Mandatory coronavirus stay-home activity: Clean your house!

Now is the perfect time to get rid of all the junk we have accumulated over 50 years in this old house.

Our kids don’t want our vintage collection of 8-track tapes, National Geographics from 1965 to 1980, black-and-white TV, Kodak camera, word processor and broken furniture.

We did get rid of some old stuff at a neighborhood yard sale, spending two full days gathering, sorting and lugging boxes out to the curb, where most of it remained for Monday’s trash pickup.

The result was a total income of $32.65. We spent $50 on our neighbors’ junk, for a net loss of $17.35. It is all still sitting in our basement, waiting for the next yard sale.

The kids left years ago, leaving their bedrooms to be converted into a home office and storage room, which we have filled with more junk.

We are fortunate to be able to remain in our home, especially during these “shelter in place” times. So why not fill the empty spaces?

Need a cardboard box? Just call. Plastic bags, storage boxes and boxes of containers. Lamps, kitchen appliances, rusty tools, broken furniture, hangers, old light bulbs and batteries, and a variety of junk, all needing minor repairs, but too good to throw away.

We even had a year’s supply of toilet paper. Who would have thought that that was our most valuable commodity!

Years ago, on Joyce’s 50th birthday, I organized a surprise party, urging guests not to bring a present, but rather a card or small item with a frog on it. The response was overwhelming and continues to this day. There are frogs all over the yard and in every room in our house. The kids don’t want them, either.

Now is a great time to downsize.

What should we keep? What should we give away? What should we throw away?

The fact is that everything we own has a history or memory to it, so deciding what to do with it is a slow, agonizing process.

But we do have the time to do it, if we could only get motivated.