Stuff... and Nonsense

I cleaned out the refrigerator this weekend, and I don't just mean "got rid of the beans that had been in there since April 27," I mean, I cleaned out the refrigerator.

First of all, let me introduce you to our refrigerator. It's a 1951 International Harvester, and it's relatively rare. It's most likely highly inefficient, and I cannot be convinced to abandon it, even given all my sustainable practices. This refrigerator is so cool that Monica and Rachel had one in their apartment on "Friends." The company only made refrigerators for seven years. When it stopped working once, I tracked down a local, independent company that would service vintage appliances, and the guys at the shop practically fought over who "got to" come out and work on an operating International Harvester Fridge.

If you needed any more convincing of the hotness of this cool fridge, it's "Femineered." Just for me.
That's how I looked when I cleaned it out.

The machine was a mess. When we came home from the hospital, it was one of the many things in the house that stood out as being filthy and too full of crap. In fact, when we came home from the hospital, the whole house seemed filthy and too full of crap. I needed to gain control over my environment. Being pregnant had left me tired, and I had just started to get my energy back when I went and had a baby and got tired all over again. But having that teeny little baby and thinking about eventually bringing him into our House of Squalor was too much for me, so I have been trying to find the time to tackle the Mountains of Crap and the Piles of Filth.

By no means do we have a Garbage House. We are not going to wind up on the news any time soon, but we are definitely behind on the cleaning, and I don't know where all the stuff came from. I know that I did not have this much stuff when I lived in an apartment, but it's amazing how stuff expands to meet any allotted size. First of all, I knit and sew and do crafty things, so there are bins and stacks of yarn, fabric, and sparkly bits. Then there's Pete's music, which means much gear, though his does not generally explode in piles of fluff, as my tiara supplies often do.

Beyond that, it's the general Too Much Stuffage from which many people suffer: When will I EVER wear this again?! Where did this even COME from? WHY do I own this? Give me the strength to discard this!!

I have to be brutal and get rid of things. It may sound a bit extreme to be asking the question "will anyone care about this when I die?" but come on, if I have not used it/worn it/cared about it in over a year, what are the odds that someone else in my family will? But someone else in the world might, and that's why humans invented yard sales and The Goodwill.

When it comes to the filth, I blame much of it on the three cats, even though it was not their choice to live with us. It's a land of continuous cat hair and litter bits. I should vacuum every three days, but who wants to do that?

Once you get behind on the cleaning, it's exponentially harder to catch up. The fridge was a first battle in the war. I took a toothbrush to parts of it; I got rid of condiments from the Pleistocene; I defrosted the freezer so that I would have more than 4 cubic inches of storage space. I swear, every time I defrost that freezer, and it takes forever, I vow "never to do this again." And, as with alcohol, that vow never pans out. At least I don't have to worry about the "never again" hangovers.

But I swear, I am going to regularly defrost that frickin' freezer.