Not quite a horder - decluttering

Deleted to protect my privacy.

JoyLiesWithin -
It's a pleasure to meet you, thank you for posting here.  I can understand how all our throwing would cause you stress.  We are all different.  I hope you are able to move ahead in making your life and home more comfortable.  My appartment also sort of fell apart starting with my cancer journey.  I'm trying to improve but it will take some time.  I have a cable man coming today so I need to clean at least the one room.  Baby steps! 

Hang in there, and stop by here anytime.  Hope you are healing from your BC experience.  I'm seven months out, but it doesn't feel that long...where has the time gone.

Thanks Faith.  It's two years this weekend since I found the changes that led to the diagnosis.  A year of treatments then a year sorting out my mother. I guess I posted so I'll be committed now to coming back here and so I'll be motivated to make some progress with all my clutter. I hope you're finding it helpful too.  I guess there's a feeling of not being on our own with the problem.

One of the ladies on a hoarding site always used to say Fly lady things, Baby steps.  Fifteen minutes at a time. 

My DH now works from home.  We went through the house several weekends ago and REALLY de-cluttered.  Today, he's taken 3 loads on our trailer to the Salvation Army and some exercise equipment (we didn't use) to our son's house.  I made 3 piles in the garage for my sons who were here recently and told them to go through them.  If they did not take what they wanted, it was going to Salvation Army.  Amazing how much was taken and what was left.  What a great feeling to get rid of all this stuff.

Heidi,

Kidnapping the clutter? Now there is a good idea. I think I will sneak into hubbie's home office and kidnap the 14 eyeglass cases taking up drawer space, put them in a bag and see if he misses them.

JoyLW, I've helped a couple of friend with decluttering their house and also a dear friend that downsized to assisted living. I had no attachment to what they were trying to decide what they wanted to keep or not so if they couldn't decide, we set it aside and went to something else. Actually we had four piles, keep, throw away (this was stuff like papers, broken/not repairable) and the donate and not sure. We tried to keep the not sure pile small! And, it was OK if they wanted to keep the item, we just had to have a place to put it.

Working in the laundry sounds like a great idea. Painting and refreshing it and making it a space you will want to work in. Shelving is great... can you put any above the W/D? I have plastic bins but DD uses really cool wicker baskets. They "hide" items that need to be at reach. I would sort the stuff as I put them back into the laundry room.... keep, throw, give away.... not sure.

Glad you found us.... everyone here keeps me on my toes! I've got a huge amount of shredding yet to do. And the tops of my counters are still full of "stuff". While motivating you, it also motivates me.

When my son was little, all I could tackle to declutter sometimes was a drawer or a closet; take 20 minutes and straighten one small thing around.  Sometimes I'd pull a drawer out and sit in front of the TV watching one of my favorite shows, going thru the drawer to clean it out.   It wasn't til DS got his license and was more independent that I had larger blocks of time to deal with larger issues.  

I want to address holding onto the stuff of our parents.  Years ago, my parents passed away within 9 months of each other, and I held on to a lot of their things for years. It took well over 10 years to finally truly decide what stuff of theirs to keep and what was unnecessary.  I kept photos, letters, and other momentoes but was finally able to decipher what was simply some junk.  It did take years for me to come to terms with it. My advantage was I had several unused rooms in my house to store it and not have to deal with it.  Then, for some reason, I had a type of breakthrough on my thinking, and I started to seriously look at what I was keeping and why. It was an emotional cleansing of sorts.

JoyliesWithin, it is nice to hear that you are dealing with your issues in your own terms.  And you have had much to deal with emotionally.  I agree with taking baby steps, you can still make progress that way. 

I got the living/dining room clean!!  Still lots of paper to sort through, but I'm glad to see some progress.

(Sorry to come back and edit my posts, I make a lot of typos.)

JoyLiesWithin, sounds to me like you have taken the first steps just coming and posting.  I think that is going to be what makes you successful in this, accountability to your cybersisters.  So, we're watching and waiting, in love - you can do it!

So I "rented" a teen from church and in an hour she had pulled out tons of stuff from 2 deep closets, one in the garage that went back under the stairs and another deep and narrow in my laundry hall.  Now it's all in my garage waiting for me to sort through to discard, sell at the yard sale next month or give away.  That motivated me to pull out lots of papers, dating back into the early 90's and I spent hours yesterday and today shredding.  Still have much more to do as I'm probably only 1/3 of the way through the papers but I'm more motivated to keep it going.  I know of one bin that probably has 1980's "documents".  Now why have I been keeping utility bills from 20 years ago????? 

But it's good to finally be started instead of just looking about and thinking about it.

Teka - this is the only time I apoligized for my editing and typos.  I read it on someone else's post, and being new here, I thought maybe it's rude to be editing all the time.  But if you do it and I do it, there must be lots of people that do it just as much as us.  *grin*

Patoo - you got an awesome "rent-a-kid"!  Good for you on all your progress!  I actually DON'T save any bills and am looking forward to setting up a file system where I can have at least one of each monthly bill in the files for contact information.  Your signature line is so sweet....a prayer going up.  Very thoughtful. 

Thanks Faith, I love your signature as well.  I always feel safe there.

Tired this evening after working and the gym but will continue my shredding tomorrow.  Will save the sorting for the weekend.

Glad to see you are getting some of your old self back, JLW.

I have a 60-liter bag from cleaning out some closets this weekend. I also have 6 shopping bags of toys, puzzles and games from DD's room. She knows they are going to the cellar.

JoyLiesWithin -  Awesome job in the laundry room!!!!!!!!!!  And organizing in the kitchen and bathroom!  Too bad you have so much laundry to do, but what a wonderful fresh smell things will have from drying outside.  I have fond memories of that freshness, when I had a clothes line.  I'm in an appartment now, no clotheslines here.  Speaking of that, I should throw a load in tonight too!

I see you are from down under.  My ex-brother-in-law was from Sidney. Born in Tazmania.  I have always wanted to visit Autralia.

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