One (Two) Three

The first days are the hardest days. Sort of. Actually Sunday, the very first day was the easiest: I bagged up two grocery sacks full of plastic tubs, deli containers, and bowls plus a bunch of more or less corresponding lids and delivered them to our next door neighbor, who makes big batches of salsa to give away. We are trying to get rid of the plastic in our kitchen, and this was a whole big wad of it gone in one fell swoop. I walked back to our house dusting my hands victoriously, if superflously, and feeling quite pleased with my little project.

Day two was a little hairier. Monday was action packed and I basically forgot about the whole thing until I was nearly asleep for the night. Just shy of twelve o'clock I got back up and paced through the house, looking for something to post on Freecycle, but the things that presented themselves all seemed so...paltry. Why would anyone want a bag of used plastic baby dishes and utensils? A single teddy bear? A free bag of baby clothes sounded better, but there were only four things in there. Not worth the drive. Hey, at least my paltry offerings were better than the one I spotted the other day on Baltimore Freecycle from someone in Parkville offering, and I quote, "A Lot of Dirt."

The problem I faced during that bleary-eyed march through our House Stuffed Full of Stuff was that everything I came across seemed too useful to let go, too necessary to part with. Sure, we have never once used that food dehydrator in the seven years I have lived here, but you never know...I realized that midnight had come and gone and with it my deadline to give an item away in that particular 24 hour period, so I gave up and went to back to bed.

Day three is going much more smoothly. I woke up with ideas for several expropriation candidates and a renewed sense of excitement over getting rid of stuff. First to go on Freecycle: a Fisher Price toy toolbench. We bought it for Jack at a yard sale five years ago before he was even out of the hatch, two bucks. Reason for dispossessing: have upgraded to bigger, nicer Little Tikes toolbench with even more gadgets -- tools, fake wood blocks, giant screws to screw the fake wood blocks together. I'm throwing it out there, let's see if anyone nibbles.