Gently decluttering
This year has got off to a quiet, gentle start. This is mainly the result of my back injury – which is healing nicely, thank you for asking – but also I’ve been working quite a lot, which keeps me at home and stops me accepting many invitations. Not being able to do sport at the moment, apart from driving me slightly bonkers, has also given me the gift of several hours times every week.
My days are spent quietly going about my business in a calm and gentle way. Just so long as the teenagers aren’t home. Then it’s a whole different story.
Decluttering has long been a theme of mine and over the last few weeks I’ve been gradually getting down to it. Almost without noticing. A drawer here and there mounts up over a week or so. It’s true what they say: ‘slow and steady wins the race’. I’m loving the slowly growing feeling that I’m organized and the space that dumping the junk gives me. It’s like a breath of fresh spring air in the middle of winter and is right up there on the pleasure stakes along with a bunch of the first daffodils of the year. It doesn’t take much to raise my spirits and it’s free too!
My biggest bugbear is my cellar. The front half is ‘mine’, ostensibly freezer and foodstuffs and odds and ends waiting for recycling or trips to the church storage room for bazaar junk. It’s slowly starting to look better. I can open the door and the food has stopped falling off the shelves. Jams are lined up with jams, tins with other tins. I can see what I have and moreover, what I don’t need to go out and buy. All the out of date stuff has been dumped. I have a system!
The back of the cellar ‘belongs’ to my nearest and dearest. And it’s scary. To reach the shelves at the back, which look like a whole load of old electrical equipment has just been thrown at them, requires mountaineering. With ropes and crampons. Totally impossible for small people like me to reach anything that’s back there. And my husband doesn’t do clearing up or throwing away. Just doesn’t. Never has. Frankly I don’t dare touch anything, even if I could reach it in the first place, and I really,really hate looking at it all. I think putting up a curtain to hide it – even if I could – might compound the problem. I tweak it occasionally. Move boxes a little so they are more his side than mine.
To be honest I don’t see a solution, so I’m trying to close my mind to it.
And focus on changing the things I can change and not those I can’t. Which I think is probably a good way to live life.
Helen
January 23rd, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Good morning Helen, I am in total agreement, it feels so good to clear out things we no longer need – I had a good clean out last year and should probably tackle it again. I did do my spices the other day and got rid of a lot that were out of date. The only things my husband hordes are books and maps – he has even stolen a bookcase in my sewing room. I must admit that he keeps things tidy but those rolls of maps do get in the way when I want to do a good cleaning – the only thing I do in his office is vacuum and dust when things get out of hand.
Glad to hear that your back is healing – as you say this enforced quiet has produced good results.
I’m staying put today – the temperature is -31 – BRR.
January 23rd, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Isn’t it strange that in most marriages one of the partners is a hoarder while the other isn’t. I won’t tell you what I am, but I’ve been spotted going to the garbage and take stuff back into the house which my “other half” has put there. It’s pathetic, I know but I’m working on it! And I must say, I’m getting better, especially since I don’t have as much space as I used to have. Getting rid of stuff really clears the mind, never though so, but it’s really true.