Hoarding - Springing Ahead

Florenceem

I am starting to see adverts for outdoor boot fairs - must resist.

GreyQueen

Nice to see you back, Ames, was wondering about you but didn't want to post a Has anyone seen Ames? sort of thing in case it would be off-putting to you. Glad that what ails you can be treated and that it will be done quite soon.

As mentioned, I'm on my March charity shop fast. The first Saturday was the worst, as part of my Saturday routine is a trawl through a whole street of them, and it felt weird to walk on by, apart from my errand to deposit a charity shop bag.

I also pass charity shops on my way around town on legitimate errands and walking to and fro w*rk, and it's amazing how often my feet start to walk towards them, on autopilot, before I remember that I'm not doing that now. The force of habit should not be underestimated.

I'm a real bookworm and can very easily buy books faster than I can read them, especially as I have access to places which sell books at 5 of £1 or 3 for £1......:o But I can't keep more than about 30 at a time due to lack of space. However, I will be visiting family next week and have some books to go over to them, which I bagged up last night, inc one which I'm giving to my brother but hadn't yet read. With a deadline looming, I read it in 3 hours and it was brilliant and now it can go.

My sitting-room is still a bit untidy, and there are trays of seed potatoes sitting on the cabinet and wall unit awaiting planting at the end of the month, but overall, it looks ...... how to express it?.......sparser? That there are just fewer things in here, even if everything isn't all immaculately tidy and squared away, there's just flat out less volume.

This makes me feel :j:D:T.

Keep on pecking away at it, lovely peeps. If we slow down or flatout stop the incoming, and keep dragging bits and pieces out, the piles do go down, it's just physics. GQ xx

Cheapskate

Morning everyone

It's many moons since I posted in here, have seen a few familiar face though! I am still in a real mess, but this year have started in small ways. Kids' clothes have been going to a pre-loved stall at school, a friend is collecting stuff to raise money for charity so she's getting a bin bag full of all sorts today, and I haven't been near a CS for 2 weeks! :j

We might be having our pantry gutted soon (meaning some time before summer!) so will have to find somewhere for the Armageddon stock to go, or eat some of it.

Going to read back a bit for more inspiration, well done to those who are way ahead of me!

A xo

Catriona_P

Morning all (and welcome back to folk returning!).

The 40 bags in 40 days challenge is going well for me so far even if we are only 3 days in. I'm feeling a lot more positive about it than I did last year - instead of thinking 'How am I going to find things to fill these bags with?' I'm now in a 'bring it on!' kind of mindset.

Again if anyone wants to join the Facebook group for this just drop me a PM.

Off the back of this I counted up all my shoes yesterday - 39 pairs in total, and another 2 just sold on eBay. So I threw away another pair and have another 3 ready to go on eBay for selling. Not a huge dent in the stash but it's made me feel better. I do love my shoes

whitewing

I caught Stelios and his dehoarding programme yesterday. I must admit to being very drawn to the buddha collection. My DH was saying that it was way too much but I would have liked to see the house in person. So obviously the hoarding tendencies are still there for me.

We got a load of washing on the line this morning. How lovely it is to put washing out.

Had a horrible day yesterday. I was frustrated about the financial paperwork, which never seems to get finished and it eats into my day off. So I was a bit sharp with DH and he got stroppy back. I need a different, more regular approach to it.

lobbyludd

well done everyone, returners, carrying-on-ers, strugglers.

this week I'm a definite struggler, have slightly mismanaged my money so am super skint and very busy with work and kids things: a week of St David's day celebrations, with no end of extra doing and organising and bringing in for parents, whose time is apparently limitless, blinking world book day, which usually I love and am a book giver for, but this year the school has ruined it for me with the extra costumes and other things that parents (i.e. me as a single parent) has to do, parents evening for both and waiting for ds's school allocation for secondary. Oh yes and normal child rearing and a full time job with my appraisal this afternoon. grr

when I'm stressed I hold on to stuff - others fling. So I've made myself put the legs to the broken ironing board out the front, hoping a scrappy will half-inch it, but at least it's something out of the house.

toodle-pip it's a shining day and the end of my working week is in sight

GreyQueen

Evening all.

Just watched that 4OD episode of The Hoarder Next Door which was broadcast yesterday. Oh my goodness me, that was painful to watch, that poor lady but heartening that she turned the corner by the end.

Watching hoarding programmes is a bit of an uncomfortable feeling. My hoarder mother admits she can't bear to watch them at all, it's all a bit too close to the bone. Howsomever, whilst I was watching it on the computer I was decluttering in my wall unit.

Out; a book my brother gave me for Xmas. It's a comedy book, very much a one-read wonder, which he got because he knew I wanted to read it. I read it several times, laughed lots and now can let it go.

I guess some people might think badly of me, as we're not yet at Easter and it's in the c.s. bag, and I dithered myself, then I told myself that the love and affection between Kid Bruv and myself isn't conditional on the keeping of the book. He isn't going to scour my bookshelves and go into a huff is it cannot be spotted when next he visits. He knows I give books to family with the clear instruction to pass them on or sell them when finished with them, and so they do. Heck, he's an online bookseller, and stuff is going in and out of his place the whole time.

I've also bagged the pottery thingy. I should explain that I have a wall until whose upper part is comprised of a glass-doored cabinet taking up about 2/3rd of the width and three open cubbies taking up the other third. The lowest cubby was filled with The Pot. This is something I made at pottery class several years ago. It's pretty neat but not something I have a use for and takes a lot of space in a tiny home.

I'd hestitated about getting rid of it because it's a unique item, not something I can replace from any shop. What if I regretted the decision and *gasp* I've lost it for good? Then I recalled something about hoarding being a syptom of a fear of loss. Nothing will change in my life but that a few books presently floating around will be shelved neatly in the cubby, and that will be A Good Thing. I've ceased to be entralled by The Pot and feel ready to let it go.

And the fear-of-loss is often paralysing but it somehow doesn't seem to come to pass and I mostly cannot even remember the stuff I have given away, it was so 'special' to me, lol. :rotfl:

The charity bag (which will probably cause a few wry smiles when it's unpacked) also contains a glossy red plastic pepper which screws apart to reveal.......an intruiging little space. And no doubt a few other random thingies. Including a pirate eyepatch from work.

I have also binned a cataglogue and recycled for scrap some paperwork relating to a historical find which I gave to the local museum years ago, on the grounds that they might as well keep it in one of their drawers as me keep it in one of mine. I knew I gave it, the museum knows I gave it and I cannot think for a moment that anyone else will be interested, so that's one A5 manila envelope of guff turned into scratch paper/ recycling.

All of these items are pretty small but I don't have any really big stuff to go. Big stuff cannot stay in here so it's very much one-in one-out with furniture and appliances, and mostly not-in at all due to lack of space.

But the little stuff can be pernicious because it is by nature slow and time-dense per volume and requires careful attention, like paperwork, and thus is best done by the originator, not by some long-suffering soul later on in life who has to clear up after you.

Hokay, onwards and outwards. I am slinging the yellow teapot for sure. If I have regrets, tough, it's not the only one in the world except the others are mostly not broken.

Keep up the good work, lovely peeps. GQ xx

whitewing

You will probably see a photo of your pot on MSE in a few years GQ!

GreyQueen

whitewing wrote: »

You will probably see a photo of your pot on MSE in a few years GQ!

:rotfl:

Watch what you buy in Hoxfam in the next few weeks, you might be dropping your hands on a GQ-original bit of pottery. You poor souls......:p

Actually, it feels liberating. I like stuff but I also like the feeling that I could walk away from it if I had to. Of course, I'd be just as devastated as anyone to lose all my stuff, but life is changeable and every thing you have is something you or someone else will have to deal with one day.

http://enuffstuff.info/when-you-die-it-all-stays-here/

As I watched the hoarding programme which was broadcast last night, I thought about the guy with the collection of Buddha statues and images and wondered about the missmatch between the teachings of Buddhism about non-attachment and the excessive attachment to his statues and pictures. There was a rich seam to be mined there, I felt.

Patchwork_Quilt

Thanks for that GQ. I bet most faiths have something similar. I've just read Matthew 19 16-22 about the rich young man who couldn't give his wealth away. I like the idea in your piece, though, about attaching ourselves to people and things and then having an expectation of them making us happy. Hmm.

Well, in an unaccustomed fit of energy, I cleared out the car today. Not the boot, actually, but the inside. Amongst the heaps of rubbish, there were numerous parking receipts, five pens, some golf tees (nobody plays!), and loads of CDs from the OU course I finished last May and will never listen to. Oh, and some bad music. Almost everything has gone in the bin, and that enabled me to vacuum and wash the windows. Poor little car probably feels quite shocked at the moment.

Might tackle the boot at the weekend. Last time, I found a bottle of water that had been put there 'just in case' three years beforehand.

Happy decluttering folks. Consider everything!