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Decluttering and home maintenance

Decluttering and home maintenance

When MI crisis happens, keeping house can take low priority. But having a messy house can further dent what is often an already low self esteem. Build up of grime follows and rodents have a field day in inaccessible places.

Getting that 2 minute job done (that has been annoying you for years) can lift ones spirit.

I have slowly been decluttering and tidying up our house. The progress made thus far has been achieved primarily by persistently dealing with one item a day.

What has often kept me going has been the encouragement from others @Faith-and-Hope, @Smc @Determined @Shaz51

This tip passed on to me today. Hang all your clothes in the wardrobe with the hanger back to front. As you wear them, return them with the hanger the right way round. In 6-12 months review all items that remain on back to front hangers with a view to donating/selling them.

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In response to: Decluttering and home maintenance

Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

@Smc

Off the starting blocks ... 🙌

In response to: Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

We are continuing to make progress in relation to organising some of the smaller home maintainence and repair jobs that need to be done, today we rang the plumber and booked him in. Mr Darcy is keen to get things done and I am trying to ensure that I don't become overwhelmed with too much happening at once but putting off jobs is not helpful either. It is lovely when progress is made and things are working/looking better.

In response to: Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Got some paper stuff sorted today. Am setting up a proper filing box for Mum and Dad's paperwork. Should have happened long ago, but I wasn't getting my head around it. Unwanted papers soaking in a bucket of water to feed the worms. 🙂

ABC news today had an online article about clutter-busting. It was pretty well balanced but challenging... https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-27/the-psychology-of-clutter-how-to-tidy-home/11525246

To quote,

"...most of our possessions fall into one of two categories: memory clutter (the stuff that reminds you of an important person, achievement, or event from the past) or "I might need it one day" stuff (the things you hold onto in anticipation of an uncertain future).

To deal with this, you really have to dig below the stuff, to work out what the stuff represents."

Ummmm... I found that bit uncomfortably challenging. I'm perfectly happy with keeping memory clutter, within reason. I've got "might need it one day" stuff that we're keeping in the hope that at some stage our life comes out of a holding pattern. Again, I think that's OK for the most part. Don't want to give up too many hopes.

But here, when you "dig down", you find stuff that fits neither category, and is only there because there's been no time or space to deal with it. (Yeah, I keep coming back to that.) Going through those bits, I get reminders of what's been happening. I unconsciously flinched at the digging suggestion. Digging hurts. 😞

In response to: Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

(Am feeling a bit down on the "hopes" side of things at the moment. There's a big pottery exhibition opening this weekend which I'm seeing publicity about everywhere, and it's bringing up feelings of having lost my place... I haven't got the heart to go to the exhibition, even though there's people I know involved in it.)

In response to: Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

@Smc there can be a lot of grief that comes with the territory of letting stuff go of and of the hopes and dreams that they represent 😢.

Looking back I can see what a negative impact some of the stuff had on me, rather than inspiring me it became a constant reminder of what I thought may have been possible but was not ever going to happen.

The decluttering process for me was slow and a part of a bigger healing process. As I let go of what I was holding on to for no apparent reason or for what was definitely not going to be possible, it did hurt but this turned out to be temporary. It freed my mind to rekindle hopes that are possible, I found joy in what is.

I can understand why you don't feel as though you can go to the pottery event; I found garden club too hard after our crisis. Sending gentle thoughts your way.

In response to: Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

@Smc

Getting some paperwork sorted = 😀

In response to: Decluttering and home maintenance

Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Our job for the day was getting some things ready for collection on Monday.

Old hardened hoses, bits of rusty pipe and other rubbish left by the previous home owner were collected from around the yard and put in a pile for easy pick up.

In response to: Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Ok @Former-Member @Smc today is filing day - have put all the files and paperwork from whole house in lounge room and while MsS sleeps with headache I will slowly make order out of the paper mountain !!!

In response to: Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Hoping the mountain has been reduced to a molehill @Sophie1 .

In response to: Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

Re: Decluttering and home maintenance

@Former-Member lol love the cat ... actually all three cats had a go at sitting on various piles of paper throughout the afternoon 🙂

i spent all day sorting all the paperwork and now have piles ready for boxes /containers and filing cabinet - that will be tomorrow’s job

very satisfying indeed - wish I’d done it earlier - however I guess today was the day and I’m super glad for that - I was totally in the mood and I powered through it and enjoyed seeing the order emerge from the chaos !

Paperwork is a big piece of the clutter puzzle at my house and I feel wonderful knowing it’s more under control now and the random piles and boxes of paper are much reduced and will be all in tidy containers and tidied away soon !! I can’t wait 😊

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