How to Edit Your Belongings

My mother was the most wonderful lady: gracious, giving and loving. But she was a child of the Great Depression, so she never threw anything away. “I might need them someday,” she would explain when I suggested that a 30-year accumulation of rubber bands might be excessive.

My reaction to this was to throw away everything — whether I needed it or not (much to my husband’s chagrin). The upside of this admittedly knee-jerk response was that when it came time for us to downsize, the editing part was fairly easy ... more