Photo caption: Yes, there is somewhere to go to get rid of your junk!

If you have been following my “Journey to Bethlehem” you have heard firsthand how my husband, John, and I had managed to empty our house of 22 years (without killing each other), and how that feat was accomplished in just 45 days! After the weeks of purging, donating and packing we had actually managed to filter through all our “stuff” and got down to the basics that were packed in our PODs.

But even though we had come to that final stage there were still some remaining items that just weren’t of any value to anyone. We couldn’t give them away and certainly, we did not want to just pack them up into the already over-stuffed PODs. That’s right, I have to come clean: we still had junk in our trunk!

I really am an environmentally conscious individual; in fact it drives John crazy that I will drive around with dozens of empty plastic water bottles in my car when I can’t find a recycling trash container along my daily route. I am obsessed enough to pull the metal spirals off old notebooks so I can recycle the paper. I even emptied all the paper inserts from the tons of vendor binders I purged from my office, and bundled up the hundreds of catalogs into neatly wrapped packages. Our curb on recycling day resembled the Great Wall of China.

One would think I would have easily given myself an “A for effort”, but it was not easy for me to surrender to my trash. It felt like admitting defeat!

Then a friend of mine confided that she had succumbed to the ultimate temptation. She had called 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Twice!

Could this be the answer? Could this be my final surrender?

I think all of us will be in a situation one day that we have to throw our hands in the air and say, “I surrender!” Unfortunately for my husband, I don’t give up easily. As with all the elements of our “journey”, I truly felt that I was on a mission, and following a path that was God’s will.

I am sure that many of our friends thought I was crazy, still I continued to pray to God for strength to keep it together and get the job done. But Was I asking Him for the impossible? Surely God had better things to do than help me move. But I honestly felt that as long as I kept my eyes on the goal and on God at the same time that it would all work out. Even if we still had no idea where we were going to live. Our negotiations for the property I fell in love with in Easton had hit a road block, and nothing else had the perfect combination we were looking for in a home/business property. We continued making trips out to PA to house hunt, but nothing was hitting the mark.

Then while I was working one day I came across a scripture passage that resonated within me. I felt as if God himself was speaking directly to me. (Sort of like a V-8, a spiritual slap upside the head!) I printed the verse on a piece of paper and hung it up on the inside of my front door as a daily reminder.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.” – Proverbs 3:5-6

I think my biggest problem was that I was trying to do it all by myself. I did not want to ask for help, I was trying to do what I thought God was leading me to do, but I wasn’t ready to surrender to Him and I was still going to do it my way. I think many women are just as guilty as I am when it comes to asking for help, we think it is a sign of weakness. But in actuality by not asking for help, we aren’t giving others the chance to give of themselves to us.

So I decided to surrender to the fact that I couldn’t do it all. I made the call. The call that basically let myself off the hook.

I find the best way to deal with any situation you are uncomfortable with is to talk about it and share it with others. So by the time the “junk truck” pulled into our driveway that glorious morning I had strategically organized all my junk into neat piles in each room, just short of wrapping it up with a bow. (One of the pitfalls of being an interior designer, we feel we have to make everything look good!) But I had also invited friends and neighbors to share in my joy and bring their junk over, too!

After all, if I was going to jump into the deep waters of glorious surrender, I was not going to do it alone. And, I was going to share the joy.

On that note, I will share with you my junk disposal revelations!
1. The way it works is you tell them how much junk you have. You need to guarantee them at least half a truck load, but you can fill up the whole truck and pay the extra if needed. This was a relief to me, as who really knows how your junk will stack up.

2. Which leads me to my next point; we all know that you can fit more things into a container if neatly packed. So I asked Mr. Boss Junkman (I honestly couldn’t remember my own name at that point in the move, let alone anyone else’s) to take special care so that they could fit as much as possible into the truck. (I know what you are thinking, this woman is crazy, but I always tell my daughters, it can’t hurt to ask and tell people your concerns.)

3. In preparation for the day, I had spent way too much time, bringing all the junk up from the basement and piling it up neatly in every room, only to learn that these junkmen operate on the “point and click method”. You point, they pick up, it’s that simple.

4. One of the reasons I felt more comfortable with the idea of succumbing to the guilty pleasure of a junk pick up, was the company’s promise that they take your load and do their own separation of materials, recycling whenever possible. Always a skeptic that other peoples recycling strategies are not as obsessive as my own, I just had to extract this same promise from Mr. Boss Junkman. (Who, at this point in time would have said anything to stop this crazy lady from obsessing over her own garbage.) I am sure many of you are feeling a little compassion for my husband right about now, but hey, someone has got to ask the tough questions!

5. How much is too much? Well it was a good thing that we had left ourselves some extra room, as the combination of our junk and the junk of our neighbors and friends had filled the truck to overflowing. The junkmen had indeed been very strategic in filling the truck and fortunately we were able to get it all in and stopped just at the point where they said they might be pulled over by law enforcement if the load got any higher!

So I will leave you with this image; a woman stands in her driveway, she leans against a broom in her right hand, her hair is a mess, her clothes disheveled. One might think she looks defeated. But she has a twinkle in her eye and her heart is light as the junk truck drives off into the sunset carrying away her heavy load.

God is good!

About the Carrie,

Carrie Oesmann is the ASID, CAPS and AKBD certified Interior Designer of Bailiwick Interior Design, a business she has owned and operated in New Jersey since 1999. Last year she had the pleasure of expanding her business and relocating to the Lehigh Valley, so she now lives in downtown historic Bethlehem with her husband John. Her “Journey to Bethlehem” inspired her to start a blog: blog.bailiwickdesign.com. You can also follow her on Facebook. Carrie’s home also doubles as Bailiwick Interior Design’s Pennsylvania office and unique lifestyle showroom, a place where her clients can experience a variety of options in a real home—it’s unlike anything we have seen in the Valley! Call Carrie for a personal tour of the lifestyle showroom.

Website: bailiwickdesign.com