packrat

Between Steven and me, I’m the packrat of the family. In fact, somewhere in this house is the little post-it note where I wrote Steven’s telephone number so I could call him — this was over nine years ago a few days after we started dating. I also tend to keep gift bags, rocks, old school notes, and anything that belonged to my grandparents.

Steven is more of an organizer so he keeps me a bit grounded on the stuff I keep. This is one of the many reasons why we work so well together — overall, he keeps me from doing stupid stuff.

Yesterday afternoon we ran across a show called Clean House, where the premise of the show is they find these cluttered homes with cluttered families and they help them, or sometimes make them, get rid of their old junk so they can make their house look fantastic. Steven and I were amazed to see how clingy people could be with absolute junk.

Halfway through the second episode, I uttered the fateful sentence: “Man, I can think of some stuff right now that I should just throw away.”

Steven couldn’t have been more excited if I had suggested a kinky activity we could do involving honey, chocolate, and the phrase ‘on top of the dryer.’ He jumped up and said, “Tell me what it is, I’ll go throw it away right now!”

It started with a candle (which was what I was thinking of) but we quickly moved into the office and got rid of a mountain of books, gift bags, rugs, and old paperwork. We spent the rest of the afternoon picking out what to throw away or donate. Renton was laid out in the middle of the floor; he was totally in his element of being in as much way as possible.

Steven is still stoked. Plans have already been set to work on our closets and drawers next weekend. He can’t wait to tackle the basement.

I am motivated, too; though I’ll probably have to watch an episode or two of Clean House each weekend to remind me what I’m excited about.

And I’m not getting rid of my rocks.