The one about the House

I have a strange relationship with drawers. I love them. I covet them. My knackered old kitchen has no drawers. Although the sideboard we were given does have three, so the cutlery has someplace to go. :) But they are often dead spaces as well. Stuff gets put in them, and then stays there. Clothes, puzzles, games, all sorts of stuff. I have not done much sorting lately. Life is too busy. I have managed a couple of drawers. It started with another job, as it usually does. I was sorting the laundry and needed someplace to put the towels. The chest of drawers I had sorted for the towels and bedding when I sorted the loft was full. But it was full of old towels, torn towels, ones that had shown up in our house by magic and not the ones we actually use. So I sorted it. Binned some and took others downstairs to put in the kitchen drawer which has cleanup cloths and tea towels in.  But I had to sort that drawer as well. The placemats and candles that have been in there unused for ...

I feel like not much has happened since last I posted. Not much in the way of clearing out has happened. But there are things to be pleased about. I look around and things that have been cleared are staying fairly clear. The sideboard is still clear. The laundry is getting put away if not straight away, then fairly soon after drying. :) The living room and study are still relatively nicer rooms to be in then they used to be and they are staying relatively nice and not too full of crap. The crap is usually the Wee One's toys and socks and shoes and Lego and art and you get the idea. But at least when it is time to tidy it up, there is a place for it to go. So it is like we have hit a bit of a plateau for the time being, but it is not a terrible plateau. We need time to make plans, sort storage, and still go through old paperwork that is in boxes waiting to be gone through. We also  need time to train the young one in organising and tidying. It appears to have taken me 50 years t...

Max is back home. So all of this is coming back into the house.  Max's room was junk room number three. We had to do a quick clear up which means I have a boot full of stuff for the tip and lots of boxes of books and more stuff has gone into the formerly cleared loft room. Stuff has had to be dispersed to make room for her stuff. She's had a bit of a shock but she's doing well. We'll just have to take care of each other for a while and see what happens with the house. It's like last year this time when I planned to do ONE room in the house. I arranged for the decorators to come, and then had to postpone them when Ruby moved back in for a while. That room looks nicer now. We still haven't got the curtains sorted though.  But ah well. These were in the garden. 

I am also beginning to realise that in all the photos showing things that I am really happy about, clear floor, organised shelves, etc, there is still peeling paint and woodchip and crumbling plaster and stained  carpets and walls. As well as wanting space and a little bit of order, I now want decorators. I will never be satisfied. And yes. We still listen to cassette tapes. 

I am feeling lost. I am back to feeling overwhelmed. But I keep trying. I sorted through the lost and found at work and got another bag of stuff to take to the charity shop. I guess I just want to keep sorting and that seemed doable. I don't know what else to do. I did manage to take an old kid's bike to the charity shop at the same time. And I got some photos of things to sell online. Many of the boxes that I have to sort through have been taken upstairs as the state of the living room is depressing me. There is another box that is waiting for the charity shop in the corner. I keep adding bits to it. Mostly of my stuff which seems unfair and makes me sad. All I can do are small things. Sorting a book shelf at a time. I feel like I am just rearranging. And I get cross when see others have shoved things in a space I have cleared. If something doesn't have a space, it should stay in the way until a space is made or we get rid of it. It shouldn't go where it doesn...

But not because of decluttering. There was work for me. There was work for Al. There was violin for the Wee One. There was dance for the Wee One. There was shopping. There was an outing to the cinema. There was footware and luggage bought for the Meister. And probably other stuff that I have forgotten. Then Monday happened and the boy came  by to help load the car. Unwanted book case and table gone to the charity shop. Small table and bedside cabinet came home from the charity shop as well. Three boxes of paper recycling gone to the tip along with a big bag of rubbish and little bag of rubbish. :-) Wednesday Al had off work again. Another trip to the tip to get rid of the piece of wood on wheels which was our old desk chair and has been replaced by a new (but slightly used) chair.  And the packaging for the new Arkelstorp. Yes we have been to IKEA. Needed a rug and a collapsible table to use to play games. So the table can be covered in toys that ...

I keep having to talk about what we have accomplished in order to keep moving forward. I didn't get a lot done yesterday as I was soooo tired, but also because the regulare things needed doing like laundry and spending time with the Wee One. Today I have been going through the boxes. Two huge boxes of paperwork regarding the house, banking, bills, car, adn apparently every waranty we have ever had from the windows that we no longer have to the trampoline which is in the garden in bits. Bank statements from 1998 from an account we no longer have. I think we organised things into files and then after a few years we actually stopped adding to them and they just were there taking up space. It is all overwhelming. But marking progress. In the boot of the car are two bags of rubbish, one big and one little; two boxes of paper recyling and a box of books for the charity shop.