Post-Christmas purge

Confession: I am a piler. I aspire to be neat and tidy, and I have bought more bins and storage boxes than I can count, but I always go back to piles. Teetering piles of books on my dresser, piles of cooking magazines in the kitchen, piles of laundry on the basement couch. Clutter makes me crazy, yet I cannot seem to stop myself from contributing to it.

Further complicating matters, I am a piler raising a saver. No one treasures their treasures like Tiny does, and woe be to anyone who tries to toss out an old tub toy that's gone moldy or one of her many toothbrushes or a plastic treasure from the dentist's office or a fast food lunch. She has fished the same old Lego bin (replaced by a giant bin big enough to hold our full Lego collection) out of the trash twice now, and she has cried about it both times. Last night I found a ribbon wrapped around the knobs on her dresser, a ribbon that came wrapped around one of her daddy's new dress shirts.

"I found it in the trash," she told me when I asked her where it came from, "but I am using it and it is NOT trash."

I should have known.

Between the new wave of toys and books Christmas brings and my end-of-year desire to banish my piles and all the other clutter in the house so we can start the year off fresh and clean, I've arranged a post-Christmas charity pick up the last few years. Things we've outgrown get new homes, space is cleared for new things and most importantly, we round up old junk that needs to be tossed or recycled.

The charity truck picked up six bags on Wednesday, and we threw out quite a few things, including several tub toys gone dark with mold, three tiny frayed toothbrushes, and many, many plastic tidbits. So far Tiny has noticed just two missing tub toys, but after being presented with two new (and thankfully mold-free) toys she hasn't asked about them again.

Could this be the year I finally conquer my piles and stay organized? I hope so. But only if I remember to put the trash outside and out of reach of my little saver.