If Only 10 Simple Rules Were It

Ever notice how magazines love to put teaser headlines on their covers like, "5 ways to make drive him crazy" or "12 easy last-minute meals." MSN.com is a big culprit of using this lure:

10 Men I'm Glad I Didn't Marry Actually, a fun read. And although I've only ever been asked once (and said 'yes, finally! give me that ring!') I can't say I didn't shudder once or twice while reading this article thinking of some bad dates and ex's.
5 Fun Party Hairstyles
10 Good Ideas for the Garden

And if you were about to think that good advice can only come in numbers divisible by 5, there's also 19 Great Mexican Recipes.

While these enumerated lists make it sound so easy for us to transform our lives, I can't think of any one where I've ever crossed every item.

I try. On Sunday, I applied myself to #3 of the Top 10 Organizing Tips From Chez Larsson: Let it Go.

I pay a monthly fee for a storage unit. In it rest things I visit on occasion, but that play no role in my day-to-day life. Mostly, things I inherited.
I can't just toss it all at once, since in a way everything I throw away causes a little pain, like cutting your fingernail too close. To pitch it all at once might make me feel like chopping off an entire finger.
But here is where #6 was reassuring: Own What You Love and its corollary lesson regarding inherited clutter. Jason learned quickly not to ever approach any item in our home and ask why I insisted on keeping "this piece of junk". Inevitably, my reply was "My mom made that piece of junk," or "That was my Dad's piece of junk when he was a little boy!"
But with time and distance I can apply a more critical eye.

6) Own what you love.
Just because somebody you love gave you something doesn’t mean you have to display it or even keep it if it’s not to your taste.

With that in mind I hauled a few boxes home from the storage unit on Sunday, pulled everything out of its stuffing and in many cases scratched my head, because I didn't even remember owning that... piece of junk... or art!!!

There were some pleasant surprises, things I brought into the house for permanent residence. Like this pretty ceramic vase for my springtime peonies and sunflowers.

Of course, discoveries like these only enable further hoarding, creating a conflict between the urge to unburden and the hoarding instinct. (This makes one of the comments on the Apartment Therapy blog about 'inherited clutter' make a little sense: "My parents were burgled 5 times after my dad's parents passed away. Because they were insured, it was a huge blessing in disguise. They never would have been able to let go of 100 yr old wedding dresses, much less the far more mundane items.")