any of you that haven't figured this out already, the less junk you have, the easier your junk is to manage! And the more organized your junk is... the less likely you are to accumulate more! I'm not quite a professional Junk Manager, just yet, but I'm getting there. Not having a job, and watching the economy sink like the Titanic, makes junk management a necessity. It provides you with a meaningful task, and, if you're lucky, a few bucks from your hocked hidden treasures. The rewards are plentiful. Less chaos. More room for the things you literally treasure, money earned from what you sell and tax-deductible donations, the receipient of your junk actually appreciates it, and you save yourself from buying something you already had, but couldn't locate.

My work here is not done. I still have a box of random treasures waiting to be listed on Ebay, and my Sanford and Son garage will definitely have to be cleaned and organized once Spring finally arrives, but my efforts are paying off. I've made $100 off of my unwanted junk so far, which sadly enough, is a lot of cash to me right now... and each time I open a closet, or a drawer and can actually find what I'm looking for gives me a sense that I'm becoming a real grown-up!