This shop is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Weave Made Media® and Rubbermaid, but all my opinions are my own. #weavemade #FallFixUp http://my-disclosur.es/RgFrEH
This is a story of early-Fall 2014 clean-up told in two parts, inside and out, nostalgic and gross.
My oldest daughter is nearing the end of her childhood. This is a sentence I’ve written before, a sentence my wife loathes more than cold butter sandwiches, but it’s a sentence I’ve become absolutely comfortable with because what I see not a girl rushing (or being rushed) through her childhood but rather, a 10-year-old girl who is holding dearly to her youth, like a cat who managed to somehow get up on top of the fridge. She knows the carefree adventure will, in some respects, have to end, but she’s in no rush to climb down and stop being a goofy kid. Or a cat. Ugh, metaphors.
I adore this quality about her but still, the Bear DOES have her future as mom/teacher/world-changer at least in the corner of one eye. Sometimes that eye has a patch over it as she plays pirates with her little sister, which does wonders to delay the inevitable growing-up (the playtime, not necessary the patch.) It is undeniable that she’s begun to view the many key remnants of her early years — picture books, board books, stuffed animals, and certain baby toys — slightly differently. While no longer viable play things on a day to day basis, these dusty treasures are proving too precious to discard. Trust me, I’ve tried to pry them from her clammy little hands. It’s no use. She’s already considering the day (in a million years from now) when she might have children of her own and outwardly expresses, on a somewhat regular basis (which I swear doesn’t creep me out, at all) her wish to store away the special bits & pieces from her own childhood. I can picture the exact scene 15 years from now, my first born child, all grown-up with a catalog of experiences lodged in her memory and a framed photo of her and I on the table in the corner in a shabby chic frame she knows I’d have liked, sitting on the carpeted floor (probably some shade of green) of her first born child’s nursery, opening up the tote containing all of her most-favorite-things-ever from when she herself was a precocious toddler. No, YOU’RE CRYING!
I’m no good at storing away physical memories. Heck, I’m not 100% for certain I’m succeeding in storing away virtual ones either, but I know that if we have any hope of her preserving, for a decade and half (or a million years, whichever comes first,) the books and plush toys of today without them becoming mouse feed in the shed, we’d need a competent storage vessel.
I did what any good dad would do for a child who wants to keep stuff for 15+ years, I went to The Home Depot and picked up a Rubbermaid Roughneck 18 Gallon storage tote. Green, naturally. The Bear’s favorite color since age 2. This tote is sizable enough to store away years worth of favorite memories while also being small enough to 1) lift up onto a shelf in a small shed and 2) fit in our small shed. The Roughneck tote should prove the ideal way to preserve non-replaceable artifacts, letting us be keepers without becoming hoaders. The 18 Gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck tote is, conveniently enough, also in my target price range: cheap.
Outside, meanwhile, in the single trash bin we own, things get real nasty when we travel away from home which we tend to do often and will be doing again a few more times in the coming weeks. As much as I love home, I love to see the world with my girls. Turns out, bugs and other unspeakables also love when we are out seeing the world! That’s when they take over, when the trash doesn’t get to the curb, when we must wait for the next week’s pickup while accumulating more kitchen scraps and stinky trash than we can store away securely. While we cross off days waiting for the next early Tuesday morning to arrive, the bugs they multiply. Man, I really wish we had twice-weekly trash service but that would probably mean higher local taxes so, you know what, I’m fine. Nevermind 😉
As we have our garbage picked up just once a week, a second durable and seal-able trash can is very much needed for this most horrid of issues. I mean, there were bugs that I’ve never seen before when we came home from our 2-week Pacific NW adventure last month, big slimy crawling bugs ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE. I couldn’t shower fast or long enough. I only wish I could shampoo by eyeballs and my memory of that scene. Super yuck.
As we prepare for another trip this week, a trip that will once again span a pair of trash pickup days, I have no worries about an apocalyptic bug takeover now that I’m the proud owner of a 2nd trash can, the 32 Gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck Trash Can. This sturdy plastic canister seals tight and will keep the carnival of the weird from crawling in and ripping open the trash bags while we geek it up at Harry Potter-ville in Orlando.
If you too are in need of some nostalgia storage or trash, gulp, cleanup, head over to Home Depot for the 32 gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck, the price of which has been dropped from $15 to $10, and/or the 18 gallon storage tote for $9. Need something bigger, check out the massive 54 gallon Rubbermaid tote. You could fit a body in there, I mean, if you needed THAT kind of storage. 😉
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