The Front Porch Swing

[LeslieDJoyce]

Fingers crossed for you. I hope you get it.

x2!

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I've got one of those controlling people in my life, controlling to the max! It has got to where I absolutely can not stand to be around them and I won't be around them if I can possibly get around it. When they start their attempt at controlling everything and everybody my anger level tops out and it is best that we part company. Pretty sad.

Sympathy hug!

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Sadly I have a sister like that. We communicate - I deliver eggs, etc...but we don't talk. We spend limited time around each other. From my point of view it's to decrease my anxiety about being around her - from her point of view it's because I don't follow her advice when she gives it - I know this because she's told me. Side note - it's pretty materialistic advice.

Sympathy hug to you, too.

Oops, forgot the hug. Here you go!

 

[Triple Willow]

Yes, my DH was amazed at the small amount of possessions I had when we were married - most of it was books. My secret was to put all the stuff that was "clutter" on the front lawn while I was packing. It usually disappeared after a day or so - some folks actually stopped to ask if they could get stuff. 

So we moved in and I was sparse but he keeps accumulating clutter and not organizing it and it's very frustrating. It's always something that will be useful or has sentimental value so he has to save it. I thought moving into our house together would get him organized, but he just packed messes and stored them upstairs, where they still sit. I even bought him totes, they sat around for a couple of years before I decided I could use them. 

Still a little frustrating, but I'm working on my frustration. 

Your husband sounds like me. I know it has got to be frustrating to put up with somebody like us.

 

[Gldnrose]

Exactly! When you finally let them go you wonder why in the world you kept them so long and why it was so hard to give them up, but when the chips are down you find they aren't that essential after all.

You are certainly spoiled by that man....drink it up because you are so very blessed to have a man like that!

I am and 100% appreciate it. I make sure to tell him often

My mom died 3 yrs ago and I decided to sell up and move to an apt. I got rid of most of my things and what I wanted I took to the apt. There is no way i could look at all of Mama's memorabilia and junk and not want to "save" it. No way. So daughter Aimee and I talked about it. She would handle the estate sale and I would stay away. Seriously, I didn't see anything go. It would have killed me. This is all the stuff left from my house next door and her 65 yrs accumulation. Ever since I still think "Oh, I should have saved this or that" But at the time it was the only way to accomplish it. And we're fine.

Sorry for your loss. I totally understand. I lost my mom a little over a year ago and I can't even express how hard it was to go through any of her stuff. Some of the hardest parts was just going through her bedroom, packing up clothes and such. I cried through the whole process. I took a few cherished belongings. It was hard not to grab it all but I don't have the room in my house and as stated earlier, trying to de-clutter my own house so it would be hard to bring a lot more stuff into it where I wouldn't know what to do with it. I told myself that if took something and it would just sit in a box somewhere then I didn't need it. It was really a turning point for me. I didn't want my kids to have to rummage through a bunch of stuff of mine trying to figure out what to do with it so I have been trying really hard to not keep unnecessary stuff, etc.

That's why we are having a Picture Party this month, as family pictures seem to be the most desired family memorabilia. We are buying several albums, inviting some of Mom's kids(my sibs, of course) and my kids and we are going to sit around and sort, distribute and also place pics in albums. Anyone wanting their baby/childhood pics and family pics can take them, if not they go into albums that can be easily divvied up when we are gone.

We are tired of pics sitting around in totes and boxes, never seeing the light of day, but we still have to move those boxes around as we clean around them.

My grandma put little stickers on all the underside of her things with the names of who they should go to...even all the little, silly things.

That is a really neat idea!

 

[perchie.girl]

Hoarding seems to have reached epidemic proportions in developed countries and very much so in America...it certainly seems to have psychological implications for sure. Most people don't consider themselves a hoarder,even when they watch the shows...or they laugh it off and say they aren't THAT bad...yet.

Doesn't it feel great to not have that weight of stuff on your shoulders? I felt as free as a bird, though I was by no means a hoarder...just useful things I was using or would be using in the course of living a homesteading kind of life...I'm not much into knick knacks or household items so much as I am into farm/work/garden tools and equipment. It all had fit neatly into my buildings and home and one couldn't see any clutter, but all those items were there nonetheless, taking up space, needing dusting and organizing on occasion, packing and transporting when we moved, etc.

I had been carrying around one small stack of Mother Earth News mags from the 70s and 80s since I was a little girl...they were my favorite ones out of all those my parents had and had things in them that I wanted to try or do one day. Finally looked at them one day and realized I had already done all those things I had wanted to try along the way somewhere in life and no longer needed them. Tossed them out.

I grew up in a hoarders house.... I love my mom but.... Shes filled her house to the brim to the point that there are only paths from coming in the door throughout the house. She used to throw away cooking pans she couldnt get clean..... When I was in my twenties in my very first apartment I was ready to do the same when a girlfriend said.... "Why dont you give a brillo pad a try".... Those words spoke Volumes .... That I really never was taught house keeping skills.

I still use alot of paper plates and cups.... and since I found out you can do dishes while seated I have gotten infiinately better at keeping the kitchen clean.

Funny thing is Grandma is my moms mom. And you could eat off the floors in her house for years. No dishes left to soak they were rinsed and put in the dishwasher... She married a man (not my biological Grandpa but the only one I knew as Grandpa) who was ex navy and very very much OCD about many things. So that rubbed off on grandma I am sure. He would get out in the yard and VACUUME up the rabbit poop.... he would be out there for hours on his hands and knees dragging the shop vac behind him Parting the grass and vacuuming. He couldnt bear the thought of rabbit poop being in the grass.... He could take a shower using less than twenty gallons of water... Wet turn the water off lather up Turn the water on and rinse.

Thankfully their OCD was/is with a smile on thier face and an offer to do it themselves.... probably why mom didnt learn how to do for herself....

Grandma was born in 1916 lived dirt poor the first ten years of her life litterally. Dirt floor in their house in Colorado.... It was dug down into the ground Wood was very hard to come by.

I think so many of those individuals that went through that kind of life never wanted their children to go through that.... so they over compensated. She would use the same tinfoil many times before it got thrown out. Same goes for anything cloth.... Great Grandma made clothing out of old flour sacks.... And with nine kids that lived the hand me downs were pretty thread bare by the time they got to Grandma... After her they were used as dish rags and after dish rags they were used to braid carpet.

deb

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Hoarding seems to have reached epidemic proportions in developed countries and very much so in America...it certainly seems to have psychological implications for sure. Most people don't consider themselves a hoarder,even when they watch the shows...or they laugh it off and say they aren't THAT bad...yet.

Doesn't it feel great to not have that weight of stuff on your shoulders? I felt as free as a bird, though I was by no means a hoarder...just useful things I was using or would be using in the course of living a homesteading kind of life...I'm not much into knick knacks or household items so much as I am into farm/work/garden tools and equipment. It all had fit neatly into my buildings and home and one couldn't see any clutter, but all those items were there nonetheless, taking up space, needing dusting and organizing on occasion, packing and transporting when we moved, etc.

I had been carrying around one small stack of Mother Earth News mags from the 70s and 80s since I was a little girl...they were my favorite ones out of all those my parents had and had things in them that I wanted to try or do one day. Finally looked at them one day and realized I had already done all those things I had wanted to try along the way somewhere in life and no longer needed them. Tossed them out.

Yes it does.... At the time in addition to the usual collection of personal stuff I was also battling the recycling monster. When they mandated that you must recycle I jumped on board.... but in order to do it right the milk jugs should be cleaned out.... I started washing out tin cans as well..... then I realized I was wasting water..... I grid locked. Here in the land of DRY. Water rationing happens every couple of years here.... We will be doing it again this summer i am certain.

So now I take the middle road. Recycle when I can and if in doubt throw it out. And no rinsing of anything....

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote: Oh I love it.... I hope you are friends with your neighbors or have quite a distance between you.... Guineas are incredibly entertaining.... and after their first year not sooo loud but they are loud in the decible range....

deb "Whos last flock had 10 guineas"

 

[Beekissed]

I grew up in a hoarders house.... I love my mom but.... Shes filled her house to the brim to the point that there are only paths from coming in the door throughout the house. She used to throw away cooking pans she couldnt get clean..... When I was in my twenties in my very first apartment I was ready to do the same when a girlfriend said.... "Why dont you give a brillo pad a try".... Those words spoke Volumes .... That I really never was taught house keeping skills.

I still use alot of paper plates and cups.... and since I found out you can do dishes while seated I have gotten infiinately better at keeping the kitchen clean.

Funny thing is Grandma is my moms mom. And you could eat off the floors in her house for years. No dishes left to soak they were rinsed and put in the dishwasher... She married a man (not my biological Grandpa but the only one I knew as Grandpa) who was ex navy and very very much OCD about many things. So that rubbed off on grandma I am sure. He would get out in the yard and VACUUME up the rabbit poop.... he would be out there for hours on his hands and knees dragging the shop vac behind him Parting the grass and vacuuming. He couldnt bear the thought of rabbit poop being in the grass.... He could take a shower using less than twenty gallons of water... Wet turn the water off lather up Turn the water on and rinse.

Thankfully their OCD was/is with a smile on thier face and an offer to do it themselves.... probably why mom didnt learn how to do for herself....

Grandma was born in 1916 lived dirt poor the first ten years of her life litterally. Dirt floor in their house in Colorado.... It was dug down into the ground Wood was very hard to come by.

I think so many of those individuals that went through that kind of life never wanted their children to go through that.... so they over compensated. She would use the same tinfoil many times before it got thrown out. Same goes for anything cloth.... Great Grandma made clothing out of old flour sacks.... And with nine kids that lived the hand me downs were pretty thread bare by the time they got to Grandma... After her they were used as dish rags and after dish rags they were used to braid carpet.

deb

deb

The picture of that sweeping of the rabbit poop caught my funny bone! But...I can see my mother doing this once upon a time. She has no less than three different kinds of sweepers, her fave being the shop vac, and around (I've lost track) 6 sweepers of those different kinds. She also has more brooms than a custodian's closet.

She will mow the already mowed lawn to try and break up the chicken poop there before company comes...if it had a sweeper attachment, she would engage it!

We do the same thing with showers and have the water saver shower heads, even though we have a wonderful, deep and plentiful well.....I think after all those years of homesteading and hauling water by the bucketful, they ~and even I~ have developed a reluctance to take water for granted.

 

[Triple Willow]

I'm more of a procedural freak than a clutter freak. I like procedures to be a efficient as possible, and I'm a stickler for designing "quality" into a procedure. I'm always on the lookout for a "better" way to do things, and love the zing of an inspiration about that. 
Oh gosh I am a procedure freak about some things too. There are certain things that I do "in order" and if I get out of order I usually mess up what I'm doing or at the least it takes longer to get it done. See... I'm a wee bit nutty. LOL
I can't deal with a lot of unexplained clutter very well, like "decorations." Decorations make me itchy, like literally. I HATE artificial plants and flower arrangements! All they are is dust catchers. lol my "clean freak" friend I was talking about. They live in a small 3-4 room apartment. One day I counted over 30 flower arrangements in that place... ahhh!!! lol But I will leave "work" things "out" that I use all the time rather than adding two steps to a procedure (put something away, get it back out again). Yep. (hanging head in shame) There is a battery chargerr sitting in the floor of my kitchen that I kept having to get back out, so of course I finally just left it out.I have a large-ish house, so I have "zones" for various activities, and I like to "batch" projects as I find the hardest part about any job is STARTING it ... so I design procedures so you don't have to start things any more than necessary, and then I try to turn those procedures into habits so I don't have to think about it first to motivate myself ... it becomes automatic.

When I've lived in smaller spaces I have found it more "efficient" to always put everything away, so I didn't have to start every project by clearing a spot to work. That is always a depressing step to me.

When some other people come to visit this house they can't stand to see dishes drying beside the sink. Me too. My neat freak friend came in one day and started washing a sink of dirty dishes here at my house. Oh that ticked me off! Air-drying saves effort AND it's more sanitary. So I air dry. But oh how the sight of that pushes some people over the edge!

When I "moved home" there was absolutely no place to put anything down. That made starting the de-cluttering SO difficult. I'd pick something up because I couldn't stand to look at it/move around it any more, then have no place to put it except maybe the garbage. But my mom died very shortly after I moved home, and Dad went through a phase of freaking out about anything going into the garbage, so I spent years being exceptionally sneaky about even that. 

I got very creative finding places to "donate" anything that might be useful as Dad seemed to be able to cope with that. I don't mind donating stuff but throwing good stuff away drives me nuts!And I boxed up a lot of stuff that wasn't good enough to donate. Since then, I've been going through boxes ... slowly ... as I/we feel strong enough to face that.

I sent ONE box to my sister to deal with, and she had a total meltdown over it. Going through family stuff can be extremely difficult, emotionally. I often find myself completely overwhelmed by a particular batch of stuff, and that feeling can really block my progress.
My mom is on up in years and not in good health and of course I may kick the bucket before she does but I hate the thought of going through all that. It will be so emotional I am sure.

Luckily, there are PLENTY of thing to do in a day, so I can just put the ongoing de-cluttering on the back burner for a bit until I get an inspiration about how to deal with that specific "mess." Once inspired I can move pretty fast. Without inspiration, a simple task can never end. For me, the planning is not only enjoyable, it is essential. 

Now that I've got some basic areas clear
ed out I'm "comfortable" with the pace of my progress through the house. But I'm sure motivated to keep my own stuff to a bare minimum.