Showing posts with label clutter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clutter. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

MAKING ROOM

BS was home recently & his momma rejoiced with song & dance.

One of the tasks he set for himself was to shovel out his room & sort & toss & pack. Well, that's what he SAID he was going to do, and he KINDA succeeded.

A little more than 3 years ago, I posted about cleaning out the house. Didn't work very well.

You see, over the years, more stuff has crept into my house during the night & when I'm at work, because I swear it all wasn't there when I went to bed. When my beloved aunt died, some of her stuff snuck in. Then when my mother downsized her big ol' house for an apartment, it happened again. When BS came home from college, he brought several years worth of independent living with him. When he moved to the big city, he found (what to him were) plausible reasons that he couldn't take it all with him, so here it stayed. Add to that, I have found concrete and tangible examples that inanimate objects are capable of spontaneous generation, occurring in various hidden corners of the house.

I swear.

This could make the science journals. Add to that my almost-complete lack of domestic skills. As a result, my little house was stuffed to the gills with STUFF.

Enter HS & more STUFF. And not even all of his stuff, because most of his stuff is still in a storage unit. I have a storage unit full of stuff too, but I don't want to talk about it.

Right now, HS's stuff resides in the dining room. At least, I think it's a dining room. Can't really tell anymore, not that we ever did much dining in there. We're more the 'eat-on-the-sofa-and-watch-tv' kind of people, but nevertheless, the room is there. And it even has a table. And chairs. And what's a table for but to use as a receptacle for STUFF?

So, I take bags into St. Mary's for our semi-annual yard sale. I wade through piles of paper. I even tossed out a whole lot of my old college materials - handouts, lecture notes, old class notes. That was hard, as I have also posted about how much I wanted to teach again (here, here & here). But, no. Have I even looked at it in the last 2 years? No? Out it goes! Anything valuable is on the computer anyway. HS is demonstrating great patience as I try to turn from a pack rat into a minimalist. Good luck with THAT!

Baby steps, folks. Baby steps.

ANNOUNCEMENT:
The gentleman who was originally known as BB (Beloved Boyfriend), who then changed to HS (House Stud) at the suggestion of one of our twisted classmates, decided that he liked BB better after all, but then I proposed another that he likes best of all. Since he loves the mountains, used to live in them, and wants to again, he is going to be the Mountain Man, or M&M (since he loves chocolate too). So.... ANOTHER NAME CHANGE! Hopefully, this will be the last one.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

More of the Bucket List

Cleaning out the house.

I am a pack rat. Have a hard time tossing anything out, so as a result, my little house is overflowing, especially now that BS has come back home with all the
detritus of 7 years of independent living. This is not good for my peace of mind, my inner harmony, my zen, so today we tackled the attic.

3 piles - 1 for the trash (and we filled up our big bin pretty quickly), 1 for charity, and 1 to keep. My problem is that I will find something that not only have I not seen in years, but I forgot I even had it. Funny thing is, my life has not been burdened by the lack of this 'thing' in it for all these many years, but when I clap eyes on it in the dim attic, suddenly I can't live without it. "Ooooh, look at that little suitcase. That was mine when I was a little girl. Ah, such memories. I can't get rid of that!" You know how it goes.

Here is the attic:

Clutter. And you can't see it, but everything in it is covered with a fine layer of soot. I have an oil-burning furnace in the garage, and the properties of physics being what they are, the warm soot that leaks out of the pipe rises to the ceiling, where it gets sucked into the small spaces around the attic stairs to waft into the vast cavern under the roof and coat all possible surfaces. There is also lingering evidence of previous raccoon habitation, if you know what I mean.

Tomorrow I am calling the guy who got rid of the raccoons to see if he will do a thorough clean-up or knows someone who will. I don't have the desire to be breathing in the foul dust made of dried raccoon poop that I am kicking up rummaging around up there.

Anyone want a really cool old little suitcase? No? Well, I guess I'll have to keep it then. I'll try to make room for it.