Decluttering and UFOs

I've been busy de-cluttering lately. My house really needs, my life really needs it..

My totals so far:
7 bags to St. Vincent de Paul, my clothes, kid clothes & toys and some household goods
4 bags of trash, broken toys, etc.
2 bags of plastic junk recycled
1 box of clothes to a consignment sale, netted $39.41

In the course of de-cluttering, I came across this:


It was started by my great-grandmother in the 1940s, my grandmother did some of the quilting as did my mom and I was working on it. But, I'm not sure whether to look at it as a family heirloom or a symbol of the inter-generational baggage we all pass down to our kids.

I come from a long line of hoarders. When my grandfather died in 1981, my parents donated chemical engineering journals from the 1950s to the '80s to the college where my grandfather had taught. Don't know if the college actually kept them or were polite. My other grandmother had a story about visiting her prospective in-laws for the first time and having to navigate through piles of old newspapers. Her mother questioned the wisdom of marrying into such a family.

Sigh, sometime I think it's a losing battle.

Next to tackle the basement storeroom, where, not kidding, there is an old furnace we kept because it was only 8 years old and we might someday use it. Now, it's 17 years old and we have to pay to have it hauled away. Scary, really really scary...