I have met my Mount Everest! It is the spot I did not want to try to purge because it is an absolute disaster. What is is?

TOYS!

Before I had kids, everything had a place. Everything was organized. Dishes stacked up perfectly; towels were folded neatly in the closets; papers were filed. EVERYTHING.

Then I had children.

When I had one, I still maintained the organization. Then number two came along and I was just happy that number one would pick stuff up. When number three joined us, I just let the other two clean up the way they knew how. {Which is not my way, but I didn’t have time to fuss.}

As children multiplied, so did the toys. Here is the result:

I know you organizational peeps might be having a mild heart attack right about now. Believe me, I do not go into our basement much because I don’t want to see this mess. Multiple times I have gone through this stash and organized, but it usually ends up in a pile after a few weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I like things to be neat and organized, but I learned long ago to pick my battles. This is one battle I am not going to fight every.single.day.

I want my kids to have fun when they play. When I ask them to clean the basement. They do. They will remove all the toys and put them in the guest room and close the door. They have done what I asked {sort of} and I choose to be proud of the fact that they followed my instructions. I won’t reprimand or correct them because they did not do it the way I would have done it. I usually start teaching them organization with smaller spaces, like their rooms.

Yesterday, I went through and started sorting all the toys. I am determined to decrease the amount to a more manageable size. It was a little difficult because my 3 year old thought it was Christmas as he rediscovered toys he had forgotten. I will admit that it is hard to let things go. I think the former eBayer in me knows the price I could fetch for all the Little People I have collected. Or the fact that I have American Girl Doll supplies. I have got to just move on and get it out of my house without thinking of the cash I could get for it.

That is difficult for a frugal person like me.

That is why my husband will be running the garage sale and not me. I would probably overprice things and then it would just end up back in our basement. Well, I only have 2 more days to get ready. Wish me luck. Say a prayer. I will beat this Mount Everest if it’s the last thing I do…I hope.