SPRING-Clean Declutter - Need Help

@soulThat is my approach with the fridge too.

Lucky I dont have fans. I do vents for heater and evap cooling every couple years.

@AwpgirlWe can only do what we can. Gently Bentley.

@Former-Member&@Smc Feeliing for you both in the parental clean out. Fridge contents were carefully monitored by mother and in last few years she mainly had Meals on Wheels. They were given to 2 grandsons during early leaving home stage. I did a bit of sorting in harmony with my mother and a bit in pain. There was only mother's way or the highway. The fear and manufactured guilt you post about is so sad. The feminist in me wants to heal older women and understand and for mothers and daughters to come together in true reconciliation. It was pie in the sky though.

I am only a bit more active today. As in, moved to lounge room. Head more upright and on computer. Yesterday it was mostly curled up in bed staring into space or eyes closed.

Cheers for when I am more ready. Perhaps it is "normal" to need down time after coming through so many traumatic experiences. Thought about my brother today. They are both together in spirit now, though they only lived together for 6 months. Yet the past feeds into the present. So much to process. Exhuastion.

Being an earth scientist before I ever noticed or cared about dust as my job, I will post this photo. I was lucky and lived mainly in buildings with very high ceilings and no-one ventured up there to dust, certainly not my mother. Mainly it was just keep the webs under control.

So I am left thinking also about the kind of housekeeping symbolised by Whitlam pouring earth into hands of traditional land owner and aboriginal elder.

@Appleblossom, yeah, take it as easy as you need to.

My Mum has trouble letting go of things, quite possibly I'm somewhat the same. I'm not sure I'd be defined as a feminist, but I do love to see things rescued and restored, including but not only people. Maybe that's part of my trouble with letting go- being able to see potential for the restored situation or object.

I keep thinking about how lovely it would be to rebuild on the site of Mum and Dad's home. Instead of a house that's so run down that it'll be bulldozer fodder, and a developer building "built to sell" units, I'd love to build just two (maybe three...) carefully designed and environmentally friendly units, with fruiting trees and space for the new owners to have a little bit of garden... but I know, in reality, we have neither the resources or the energy to do anything of the sort. We've got a due-for-attention house of our own to work on.

@Appleblossom - from little things big things grow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ndC07C2qw

Well .... our one-box-at-a-time sort-out spun out of control a few days ago, and became three-boxes-at-a-time .... and then let’s-not-clear-the-last-three-boxes-before-we-bring-in-the-next-three .....

Yep. Flooded with sorting clutter.

I don’t have a lounge room and barely have a bedroom.

Good news is that we have a huge amount of stuff to donate cos you really can’t fit two houses into one. Not-so-good-news is that I was stuffering stress-anxiety-post-viral-syndrome symptoms a few weeks ago, and this isn’t doing much for me in that regard .... ☹️ .... more good news is that when it’s donated, the clutter-flood will probably leave as quickly as it arrived ..... and then we will be clutter-flood-less .....

“stuffering” = rather ironic spelling fail ..... 🤣

Love how you call it Mum’s garden @Former-Member. Pruning now - you will be all sorted through Autumn and Winter ready for Spring gardening tasks later.

The landlady is here cutting back the grossly overgrown trees in the front garden. The body corporate communicated to all the owners that this needed to be done and she got in a huff thinking I was complaining. Well, mine was the last one to be done. She probably needed several reminders.

I came home from being out shopping and she says “Do you think you could hose the grass.” There never was grass to begin with, just weeds that I mowed. Then with the overgrown trees, it became weeds and patches of dirt. So water to that would make mud. Grrrrrrrrrr!

Hi @Faith-and-Hope - you are doing a brilliant job too decluttering. Having lost just about everything when my ex- husband dumped my stuff, I accumulate very little now. When I was overseas, he suddenly was in a hurry to sell our house (the kids were still living there at the time) Going for the minimalistic effect. Am thinking about getting a floor rug for the living area for winter though.