To B.E. in France

 B. E. commented in the NYT about her problem with too much stuff and how she wished her husband wouldn't give her any gift for her birthday ( see  http://community.nytimes.com/comments/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/children-of-hoarders/?permid=15#comment15 )

I hear you, B.E.!   I agree, I dread Christmas and birthdays with the influx of more stuff that I don't want.   Try asking your husband to get you flowers (no vase!) or exotic chocolates (and don't save the box!) or a bottle of fine wine - something that can be consumed and doesn't become yet another object.   Or maybe a new hardcover book on the best seller list that you can promptly donate to the library after you've read it.  
I keep saying "Make a donation in my name" but no one heeds this.  

There's a children's book called "Too Many Toys" by David Shannon.   There's a wonderful description on how every occasion calls for another toy to be added to the young boy's huge collection - his birthday party, other birthday parties, a trip to the dentist, a visit to a fast food restaurant, etc.   It's easy to see how we get inundated with stuff.    Go to the library and check it out.   I have taken it out many times to read with my little one.  An absolute charmer and the mom is a kindred spirit.

Ever onward

I recovered the cleared off spaces this weekend, and got downstairs respectable enough that I could open the door and let in my kid's friend (and parent!).   The back of a minivan was stuffed with old boxes to be recycled and taken to the dump.   The current mini project is clearing out a bookshelf in the kitchen.   I took a half a dozen cookbooks I never used to the library to donate to the book sale.   I'm not sure why this bookshelf is taking me so long to finish, but I'm only about halfway done to making it respectable.   I took a "before" picture, so when it is done, I'll post before and after shots. 

It's still amazing how quickly a cleared off kitchen counter can get recluttered though.   Sigh.  But I'm not giving up.

1 step back

I'll just say it.  I'm back sliding.  :(  
The kitchen counters are starting to clutter up again.    There are legos on the family room floor.  (I know because I stepped on one of the little buggers - man do they hurt in your bare feet)

Last weekend, I put the veggie garden in, instead of doing more clean up.    It was finally sunny and if I didn't get it done, it would get too warm to grow peas and lettuce.  

I have a couple things to motivate me though... a playdate for the little guy this weekend AND it is dumping day in the county.   Dumping day is when you can take big ticket items and haul them to the site and free yourself from these large objects that you don't need anymore.  

So, I can recover my newly taken territory before it gets out of hand again and free myself of some big ticket items.   And I have the push of knowing that there will be people coming over to ensure that it gets done.

busy busy

I've been so flat out busy the past couple of days that it has been a struggle to keep those cleared off areas still clear.   It's amazing how easily stuff can pile up again.   Tuesday and Wednesday were just treading water, no new progress was made.   I'm hoping either tonight or maybe Friday at lunch I can box up at least a few items to take to that church tag sale.  

I have two more areas I want to target next.   An overflowing bookshelf in my kitchen and my clothes closet.   I think I may do a before and after pic of the bookshelf just for the heck of it.    The clothes closet is more formidable and I may have to break it down in sections to get it done.

Onward

I went through several stacks of paper this weekend.   There really was a counter and a desk underneath them!   I've continued to keep all the flat surfaces that I've cleared off clutter-free too.   It feels good.  

There will be a tag sale this weekend at a local church.   Let's see if I can get box up some stuff in my closets that I don't need any more and move them out. 

A couple more baby steps

I tossed out an old whistling tea kettle that was taking up valuable real estate on the kitchen counter.   It was old, pitted, gnarled and had a calcium buildup on the inside (We had had a water softening problem that we finally shelled out almost $2K to fix.   It was causing a mineral build up on everything that hot water touched.)   I had loved this tea kettle.  It had a copper coil on the bottom to facilitate a quick boil and a nice loud whistle.   I received a replacement at Christmas and couldn't bring myself to pitch the old one.   It takes up a lot of space in the trash (we pay for trash removal by the bag) so I guess I rationalized that it was still useful.   It's not and I finally admitted that to myself.   Out it went.

I also cleared off a small table in the entry way and found a reminder to update my subscription to the local symphony, so that was a bonus.  

And yes, I put away all the remaining odds and ends that remained on the counter from yesterday... except one tiny little car that I know goes into one of the kids boardgames, I just can't remember which one.   It's still in the pocket of my jeans.

I am still reluctant to pitch any of my kids' toys.   My mother was a neat freak and I distinctly remember one time when I was a little kid, her sweeping the playroom and one of my Colorforms (remember Colorforms?) had strayed and was now being swept up into the little pile of dirt.    I saw it, scowled at her and plucked it out of the pile and put it away in the box.   I remember thinking "Geez, why are you sweeping up my toy?  Is it that hard to pluck it out and tell me to put it away?"    She was probably thinking "If you can't take care of it, out it goes", but she never articulated it.   I think it would have been better if she had, but she's always been a passive aggressive.  I also remember another time, when I was older, 8th grade when she decided all my stuffed animals were getting pitched.   I had loved those animals, played with them often and had even written stories about them.    No offer of choosing one or two to keep, just "They smell musty, out they go".  She allow me to take a picture of them.  

That picture resurfaced when she mailed a few pictures of me when I was a kid to my daughter.    My first grade school picture, my first communion picture and me surrounded by my stuffed animals.    I was annoyed that she didn't want the pictures of me anymore.    The memory of me, and how I looked as a little girl wasn't worth a few lousy square inches in a photo album?    Apparently not.   It seemed odd that she sent them to my daughter.   It's not like Mom reaches out to her all the time.  

Obviously, my mother and I are not close.   Is this whole clutter thing a bit of stupid baggage because we don't get along?   Maybe.  

So after I cleared that chunk of counter space, it was amazing how stuff kept getting set down in that spot by everyone.    A bottle, a dish towel, a plate.    I battled to keep it cleared off.   It seems nature abhors a vacuum.

What I chuck in the past 24 hours

I emptied a container of odds and ends on the kitchen counter and tossed out:

• A dozen or so dried up markers and pens.   I put the still working pens away in the pen holder and the crayons in the crayon box
• Dried up stampers that had been in the stockings from Xmas
• Tiny Playdough containers (I hate the smell of that stuff and it is awful to get out of a rug)
• A Polly Pocket doll's pair of pants that had strayed to the kitchen
• A mysterious rubber disk with a hole in the center
• An old season pass to a local ski area
• corks
• receipts, ancient
• The container itself - an old diaper wipe container

I kept a rubber wheel that goes on my son's truck (I know where it is), an ink pad that is still good (may still chuck that though), paper clips (I am always rummaging around for paper clips), key rings (just the rings, no doodad on them) and a spring clip for a backpack, which I have put on my computer bag, for future use and a couple of other things that I can't remember right now.   Unfortunately, these few remaining items are still on the counter (stop shaking your head) but I will ensure that each item ends up where it belongs before I go to bed tonight.

I have also ditched my son's old snow pants.   The replacement pair had been purchased 3 months ago and this pair was too ratty to give to someone else.  Why on earth did they sit on top of my dryer so long?

And finally, I cleared off the right hand side of my desk at work which had a messy stack (and I'm being kind with that description) of paper.  

The question I keep asking myself is "What took me so long?"

Shame

The tipping point to my soul searching post on the NYTimes happened a few days earlier.   I was giving a ride home to my daughter and a teammate of hers.    I knew that the teammate's mom was out of town and wouldn't return until late that evening.   Part of me wanted to invite the kid to dinner.   But I couldn't bring myself to do it out of shame of the mess in the house.   And I felt horrible that I might be crippling my daughter's social life because I can't get and keep control of the clutter in the house.   I felt crummy that I wasn't showing the kindness that I knew that I should. 

The kids don't have playdates/friends over much because it IS a big deal.   It always involves at least 4 hours of picking up and cleaning to be able to allow others into the house.   And that's if everyone pitches in.

Oh and yes, I was picking up in the car before the girls got out of practice.   The clutter extends to the car.  

So.  I want to fix this because this IS hurting my kids.  

I comment on a NYT article about Children of Hoarders

Here's the link: I question whether I am a hoarder or not...

and if you don't feel clicking, this is what I said:

What is the line between clutter and hoarding? I definitely have a clutter problem. I do live with "doorbell dread" because my house is in a constant mess. I used to have someone that cleaned every two weeks, and we used to run around and pick up the night before she came, but my economic situation hasn't allowed for that in over five years. I feel like there aren't enough hours in the day to keep up with the mess. We wake up, get the kids off to school, us off to work and after coming home, make dinner, do the dishes, do a load of laundry, get the kids to bed, clean up after the cats, do any task that is required for the next day and then there is maybe 1/2 hour of time left in the day before going to bed exhausted and starting all over again. There's so much to do that on the weekends a few hours of housekeeping doesn't seem to make much of a dent. My husband spends the weekends keeping the yard up, stacking firewood and home repair, so it's not like he's not pitching in. The paper continues to march in, via mail and the kid's school papers, the laundry mountain grows despite my efforts to beat it back. Where do people find the time to work, raise their kids and keep a spotless, clutter-free house all at the same time? I don't feel attached to my stuff, but I also don't see it as a high priority to go through my stuff and get rid the junk I don't need anymore, because there are only so many hours in a day. Am I in denial? Am I really a hoarder? 

Various people answered me and I even answered one of them (See here.)  The NYT closed the comments, but I still want to keep the discussion going.   So here I am.