Sunday, December 28, 2008

Cheer Us on (Please?!?!?!!!)

I have debated posting about this since Friday. Do I want to air my dirty laundry on my blog? Yes, no, yes, no.

I decided to air the dirty laundry.

Before Christmas, Bob asked me what I wanted for Christmas. My answer? A clean house. Seriously. What did I get? An iPod Shuffle (which I'm wearing and loving.), and a few other small, nice goodies.

The day after Christmas, Bob and I had a spat. About what? Where we were going to store the brand-new Christmas tree. I wanted to store it in the basement, as mice got our old tree that was stored out in the shed. Bob proclaimed there was too much stuff down there. And then a 5-minute back and forth bickering session ensued.

However, the result of that bickering back and forth was fantastic. Bob got the phone book, I grabbed the phone and made a call. I called the trash company. I ordered, gasp, a dumpster. I also scheduled a pick up for a hide-a-bed and an old, heavy, broken TV. All this will transpire Monday morning.

Friday we started working. I want to state that if you were to visit my home, it's usually company ready. Sometimes it's messy, and sometimes I let the dishes stack up, but the bones are there: the upstairs is organized, most things have a home and it doesn't appear that I'm a hoarder. (Let's not talk about the messy basement, though.)

Ahem. Did I say hoarder? After starting the school room yesterday, was convinced I was a hoarder. I googled hoarder, then googled pictures of hoarders, hoarding. I found a website that stated, Hoarder.:
Someone who Hoards has psychiatric condition that affects less than 1 % of the population.
The person obsesses over his stuff and will most likely not find a solution unless professional help is sought.
The collected stuff will cause serious distress and discomfort and will limit the person's ability to make good use of his house or rooms. They will not take out trash and will often keep about anything.
Clutterer.:
Cluttering affects millions of people.
Someone that lives amongst clutter accumulates without much thought and would probably be able to make the changes themselves if motivated enough to do so.
Often this will never get to such an extreme point as to debilitate the persons freedom and comfort. They will be able to take out trash and throw things away if given enough reason.


Whew. I'm not a hoarder. I just have too damned much stuff. Bob and I are throwing things away and taking out the trash.

This is a very difficult task. Well, the school room has been. The other rooms have been relatively painless. I know the results will boost my spirits more than anything.

Where stuff is going:

Donations of books will be made to our local library. (Wow, are they getting a lot!)

Donations of clothing and household goods will be made to the Epilepsy Foundation. (They do curb-side pick up in our small town every couple of months, and we're about due. Will call Monday to see when they pick up. If it's too long, donations will go to the local Salvation Army.)

Dumpster: This isn't as bad as it sounds. We're not filling the landfill. Where we live, the garbage goes to the facility, and it's crushed to bits, then sits in piles for a very long time, heats up, is crushed again--it's a long process, but in the end they make mulch out of the garbage.

Toxics: Taken to our local garbage facility as they have an exchange program for usable product and proper disposal for non usable product.

So we're fairly green in the process. Bob didn't want to bother with Freecycle or Craig's list, and neither do I.

No garage sale this time.

We're working our tails off here, and would love to have some cheers, pats on the back, etc.

Peter Walsh, eat your heart out.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Three cheers, one for each of you :).

Great way to start the new year!

samuel said...

Momma has made a few attempts to declutter, and I've been involved to some extent in some of that, but we've never really done the job right. We end up moving piles of stuff around and around. Sometimes we rearrange the piles and make it seem like we accomplished something, but really we never have.

Good luck and have fun!

Unknown said...

Good for you! We just went through the kids' rooms before the holidays and it was great to get rid of the stuff. We have 1 closet that we will be going through this week. We just don't have the space for stuff. Of course I am starting to make better use of our worthless closets. We are going to organize them better so that they are actually useful. They are the smallest closets that I have ever seen.

Keep up the good work!!!

Garden State Kate said...

Good for you!
We are working on our clutter as well. But more slowly..lol.

Sara said...

Good luck - that sounds like a great project for going into the new year with less stuff.

Meg_L said...

When you finish, do you want to come here and do us?

Good luck!

Michelle said...

Nothing more freeing than a good clear out! I love the feeling of a cleared-out room, organised drawers, decluttered closets...Ooh, I feel an urge to clean coming on...hope it's all going well!

Heather said...

Naw, you're not a hoarder at all. My mother in law really is, and when we went to "help" clean her house, she actually cried when we threw away games that were missing pieces and tempera paints that had gone bad. CAN NOT throw stuff away.

Like you, I just have too much crap in a house not made to hold so much crap. Most of my tossing out has been limited by what would fit in the garbage can; I'd never considered ordering a dumpster, but my goodness could I fill it! Good for you for cleaning out. I'm really impressed!