Culling and Cutting

I keep trying to avoid the news so I don't hear anymore on the raid of the FLDS compound in Texas. Just reading about it makes me ill; I'm terrified for these girls, for what they've experienced and the struggles they'll face in the future.

Yesterday I cleared out half the closets in the house and all my drawers and bagged up clothes and shoes for Goodwill. When AK comes home we'll go through his closet (he never throws anything away) and then I'll feel somewhat settled for spring. I also reorganized all the DVDs, CDs, and my books. I can find things now (you would think someone who works in a library would be better about these things). I've just been feeling so overwhelmed lately by the amount of stuff that fills this apartment. Some of it is needful and useful and some of it is nice to have around, and a lot of it we can do without. There's no point in holding on to clothes I haven't worn in 4 years or books I never read or cookware that friends could use. I come from a family where you either moved every 4 years or you completely went through everything you owned. I know that someday I'll have to look at the three boxes of college and grad school notebooks and photocopies, but not today. Today I am happy that all my Margaret Atwood novels are stacked together and that I can find my work shoes in under a minute.