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I was only able to move the various kitchen implements downstairs to shelves in the basement because two weeks prior we had filled six contractor bags full of, among other junk, cat-pee soaked clothing that I had thought for the last two years I would eventually wash in "Nature's Miracle" spray and reclaim. This was just plain silly on my part, but I really liked some of that clothing and couldn’t bear the thought of throwing them away.

I would never have been able to do it if Suzy wasn't standing next to me holding the trash bags open and convincing me that I would never get around to fixing/cleaning/refurbishing whatever item I was fondly holding in my hands. Without her help--as every other time I have attempted this--I would have ended the evening with no filled trash bags, and the pile of whatever I was trying to clean simply placed in increasingly compacted stacks in a different corner of the basement.

The other thing that I needed to get over was the thought of places like Salvation Army and Goodwill being eager to take any old dirty scrap of clothing or broken appliance. Suzy reminded me more than a few times that they probably wouldn't be interested in whatever it was I was going to try to donate. I did wind up with a box destined for Goodwill, but it is considerably smaller than I would have attempted to pawn off on them on my own. The items that remain in the four cubic feet or so are actually clean and useful, just not to us.

I’m amused to find in my blogroll today that coincidentally GTD fan Merlin Mann is doing the same thing.

The job isn’t quite done yet because I still have about 35 shells of old computers that I have collected over the years from various jobs and "technology refresh" programs sitting in a corner. I took these home with the sincere intention of cannibalizing the most worthwhile parts from each and creating usable computers running Linux or some other operating system. When I finally got to stacking and sorting them, I realized that there were potentially less than 5 good computers worth of hardware in a huge pile of metal.

They've served no purpose but to be something I needed to step over for the last five years. Baltimore County has an electronics recycling drop-off in Cockeysville for household electronics, so I’m hoping that with each trip of eight to ten computer shells and CRT monitors I can convince them that I'm just a very odd household and not trying to pawn corporate refuse off on them. The only step left between them and the recycle center is remembering to load up the car on the previous night sometime this week.

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