Simplifying Life - Mark II

firework

ah lula-hula, isn't it great when you finally realise that you don't have to keep those ornaments that people seem to think you want!! i too dislike most ornaments - i just don't see the point in most of them (sorry ornament lovers) but i did get a load piled on me from various well meaning relatives over the years and i used to have them taking up every inch of shelf space and cupboard tops in my kitchen... until we got burgled - talk about a lightbulb moment.lol! i realised i couldn't have cared less about MOST of my possessions - they meant nothing and it all just became stuff... someone elses stuff! so it got packed away, then ebayed, car booted and finally charity shopped. we came into our new house with nothing at all which was the most liberating experience (not that i recommend getting burgled mind). we got to start over with a blank canvas if you like. now i only have on display a few ornamental items that I like. (sorry mother - lol!)

strangely enough it was other people who had the biggest problem with my getting rid of all that stuff, i would constantly hear " oh, you can't just get rid of it - it's too good to get rid of "... er, what, even if i detest the sight of it? lol! anyway i was too mad (at the burglars) to be argued with - lol. so out it all went.

mary43

firework - you'd just love my house then...............lol despite de-cuttering I do love to have 'stuff' but now I'm trying to be more selective and keep just the things that give me pleasure.
Back to the eyes..........well now on second lot of eyedrops after visit to GP today -after a lot of peering at them and mumbling 'oh dear they are red arent they' he still says its conjunctivitus (different doctor today) -went through whether I'd changed soap, soap powder or was there anything different around the house ? No there isn't and we still use same soap etc.
So, now got a small tube, just the one, of what looks like ointment and turns to liquid on eye contact - warning it may sting and yes it does.....:eek: But thats gone off now thankfully and at least its only twice a day......thats my lot for today - next lot of suffering will be tomorrow morning:eek:

No de-cluttering done by me but OH has decided he'll do something positive every day.............he's got rid of a load of jeans to charity bag collection, cleared out the pantry and I had to 'rescue' a few things he thought were useless (I didn't). Not so much today as our lads been off school so the days been mucked up a bit.

On top of that Mums not so good at the minute. Big Bruv e mailed yesterday. I e mailed back and mentioned my eye problems............he replies with such a ''you must be doing something wrong to have all your probs. I never get anything like that...........you should be taking life easy ...........blah blah.......'' -usual stuff I get from him. :mad: Care ? compassion ? - never. Oh well, small rant over about that.

lulu - well done with the clearing out - you're doing so well its making me want to do more but at the minute maybe I'm best not to. Keep it up,
Haven't tried those things you mentioned - what are they exactly ? I've not heard of them before. I'll give anything a go

firework

followed some advice from here (or possibly old thread - sorry confused with reading both at same time -lol!) about de-cluttering... it was to start at one point in a room, either left or right of the door and am pleased to report it's working.yay!! have the mammoth task of tidying & de-cluttering ds's bedroom which is 15ft square but so full of junk thta he sleeps in our spare room instead. eek! been putting it off for yonks as there is so much to clear but made a small start last night from the right side of the door going in - managed to clear a space in from of his clothing drawers (took all of 3 mins!)so that i could actually open them and put away the 3ft high pile of clothes which i had been stacking on the top of the drawers because i "couldn't" get into them, couldn't be bothered more like! anyway applied the principle of little and often and then decided to just clearout one bag of junk, toys, clothes, papers etc all chucked in together. then did another. total time taken 20 minutes. room looking clearer already and tonight at bedtime i will do another couple of bags... reckon by the end of the week it'll be clear, he can move back into it, AND the Christmas toys can be moved up there from ther current residence in the corner of my dining room- lol! who knows we may even get the tree and decorations back in the loft this week - still on the landing!. baby steps. baby steps.

mary43

firework -- that;s how I did my de-cluttering last year. Trying to do one room all at once I got in such a muddle..........think it was ceridwen who suggested trying one corner at a time and I felt so pleased with myself when one corner was all tidy and organised it spurred me on to the rest. Still a way to go this year -some of it seemed to creep back (not the same clutter but clutter non the less) but I'm getting there. Worst spots at the minute are my other desk top, the bed settee in here, the kitchen dresser top and the kitchen table -why is it a fruit bowl ends up being home to several pens, bits of paper with phone numbers on and other bits and bobs ?
Another charity bag through the door to be collected on Thursday so, eyes permitting, I'll attempt to fill that with my throw outs -they won't take bric a brac though so it'll be clothes I don't want any more........had a look yesterday and there's some I forgot I'd got so they can go.
You see, you've spurred me on.....................lol:rotfl:

ceridwen

You could be right Mary - have an idea it mighta been me suggesting the one corner of a room at a time approach...unsure on this....but I am a great advocate of breaking a task (any task) down into its constituent parts....so I tend to do a list of various bits towards doing a major task...and can work my way through it thinking "I'll just do this, then I'll just do that......" etc. Sometimes a task can be so dauntingly large that I find doing this is the only way I can motivate myself to make a start on doing it.

2cats1kid

Flylady does say start at the door and work clockwise, so it doesn't seem so daunting. I do use Flylady (the original, rather than the MSE version on this board) and it really does work. In fact it has worked to the extent that our living room now looks really stark as I have decluttered the heck outta it, and I am actively looking for things I love to destark it! So far I have found a canvas that works so well in our room - we all love it - and I have plans for a hanging crazy patchwork for the largest wall (using scraps of material from my stash, naturally!).

She also gets you to do things in 15 minute bursts (working on the principle that anything is tolerable for 15 minutes) and says when you are decluttering not to take out more than you can sort and put away in an hour, so you don't get bogged down.

Common sense, but good advice.

Lula-Hula

Mary43 - sorry to hear you're having such a rough time

The piriton syrup is like an anti-allergy thing for hayfever sufferers etc. I only suggested it as your eye creams dont seem to be working. My dd came up in a rash last summer & had itchy eyes too although she has never had hay fever or food or animal allergies. The nurse suggested she could have touched a plant or had a food stuff that caused the reaction. I bought the syrup - available anywhere- & it seemed to work. I now keep one at home as it seemed so effective.

Hope something works soon for you.

Sorry to hear about the burglary firefox I've really changed my attitude to 'stuff'. My mum passed nearly 2 years ago & at first I just wanted to gather & cling to everything but have now realised that the most important things are the memories & no one can take those away; so yes stuff is really just stuff. That's why I'm struggling with the photos though so they may just have to stay in the boxes a while longer.

Cant face DDs room yet, although I may have gained some ground when I assured her that any money from items sold would be hers to keep

Going to revel in my calm & tidy room now
Goodnight
lula x

mary43

2cats - I started at the corner near the window in this room -its the one I can see when I'm sat here so once that was done I kept looking at it and was so pleased with myself I went on to the wall under the window and so-on. Don't think I'd ever de-clutter so I had as much space as you have......so many things I like to have around but then, if they give me pleasure why not?

lulu - I know how you feel about family stuff. My dad died in 2000 and it was only last year I could let go of the things that weren't really personal. When his stuff was cleared out (he was a hoarder -mum wasn't and she wanted it out) no-one else in the family wanted anything and I kept scraps of paper he'd written on.....anything that was part of my dad. With a lot of help from this thread I managed to thin out his stuff..........some of it went to the local history society where he lived and I can access it via their website if I need to and they were grateful for it. I now have things condensed into Dads old suitcase with his name on thats in the spare room on top of the wardrobe and a shoe box in this room and I get the feeling that's going to be thinned out this year. I want to keep his war medals and stuff like that but other stuff can go to the history society. It was a wrench to get rid of stuff but I've got used to it and haven't missed it.
Photos were much the same and this year I thinned out a lot of those - took me a while drooling over them all as you do but now they're more organised and if I want to find one of mum and dad it's a lot easier - they're in one album with a label on it.

I've made a note of that syrup - might be handy to have. So far this morning I've only had to bathe my eyes in water once..........not sure about the redness of my eyeballs -job to see without specs or with them so when OH comes home he'll have a look. Last night I was bathing them every half hour - the label said my eyes would be liable to get very dry but today they've not been so bad so fingers crossed ! Very small tube of drops so it would seem like our GP expects them to work within a few days otherwise he'd have given me more -mind you thats just my thinking on it.

Keep up the de-cluttering...........you're doing well. I've done just a bit today - had a charity bag delivered and I've filled that up with stuff I forgot I had ! Just goes to show when you really look in cupboards and wardrobes what you find it taking up space for no reason.
I've also ploughed through making a load of birthday cards so they're done fr the year................next will be christmas cards............saves last minute panic that I always used to have..............lol :rotfl:

firework

as some of you know i have been playing catch up reading the first simplifying life thread, tonight i got to page 90 and could not resist copying this gem for you all - posted by Ceridwen on 7th April 2008 - talk about having your finger on the pulse!!!



Quote "I personally am "balancing out" a bit - in that I have been anticipating a big Recession for some time now and doing a bit of judicious stocking-up of items I will find useful when it starts (which I have very nearly finished). So - in my case - its not all been one way (straight out of the house) - but I have still managed a net loss of stuff in my house."

i am in awe!:A

mary43

firework - thanks for that - I'd forgotten the actual posting but remember it jogged me into getting a few items to put by for emergencies plus it made me re-think ways of improving how we life, what we spend etc. so we had some spare for the 'rainy day'. I wasn't as organised as ceridwen though...........and just my luck that when an insurance policy matured so we actually had some savings the interest rate dropped !! Oh well, c'est la vie as they say..............:rotfl:

Eyes are feeling a bit better (I think).........OH says they look better but not back to normal yet. Managed to sit and hand sew a pair of curtains for the kitchen this morning (well, just the hem) and put them up -daren't say how long I've had them, Got them from the charity shop and they were brighter than what we had and I thought it would cheer up the winter........that might tell you something of how long they've been kicking around...........lol
Managing to keep my diary up to date of events, how I feel about whatever has happened etc.
Bag of clothes been put out for collection and once I get through washing the ones left in my wash basket I've got plans for it. We don't really need two - having that number means we shove stuff in them and 'forget' about it. So, my cream canvas one is going to be dismantled and the material used for something else. I've got some pictures painted on fabric (morning glory and borage flowers) They're on a cream background and when I was de-cluttering last year I almost got rid of them (who sees anything stuffed in a drawer?) but didn't -morning glory is OH's favourite flower.
So, hopefully, the paintings can be stuck/stitched on to the canvas and put on a pole in our bedroom (its the only room with blue in it)..........might make a start on that come Monday.

Still need to clear the hotspots especially the pine dresser........and the kitchen table..............might do that this afternoon.

I keep saying 'might'.................oh dear I do hate to 'commit'.........:rolleyes: