Hoarding - Springing Ahead

ginnyknit

Gosh you have been busy Rosieben, big strides :beer:
It is hard parting with baskets but I sold all my vintage baskets on fleabay last year and used the money for Christmas. It was a wrench but they werent being used and would just harbour dust if they were used as ornaments. All thats left is the stair basket which I always wanted but its done now .

Right off to finish the throw which is annoying me now as I want it done although I am mighty proud of it.

whitewing

I am using the little and often approach to declutter some body weight with my treadmill. (I have the space to use it now).

I find myself noticing at least twice a day how dehoarding has improved my life, but I still have had problems with emotional eating.

The stuff that was sorted the other day is still in the house but will go sometime this week. Paperwork is still being sorted. I woke up with the intention of doing that today in between 10 mins on the treadmill. I've done the treadmilling regularly but not looked at the paperwork.

On the plus side the washing is done and bedrooms and kitchen tidy. Just one load to put on the airer.

GreyQueen

:j I've done the mending and it took 3 hours all together but several garments are now ready to use and, equally importantly, I can now use the whole sofa.

I also found a few things I'd been looking for and caught up on a much-procratinated bit of paperwork. It wasn't as horrendous as I'd been making it out to be in my mind, but it's still a tiresome thing which is far better done little and often.

I have found my fleece hat but somehow lost my kitchen timer. It's those darned pixies again, running off with my stuff. Because I hadn't got the timer, the rice boiled over and now I really can't postpone cleaning the cooker top any longer, it looks disgusting.

All in all, a productive day and I even ignored the siren call of those few chazzers which open nearby on a Sunday. 24/7 temptations around here. It's amazing how much time you have if you just don't shop for anything other than grub.

Righty, heading offline to finish my library book so that can go back tomorrow after w*rk.

Keep up with the good work, one and all, slowly slowly catchee monkee and all that guff. GQ xx

Patchwork_Quilt

Quick update: I can now close my jumper drawer! Got down on my knees and sorted it out. I can't be ruthless with the T-shirts yet as I don't know what I'll need this summer but I feel a bit better for putting some of the less appreciated and unworn items in a charity bag.

Also went through the wardrobe pretty ruthlessly. Times have changed, my friends. My lovely Laura Ashley party dresses no longer fit. Or rather, I have to acknowledge that I don't fit into them and haven't for a few years. Out they go. I rediscovered a few things, too. They had been so tightly packed in that they were invisible.

One other question that has been bugging me since my brother and his partner popped in earlier - and please don't answer if it causes distress - but he seems to have hoarding tendencies coupled with the desire for extreme DIY. He's already taking the new house to bits, and he has done this before. Has anyone else come across this or is it just my family?

Hope everyone soon feels that decluttering glow.

whitewing

I had a pile of paperwork that has been sitting under the table since Thursday. It needed to be kept and filed with important paperwork. I have reminded myself many times over the last few days that 'I must do that'. It took all of 3 minutes when I made myself do it this morning.

GreyQueen

whitewing wrote: »

I had a pile of paperwork that has been sitting under the table since Thursday. It needed to be kept and filed with important paperwork. I have reminded myself many times over the last few days that 'I must do that'. It took all of 3 minutes when I made myself do it this morning.

Y'know, there's something terrible about the misama which excudes from paperwork, this OMG it's too hard, I can't do this, it'll take too long. The amount of times I've had those emotions and yet, like you found, when I get down to it, it's not a big problem. :rotfl:

Been to work today and thus have little time and energy for doing other stuff, but do need to keep on top of things. In a tiny home, things can very easily get out of control and have the place looking like a heaving pit of disorder, when it's only a few things out of place.

I'm continuing to enjoy having my 'new' clothes to wear, those ones which hadn't seen the light of day for about a year, due to the faulty layout of the bedroom blocking access to the drawers. It's nice to see them again. And some other things have been 'retired' to the bottom of the drawer to give me and everyone else a break from them. They're favourites but that's no good reason to wear them to death and ignore other things which I like as well.

I cleaned my stove top yesterday and it's a lot better. Had got to be absolutely minging, which isn't normally how I live my life, but sometimes a person is busy and things slide. Mustn't let that get so bad again, it was a beggar to get clean.

Was thinking of how often things in life are complicated by excess Stuff. Everything from day to day life, to decorating, to moving, to, in the fullness of time, clearing out the homes of departed relatives. All hard things to do but add in loads of carp and the burden becomes so much the worse.

Righty, onwards. I'm sure there's something I could be decluttering. I've returned to library books but I don't think that counts as they aren't really possessions, just stuff which is passing through.

Florenceem

pleasedelete wrote: »

What will she do with 1 ball of wool? Jumpers for mice?

She has borrowed a book from me - knitting toys with yarn oddments.

GreyQueen

Florenceem wrote: »

She has borrowed a book from me - knitting toys with yarn oddments.

My mother has been knitting rabidly for decades. It's one knitting project in a hundred where you use up exactly the amount of yarn you bought. Mostly, there's leftovers and some leftovers are about the size of small oranges. These can be too small for even toy-making, or hats and gloves.

For several years, I turned these we bits of yarn into gloriously colourful striped childrens jumpers for Oxfam. The smaller leftovers and pulled out handknits were reused and turned into Oxfam blankets. These were sent to countries where people were in need of them.

Then came the time when I took a blanket to Oxfam and the manager told me haughtily that they didn't take them any more but that he'd take this last one in 'as a favour'. I handed it over but felt a little cross at his gracelessness; there are ways of conveying the same information without being so darned rude.

I never saw the blanket again, nor expected to, until years later I was hangin' with the Old Stylers on one of the Toughie threads and a lovely poster called Pennypincher!!! asked advice about washing 'a wool blanket'. The upshot of which was she posted a pic of said blanket, or rather two pics together. I nearly had a cow; there was my last blanket!

It had been bought for her by a relative at a carboot sale in Cornwall. Which meant it'd travelled several hundred miles, and was now the much-beloved possession of Pennypincher!!! somewhere in the Greater London area. I swear the darned thing gads about more than I do.

So, random bits of yarn, even if only satsuma sized, can be made to add up to something worth having. But you do have to turn the random into something and get it to someone who needs it.

Patchwork_Quilt

Wow, how rude GreyQueen! But you had the last laugh. Our 0xfam people are just lovely, and are at pains to tell you how every last little thing gets used in their shop or goes to the warehouse etc. I was in there today, depositing the bag of clothes from yesterday. Didn't buy anything either, although it was full of tempting stuff.

Good luck with the decluttering to all posters and lurkers!

GreyQueen

It made my day to 'see' my handknitted blanket again and to hear how it was appreciated by the other poster. Weird co-incidence, when I saw the pix I gaped so wide I just about swallowed my tea mug. I was able to tell her that it wasn't 'wool' anyway; about 99% of it was pulled out acrylic handknits............:rotfl:

I'd didn't allow Mr Rude Manager to get me in a huff with Hoxfam as it's the charity I contribute to all the time and have gift-aid registered with. I do know you can register with more than one at a time, but for the very modest amount of stuff I have, I don't feel it's worth dotting it about all over the place. They would have admin costs, after all. I don't pay much tax as am on a pretty low income and most of it falls below the tax threshold, but I do pay some and as it means I can get an extra 25% via the government for the charity, I'm up for it.

Besides, getting the letters once or twice a year telling you what your little bits and bobs made is a nice feedback. It's surprising how a few bags of random misc seem to be adding up. Can't say I've missed anything I've given away, either, apart from in the best possible ways of having more space and less aggravation.

My last bag featured a plastic banana. The next one will star a plastic red pepper. I was intrigued by the latter because it's hollow and unscrews. The banana was just hollow. I did manage to stop myself buying the fake grapes, though, even though they were very believeable ones, the best I ever saw. And no, I don't know what I was thinking of doing with them either. Must have been having a kid moment.:rotfl:

Hokay, time for brekkie then ready to head off to work. My work involves me taking very temporary scratch-paper notes so each day involves some decluttering of waste paper (we put it in for confidential shredding when we've finished with it). It's a great way of me working my abhorrence of slinging perfectly good on one side paper or envelopes. And it means I always have no more than a fruit punnet (the kind you buy peaches in) of scrap paper at any one time.

You have to keep control of the paper or the darned stuff controls you. And heaven help any of us who lose An Important Piece of Paper among all the carp. To have to sift through stacks of catalogues, newspapers, junk mail and all to find it would be a nightmare.

I'm exploring a new way of handling paper. I'm using those plastic A4 pouches with the snap closures (I got 8 for £1 once) to hold together things which require temporary storage, such as my insurance claim guff, but not a premanant place in my filing system. This way I know all the bits relevent to that particular issue are in one place and I can grab and go if necessary. It's working well for me so far.

And when the issue is resolved, I will know exactly where to go to dejunk the paperwork.

Onwards and outwards, my lovelies, it's a Spring day and we can spring out from under some clutter <<<groan>>>>