Hoarding - A New Start

blossomhill_2

Oh I've still got candles, believe me!

wannabe_sybil

Two or three candles in a room on a cool evening can really make a difference to the temperature of a room. And I remember the 1970s miners strikes when the coal fired power stations ran short of coal and there were power cuts over weeks. They are muttering about power cuts again. However if we don't have a hoard under control we won't be able to find the candles.

Duvet day again here.

Was putting an online shop on for my uncle. He wanted the half sized tins of kidney beans, 45p. The full sized Basics were 21p. So there was a struggle of throw away half a tin (wouldn't get re-used) or spend an extra 24p. Eventually he went for the bigger tins, he will probably find a way to use it up. But that is a real dither for a hoarder - pay less but some may go to waste....

Hobbitfancier - so sorry you are going through this. Hope all goes well for you.

lostinrates

I don"t remember the minors strikes but I do live by candle l
Ight when not reading....so it's giving me palpitations too. The same as if for other MSE-ers you said you were running the. Heating on thirty degrees and had all the windows open and the lights on....!

No cluttering today, but after the suitcase bish at the weekend I managed to resist a very nice bright red suitcase. I have a cheapy one that will do till it dies when I hopefully will buy something nice and bright again. I get suit case angst, as dh and i often need to take a big collapse able or rollable one in my hand luggage to put in the hold on the way back (one of the reasons we had so many suitcases is all the times this has not happened because we thought we would not need it). E.g. Every time dh goes to Italy he brings home supplies he can only get there for a price we can afford. But the kind of bags that collapse/roll small enough to go in carry on with the other stuff he /we need are not very robust. .

ATM my doctors have ruled out flying anyway, so what on earth am I doing worrying about suitcases, Rofl. Hoarding/being prepared as a disease exemplified!! Presuming I am allowed to fly again it will be more fun buying luggage then.

Goldiegirl

JayneC wrote: »

Also emptied and threw away my sewing box from when I was a child - a little pang but not as much as I might have thought. It is a bit worse for wear and not serving any useful purpose.
.

I still have my childhood sewing box. It's still in active use. I'm not big on sewing, but I've got needles, pins and cottons in there for sewing buttons on and essential mending. However, I think there is some general clutter in there too, so now it's on my mind will have a rummage with a view to de-cluttering.

Even though I'm not big on sewing, I still have a couple of things I made at primary school. An apron, still in active use, and a felt glasses case, for which I won a certificate. The glasses case isn't used, but I think it's worth keeping as it's a prize winner.

Blossomhill - The 1937 travel journal is an exciting find. I think it might do well on an eBay auction, people do seem to like that sort of things.

Also the family history stuff. I've done a lot of work on my family history, and have found that there were some very unusual names passed down the generations.

As for candles, yes I do have a couple of boxes, and I think the need for candles does go back to the miners strike of the 70's. I was still at school, but I was very jealous of people at work who went on a three day week, shame the schools didn't do that!

Mumof2_2

blossomhill wrote: »

I got home from work one day to find that my dear dd, on her own initiative, had folded all my clothes into piles, one for skirts, one for trousers, one for tops etc, thinking this would enable me to sort them out - I thanked her very much but it actually derailed me for a long time, as she had mixed up the clothes that no longer fitted with ones I disliked but fitted, with some that I needed, and it paralysed me into not being able to do anything (or find anything ) for months/years time and I felt quite threatened, and anxious about going off to work

Her motives were entirely kind, as she thought I worked too hard and saw it as a way to help ...
I hope this has helped

Do you know, this is just the sort of thing I'd do to help DH and he really feels threatened by me going through his 'stuff' and hates it. I generally get shouted at . Like your DD I genuinely want to help organise things, but have learned to wait until asked .... still waiting at the moment.

Have had a breakthrough though because I was allowed to throw his old birthday cards into the recycling - doesn't sound much but he doesn't normally ever give me permission to do this.

I've spent a good part of the day in our room moving stuff off shelves, vacuuming and wiping down with a damp cloth so he can see it does look better without loads of dust everywhere and it is so much easier when you have a clearer surface to start with. There's a few shelves I'm itching to help him with but I've learned my lesson there.

nightsong

What a fabulous thread this is!!! I've just discovered it, and have read the first two pages thoroughly and will go back and devour the rest later Thanks for all the inspiring, revealing and thought-provoking stuff everyone.

Wanted to write some things here though, as I have the urge right now - hope that's ok.

I definitely have hoarding tendencies and this thread has just confirmed what I've been suspecting for some time. Yes, I collect sugar sachets, jam jars, books, bubble wrap (!), magazines etc etc, but my real downfall has been HOBBIES. Actually my hobbies have mostly been a thinly-disguised excuse to hoard more stuff. I only just realised this - LBM thanks to MSE!

The most recent of these hobbies has been "Learn German". My eldest son lives in Berlin. I've thought for a while that it would be fun to learn a new language and German' s the one I picked. I guess there's something about feeling closer to him - I don't see him often.

So I got a beginner's course in German, and a phrasebook, and a dictionary. So far, so reasonable. Then I had a look at the used language materials on ebay. SOOO cheap!! You can guess the rest ..

In the space of about a month I got myself thee more beginners courses, a GSCE course, two A level courses (beacuse, you know, I'm going to get really good at this :embarasse), a coupe of advanced word books, the CD and libretto of a Wagner opera (!!!!!!!), eight German language films on DVD, Harry Potter in German (book and CD) .... and quite a lot more. I'm beginning to feel really embarrassed just listing all this.

And yes, I've learnt a bit of German - but really if I was taking a degree in it, I'd still have too much stuff.

So, compulsive buying is a problem, especially if stuff is a BARGAIN - after all (I tell myself) I can always sell it again, and maybe even make a profit :rotfl:

Anyway, so far this year I haven't bought anything apart from food and cinema tickets. And I think it's finally dawning on me that the first part of not being a hoarder is NOT TO KEEP BRINGING STUFF INTO THE HOUSE (sorry about the shouting - maybe I should write this down and stick it on the fridge or something?)

The other half is getting rid of stuff, of course. I can get rid of actual rubbish, and things like out-of-date newspapers. It's anything with perceived value that I struggle with. We've moved several times in the last three years and each time I've inundated the charity shops, and also sold some bits on ebay. But it's been painful, and I've restocked with something else, so progress has been very limited overall.

So now the project is, a bag of stuff for the charrie once a week (we live in the sticks and I don't get to town much more than that) and four items a week listed on ebay. That shouldn't be too hard or feel too painful, should it? So far it's ok but we're only a few days into January.

The previous hobby was knitting. There's a spare shower room upstairs, and it is completely full of wool. There's also a hundred pairs of needles, a drawer full of buttons, twenty bulging folders of patterns (nearly all from jumble sales and charity shops) etc. So I'm sorting out the best stuff for ebay, and other bits are going to the charity shop. The irony is that I have developed a long-term thumb problem and can barely knit any more - even before that happened I'd easily reached SABLE status (stash acquired beyond lifetime expectation) - now it would be amazing if I knit up a twentieth of what I've got, and it STILL hurts to get rid of it!! Never mind, I'll persist with my new mantra "A little bit out, and nothing in" and see how it goes.

Any constructive thoughts welcome! Meanwhile I'll get back to reading the thread and soaking up some more wisdom and inspiration :j

Byatt

Hi nightsong, and welcome, no constructive thoughts from me at the moment as I have amoeba brain at the moment ( I even had to check on the spelling), but the bit I highlighted is just sooooo true. And not something I admitted to myself for a long time. I would come on here and say what I got rid of, but not always what came in again.

Sorry, I haven't highlighted anything as I didn't quote, , but the part you "shouted"...is spot on.

whitewing

nightsong,

rather than giving the wool to the charity shop, can you get in contact with WI or a knitting circle that makes stuff for charity and give the wool to them? You may even be able to request photos of the finished products? That way you it becomes less painful.

Or see if a local primary school would like your extra wool and needles? I learnt to knit at primary school although I never progressed between primary school standard. We even did that French knitting with the cotton reels and making tubes of knitted wool that we made up into coasters. Or they could do spiders (like the bobbles on bobble hats) or chicks for Easter. You know where you have two cardboard discs and you wrapped the wool over and over and then cut it. Very soothing for primary school. Crafty people, you can help. In fact, I am sure primary schools would be thrilled with wool donations.

JayneC

Hello again,

suzitiger yes tis very annoying when Freeglers don't show. I emailed bike lady and told her if I don't hear today I'm giving it to some one else. Somebody I know has asked me about it, so she can have it now as I've not heard back as yet.

Goldiegirl before this thread I would never have thrown out my sewing box. Not that I felt particularly attached to it, I never even thought about it - I just took for granted that I had to keep it. Strange eh? It's as if I've just been given permission to get rid of this stuff and it's actually ok! I'm now eyeing up my artwork from when I did an Art A level at evening class about 20 years ago. I have a huge A1 folder just hanging around my bedroom and I really don't need a potfolio of artwork do I? Again I never even thought about it before....

Today I made some more progress in my bedroom. I sorted out some books to go and had a little discussion with myself when I realised I was putting back the pretty (empty) boxes that were with the books. I know that the books are the easy stuff and in a way books and clothes are a bit of a distraction, they're easy really. It's the other stuff I struggle with and I have been fooling myself that it's not so bad as I regularly purge my clothes and books. So the boxes went in the bin:T

Also put aside a lovely Irish crystal vase that my mum and dad brought me back from their hols many years ago. It's lovely but totally impractical, it's never been out of it's box cos I've nowhere to put it and it would probably get broken. Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but it is going:p

Also sorted out my swimwear bag - I had, yes had now. I lovely big straw bag with swimming cossies and sarongs and such stuff - another thing that was just - well - there... And again, I realised I didn't have to keep it, so emptied it out and kept 3 outfits and 3 sarongs, now neatly in a drawer. Other contents and bag too now in car boot pile.

Listed some Christmas stuff on Freegle, too.

My ninth square is getting rather full:rotfl:. Definitely going to do a table top sale when they start again in a couple of weeks.

Take care all.

lostinrates

I was thinking about those old camping trips and picnics people did in a servant filled past. And campaigne beds. (if they were not the poor chap carrying the equipment or being killed at war)

You know, how camping wasn't sleeping outside in a tent as we know it, but a grand thing, and how people had picnics not on a rug with barefeet in the grass, but at a table, set as if inside but slightly less so. And so on....

It seems so grand and delightful. And it's easy to forget the ARMIeS of people it needed to live like that. And how Two lucky beggars ate and others cooked, Packed, ate, cleared up.....

And how somehow, somehow this relates to me and dh and 'stuff'. I am not sure yet quite how, but connections keep being half made and I wanted to type it to try and make the thoughts more tangible.

Hmm.