Day Two of the 500 Pound Declutter - Old Work Stuff

I am not sure how long this pile has been sitting on the floor next to our buffet, but suffice it to say, it's been awhile.  I think it somehow came out of hiding when Brian started to open the clinic.  Now this isn't as bad as it was.  Half of the pile disappeared this morning when Brian took various journals, papers, etc. to the office to him.


But here is where I started this morning.

Lovely, isn't it?  Mostly old work stuff.  Piles of clippings, releases, pitches and who knows what else.  My personal favorites were the tennis and ping pong ball accents (no, not from work, those were the boys additions to the decor).  Extra lovely.

I dug in and started thinking about it.  I really didn't think I needed to keep much of this stuff at all.  Okay, the balls went back into the kids sports stuff, but the rest of it, I was starting to think it was just stuff. 

And then I opened my old portfolio.  The one I took with me when I went to get my first job.  I opened it up and this is what I found on the front page.

Mind you, that hasn't been the name I put at the top of a resume for more than 13 years.  And the address I had listed?  Well that would be my old sorority stomping ground.  Good thing I never quickly pulled this puppy out while running to an interview over the years.

I turned the page.  A reference letter.  From 1994.

 

Seriously?!  Molly, Molly, Molly, if you had to rely on a reference letter from 1994 any time soon, God help you.  That was it.  Just what I needed to see to know I was done.  99% of the pile (the 1% being the two balls) was tossed or recycled.

But not before the telltale weigh in.

18 pounds!

18 totally unnecessary pounds.  Gone. (If only it were this easy to take pounds off a body.)
So, for the two days, so far, I have knocked off 23 pounds total.  477 to go.

And the corner is clean.