Paper Jungle

 I am not a talented homemaker.  My decorating style is somewhere between hand me down and boho chic. My cleaning skills are not off the chart unless you are referring to the not even making the chart side of things.  Organization is challenging to me.  I have too many projects, too many irons in the fire at once to have a gracious, relaxed, serene space.

I am an everything out organizer.  I need to see things to do things.  I don't like to put things away until I am done with them.  This is a problem.  This is a big problem. It has become an even bigger problem during the pandemic when no one was at my house.  The messes grew and grew and grew.

As we started to come out of the pandemic, I realized that once again I might want to have someone visit or stay at my house.  At very least, I would need tradesmen and women to come in to fix things for me. (Like the light in the dining room that stopped working months ago.) I started to make attempts to clean things up.  I just wasn't getting very far. I didn't even know where to start.  I began to feel hopeless and depressed about ever cleaning my house.

Recently I needed a rare piece of paperwork for my financial guy.  It was a letter that I get once a year and on it my name is spelled wrong. He asked me to send a photo through email.  This would be easy for an organized person.  But, for me it was a monumental task.  I don't like to file paperwork.  I get a lot of it. I get double the amount an ordinary person gets because I get all of my mom's business paperwork as well as my own. Even though she is 100, she gets a lot of paperwork.

I pulled out everything.  I had piles of paperwork all over the living room.  I made categories.  I sorted between Mom and my own paperwork.  I threw away envelopes. I labeled file folders.  And I filed.  And I filed. And I filed.  It took me 2 days.  I found the letter with my name spelled wrong.  I found some insurance cards.  I found a recipe I had been looking for.  I found a lot of papers.  I put them in order. And today that mountain of paperwork sits in 2 boxes in my office.  It amazes me.

I find having finished that task, the whole house cleaning thing doesn't seem as daunting.  I have started to put away and organize things all over the house.  Of course, one the side effects is I can see how dirty the floors are and how much dust has accumulated, but there is an end in sight.

I will never be Suzy Homemaker (even if I did win the Betty Crocker Future Homemaker Award when I was a senior in high school).  But, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel whereby I may one day have people into my house again.  It may happen.  I think the key will be not letting the paperwork get out of control again.

Spark Joy

 That Tidying Up lady advises one to get rid of things that don't spark joy.  I watched all of those episodes on Netflix and I set out before the pandemic to tidy up.  Unfortunately, I didn't get very far before the pandemic and all the babysitting happened and I lost track of the plan to tidy up.

As I return to that thought, take the pin out of it, if you will, I am finding it hard to find anything that spark joy.  All my things seem to make me feel tired and overburdened.  I hate to throw away perfectly good things, but why keep things that I don't want?  I am making boxes to donate where I can, but the stress apple with my name on it probably needs to hit the trash. I don't even think that I would give it to the grandchildren to play with.  I am not sure what it is made of. And there are more things like that.  I just need to feel bolder at throwing things away.  I hate the thought of over burdened landfills.  But, is my house meant to be an overburdened landfill?

As I gaze at these things, I am finding it hard to spark joy with anything. Chocolate, maybe I spark joy at chocolate.  I won't be throwing that away. But, the stress apple is already in the trash.

Cleaning Diaries

 I have too much stuff and most of it isn't organized.  I hate to send something to the landfill if it still has a use.  I kick myself over all the things I have gotten rid of and then repurchased at a later date. I might be borderline hoarder.  Maybe I am definitely hoarder.  One just doesn't like to think of oneself in that way.

I am trying.  I am trying with renewed vigor because it occurs to me that I am not going to live forever. There is a lot of stuff that my son could put in a dumpster that would be no great loss.  But, there is some stuff that the archivist in me would like to see preserved.  So, I got a document camera and I am trying to keep a record of it.

I have also made contact with the Oklahoma History Museum which is where some of the stuff belongs in the end.  I need to take it there. It is just deciding that I am done with it that is the problem.  When am I finished with it?

And then there is the sentimental stuff.  Mom's highchair and baby chairs, Dad's baby plate and Christening cup, and some stuff that belonged to my grandparents.  And some stuff that my uncle made that I would like to pass on to his great grandchildren, because mine won't treasure it like his will.

So, I work and work on things and feel like I am getting no where.  It is one step forward and two steps back.  I need that Marie lady to come over.  She likes to deal with messes.  

Reveries

 As I may have mentioned more than once, I have too much stuff.  I have a basement full of stuff.  A good bit of it is stuff from my mom.  The old pictures I want to keep.  The multiple boxes of Christmas stuff, I don't.  But there are books, old files, old dishes, old toys, old this, old that.  And some of that stuff is mine.  Like a lot of teachers I hang onto and collected things to teach with and now I should cull it.  In truth, I should ditch it.

My difficulty comes when I go down to start to clean it out. I usually take a box to fill with stuff to donate and a bag for garbage.  I get through looking at 3 or 4 items and then I run across something that takes me someplace else.  Yesterday I came across a little German picture book that I bought in a department store in Geneva, Switzerland.  It has no value.  I don't speak German.  My son wouldn't want it.  Why keep it?  Because seeing it takes me back to 1973 when as an exchange student to Brighton College of Education and traveled on the continent in April.  My friend and I went into a very expensive department store.  We looked around and I found that little book that I could afford.  I have a lot of books like that.

So, I didn't get much done in the cleaning out.  I concluded that I need to get rid of numerous books like that little German book or maybe it is Swiss?  Anyway, I don't need it.  I am not planning to take it to heaven with me.  Every time I go to the basement, I end up lost in a reverie.  I guess there are worse places to be.

Boring Post--Quirky

 I am an eccentric in many ways.  I like quirky things.  When I look at pictures of beautifully decorated houses, I enjoy them, but I wouldn't want to live in most of them.  I would like more kitsch in the house where I live.  I like interesting things. I like to fiddle with things and look at things that are different and original.  I probably have the soul of an artist without the skill or good taste.

A clean house with everything put away is lovely.  I wish I could achieve such a thing.  But, I get itchy in completely clean houses, like I don't belong or fit.  I like to have scope for the imagination.  I like to have things to keep my mind and my hands busy.

That is my struggle.  I would like to have a perfectly clean organized house, I really would. But, I wouldn't want to live there.