The Dining Room: A Quick Peak

I week ago, I posted about my Dining Room, and the clean slate I was started with.  I’m happy to say that Saturday I did have some moments while painting when I was really enjoying myself.  I loved the color blue I had chosen and that just left me feeling happy.  Of course after two long days which ended in very late nights, and paint that wanted to stick to tape rather than the wall, I was pretty much done in Sunday night when I feel into bed after 2am.

I really wanted to move the furniture in today and spend the weekend filling the curio and china cabinets.  Unfortunately because I haven’t been able to check everything off my list, I’m not ready for that yet.  I think after the late nights last weekend, followed by a sore back and working during the day, I misplaced my motivation.

A quick peak at a before:

This is what a girl does late at night when she is running out of primer but hopes to get the top color at least started before going to bed.  Unfortunately, I had the slowest drying paint last weekend, and I went to bed with the walls looking like this.

And this is where I am now.  My Balmy & Leisure Blue on the wall, separated by my pretty chair railing, which will get its final coat of paint tonight.

Before this time next week I hope to have pictures that actually have furniture in them.  But since my before pictures didn’t and because I am proud of what I have done to this point I am linking up over at A Bowl Full of Lemons to share my progess so far.

The Dining Room: Work in Progress

My main focus this weekend was painting the Dining Room.  Only problem was that while I was focused on that room, I totally let my daily items I had been working on slide.  I’m not going to let it get to me though, since I know I’ll get back on track.

Not to mention that this weekend I did:

1. Worked once again on priming the paneling.  Was running out of primer so I did the top two thirds of the room. (Friday)

2. Went to the paint store to buy more primer, went to the lumber store to pick out chair railing, and went to get my brother’s breakfast (Saturday)

3. Started from the beginning on priming the wall my brother had to replace the paneling on. (Saturday.)  I also primed the bottom half of the room.

4. Cut in and painted the two coats of my top color. (Saturday)

5. Marked and taped off where the chair railing would be going.  Taped off the baseboard. (Sunday)

6. Painted two coats of white on the chair railing molding. (Sunday)

7. Painted two coats of primer and a coat of white on the trim for the door way. (Sunday)

8. Painted two coat of white on the crown molding.  (Sunday)

9. Cut in and painted the two coats of my bottom color. (Sunday)

10. Spent at least 45 minutes cussing while trying to remove the tape from the baseboards.  Ended up having to go around with a knife before I could pull the tape and still had to make a dozen repairs. (Sunday night at about 12:30 am)

11. I also washed my sheets and blankets and was putting them back on the bed at 2am so I could fall into bed and get some sleep.

The paint dried at a snail’s pace this weekend, and I think that was part of the issue with the baseboard tape, since the tape I put down for the crown molding worked perfect.  Oh and the top section of the bottom coat that I taped off, that would be hidden under the chair railing?  It came off perfectly.  Go figure!

For some reason in my head I keep thinking that I only have a few things to do and the room will be done.  When I start laying it all out though, those few things seem to really add up.

1. Paint the trim and baseboards.

2. Put a quick coat of paint on the chair railing after my brother installs it for me.  Hoping he caulks it too.

3. Decide which color I am painting the ledge between the kitchen and dining room.

4. Pull up the cardboard and tape from the floor.

5. Sweep the floor.

6. Beg the guys to move the furniture into the room for me.

7. Decide how many leafs I want to put in the table and where I will store them if I don’t.

8. Put the dishes in the china cabinet and decide what will go in the curio.

9. Hang the mirror.

10. Wait for Momma to sew the curtains and valance.  Then recover the chair cushions.

11. Figure out what decorations will be going in the room.  Guess it is time to start looking for ideas there.

I’ll be totally happy if I can get 1-9 of those done by this time next week.  Nine and ten will come in time, and I’m okay with that.

I also need to make my menu plan, decide if I am going to the grocery store this week, catch up on dishes plus other daily/weekly items, and wash clothes.

Right now the list seems never ending...

Hello Color!

I’m in a good mood today and felt like writing.  I don’t really have anything on my ‘to do’ list tonight, except for some personal plans, and I’m currently keeping those, well personal.  So I thought this would be a good time to back track and share a little more about my January.

I have dubbed the year 2011 as the *Year of Me*.  This is my year to make the changes in my life that are much needed. 

Some of my personal goals for the year are:

To finish losing weight, and keep it off

Decluttering and organizing my house (and life)

Set up daily/weekly routines so that I can keep my house clean and organized

Spend less and save more

Forty seven days into the year and I already feel better than I have in a long time.  While I haven’t really focused in on the weight loss aspects yet, I have been working on others.  I feel like this year, will be a good year for me.  I’m going to do what I can to make it that way.

It is amazing how life changes and things sometimes move very fast.  On the 6^th of January I was told that I needed to have at least a part of my house ready to put down new floors.  When were they going to start on the floors?  The 10^th!  Nothing like a deadline to get you jump started huh?  But I know from past experiences that I do work better with a deadline, as I tend to get more done right then and there.  Since the first of January my attention has been focused on my house, which it needed to be, so that is a bonus.

During the floor removal I decided to paint the two bedrooms.  I’ve been ready for a change in my bedroom, so I decided to go all out by replacing the bedding and curtains and paint while I was at it.  After some thought I decided to go bold, and bold I went.  The paint color I choose for my bedroom was Really Red.  And yes, it really is red.  I love it, though those around me just kind of shake their head or talk about it’s glowing properties.

The room is far from done since I still need to paint the furniture and put it all back together.  I’m excited about it, especially when I start thinking about decorating ideas.  I want to attempt some art work for one wall, and I do mean attempt so I’m not an artist.  And I already bought a vase and flowers to go in the corner.

It is one of my works in progress.  Another work in progress would be the other bedroom.  For my extra bedroom I decided on Fun Yellow.  I’m happy with this color choice as well, and am accenting it with blues.  The furniture has been moved back into the room, which is more than I can say about my bedroom.  I do have plans to pull the bench back out and paint it a blue to match the curtains I bought, plus I need to hang some decorations as well as find some other ones. 

The previous theme in the room was a sea/beach/water theme and I went a little over board with it.  I found a bunch of different cute things I bought over a period of time then realized it was probably too much and didn’t exactly match together.  Since it was all already bought I used them anyway.  When I started cleaning the room out I had no problem getting rid of some things, but other things, like the shells, I had I wanted to keep and find another use for.  I’m working on editing my ideas and staying more simplistic.  Instead of having 10 small random bowls of shells I decided I would condense it down.  This is what I came up with.

I’m working on some ideas for both bedrooms to utilize things I have in other rooms that do not match those rooms any more.  As I said in the post about the craft chest, I’m not a big think outside the box kind of person.  It actually feels a little funny to me to paint something that is perfectly fine as is.  But I am going to work past those feeling and just do it, because I’d rather paint and reuse items I like, but don’t necessarily fit into the new rooms.  I know in the end I will probably love it more, and it saves me money from having to go out and buy all new decorations.

It is amazing to think back on the last 6 weeks to see how much I have accomplished in that short span of time.  I still have many projects, both big and small on my every growing ‘to do’ list, but it feels good to know that I have checked several things off already.

I am a firm believer that it isn’t only the before and after that matters, but the journey it takes to get you there.  I am very much looking forward to my journey this year, and am excited to see what it has in store for me.

A January Project: The Cake Room

Well the Cake Room / General All Purpose Storage Room that is.

I do cakes as a hobby, but I also teach cake decorating classes at a local craft store.  This room has been pretty much a storage area for all things cake that I have collected over the last 10 years, and crafts/odds and ends, and the stuff I just haven’t known what to do with.

Back in the fall, it was decided that all the floors in the house would be replaced.  At that point I started cleaning this room up and putting some things in the garage sale pile.  I didn’t get a picture then, but I did remove several things from the room, including a large number of cake pans.

The floor replacement actually started on Jan 10th, and consisted of having to pack up all the rooms and move everything from one room to another while they pulled up carpet and laid new floors.

The below pictures are what I was left with from the fall clean out.  Like a lot of my projects I got stalled in the middle, and left everything as was. 

These are cell phone pictures, so the quality isn’t great.  At the time I did this, I didn’t know I’d be starting a blog.  I just wanted the pictures for my reference so I could see the difference.

The first is standing in the door way and then the pictures go counter clockwise from there. And yes those are four big 48x72x18 shelving units in this room. Plus the picture doesn’t quite show everything. There is a stack of boxes about waist high to the left side of the white shelving unit.

This is the empty room, after the new floor was put down.  Ahhh, a blank slate!

And this one, well this one is almost all of the cake stuff moved into my kitchen. It really doesn’t show the full scoop of things either. There were literally things piled and stacked from my fridge to the washer and drier. I even had boxes on top of the washer and drier.

I’m sharing this picture, because this was a little of my decluttering efforts. What cracks up me most about this picture?   Well my best friend’s daughter just turned 4. I’ve done all but this year’s cake, and I bought candles the last three years for the cake. And for any other of the number combinations, I’d have to wait two to three years to use them. Considering these have been in a box for probably at least 6 years, I decided it was time they go and when the time comes I’ll just buy new candles. Because really, am I going to remember I have them?

This is another decluttering of mine. The boxes are full of cookie cutters.  The bigger stack on the left would be the ‘to keep’ pile, but at least I was able to let go of about a third of it. That’s progress for me, especially when I didn’t think I’d get rid of any of them when I first started opening the boxes. I still have candy molds to sort through, but because I was able to condense down a lot, and I was already drained I decided that they could wait for another time.

And now… (You may want to go back up and look at the before pictures just for a moment.)
 

The white file boxes in the corner of the two shelving units are the candy molds that I need to go through. There are also some boxes that are on one of the shelves I’ll need to sort through as well.

Now I’d love to tell you that the other side of the room looked like this… 

  But then I’d have to be honest and show the other two pictures…

These two pictures show the rest of the stuff that came out of the room, that would need to go back in there or somewhere else.

At least 4 of the plastic containers (two tall and two skinny) were moved out to my storage building. I’m not sure if they are there to be stored or if I’ll put them on the garage sale side. But for now they are not in my house.

The metal boxes, there are two that size, and smaller ones inside of them, which are my cake travel boxes are also out in the storage room. I don’t want to get rid of them, but I won’t need them until the next convention I go to, which won’t be this year.

So this is the other side of the room now…

 

The boxes stacked in the corner are 3d or shaped cake pans. Most of the other boxes are papers, magazines and books. I’ll go through them and scan what I want to keep then get rid of the books. Right now, I have too many other things going on to worry with it. It’ll be nice to clear it out and have more free space. And the items from the Wilton tool box/Castle cake set and the 4 boxes to the left are items that I plan to use as give a ways for my students.

The only cake related items that were missing from these pictures are my two rolling tool boxes, Wilton tool caddy and my bag, all of which are class stuff.

When the room was finished that day, there was also one wall that just two boxes of lids for various plastic containers.  My ‘craft storage’ has since been put on this wall.  And well to be honest other items have been moved into the room from the dining room clean out.  My Grandma’s Wedding China and all my vases/candle holders have been placed in here for safe keeping, for now.

 
I have two rows of empty plastic containers.  Some of these containers were used for the hallway/bathroom projects and also for the ‘craft storage’ (pictures coming soon for that project).

Since the fall quite a few items have come out of this room.  They have either been thrown away or put in the garage sale pile, so I really don’t have a clear idea of how much has left the room vs what stayed. My main objective was to get it cleaned out and organized, so I really haven't kept a tally while I was working on it.

I do know that by looking around the room that it definitely has less in it, especially randomly piled up. I also feel less stressed when I enter the room.

I did learn one lesson.  Do not use removable labels on plastic containers. They just don’t stay stuck.

My Sunday, in a nut shell.

I spent a good portion of the day in the kitchen with kiddo.  We made breakfast together, him working on the pancakes all by himself and me working on the bacon and apples to go with them.  We also made lunch.  I think I’m going to call it La Spaghetti.  Me and kiddo both thought it was a success and now I have to figure out how to write out a recipe for him, when I did some of that a little of this and a little of that cooking.

I instructed kiddo on how to make cake balls. 

I think he enjoyed making them and he did a great job!

With us in and out of the kitchen so much I made it a point to keep up with doing the dishes.  This is one area that is always hard for me, because I usually just put them off until the sink is full and they are piled up on the counter beside it, then I have to spend a ton of time washing dishes to catch up.  I’m working on that though, or at least I tired to today.

I washed two sets of sheets, three blankets, a load of towels, a load of socks and unmentionables, and finished it off with a load of clothes.  Everything but the clothes have been either returned to beds or folded and put up.  The clothes are hanging in the bathroom drying for now.  I also cleaned out a clothes basket, giving a few items homes, returning some to their hours, and parting with others.

I talked kiddo into carrying all the trash over to the dumpster for me.  Then we carried out the boxes to the storage room.  I had that moment of ‘oh man this is a lot of wasted stuff/money’ seeing how much is actually in that building.  I felt better though, when I came back into the house and saw more of the floor and free space not having that stuff in the house gives me.  I’ve felt lighter the last few days and less freaked out when I look around.

The only other task I really managed to do today, was clean all the glass vases and candle holders off the bar top.  They are now tucked in the ’cake room.’  I did sort through them Friday, and I did put a box full in the to go pile.  I don’t know if I will keep all of what I saved out or not.  My plan is to hold on to them until I get the house set up and decorated, then see what is left and what I am willing to part with then.  Some more of those baby steps.

I have two things left on my I really should handle that today list.  Freezer/fridge list and menu plan.   I’m stalling, I know it.  Other wise I would have handled them before I even booted up the computer.  But I didn’t.

I think part of it is while I have read great things about menu plans and how they make things so much easier, I just have the hardest time sitting down and figuring out what it is I want to eat in three, five or seven days from now.  It doesn’t help that I’ll make a plan, then life happens and I get off track and two days into the menu plan and I haven’t even managed to eat one thing on it. Since I’m tired of spending money on food that I end up throwing out because it goes bad, I know this is just going to have to be another issue I work on, and really try to stick to it or adjust with out quitting. 

Of course most people usually do the menu plan thing before going to the store, but I was putting it off then too.  Now that the freezer is cleaned out, I have a better idea what is in there, and honestly it is plenty for me to eat on if I plan it out and make sure I take things out to thaw when I need to.

Okay, okay I know.  Instead of sitting here, in the kitchen mind you, typing about it, I just need to get up and do it. 

Okay, okay.  I am…

I'm getting closer.

9:06 am

The bed is made, I’m up and dressed.  Well mostly anyway, have thick socks on instead of shoes and since I’m not the fly lady, my hair only got a quick comb and clipped back out of my eyes, plus no make up.  That’s okay though because it seems today is a snow day.  Yep, we have a beautiful layer of snow coating the ground so I’m not going to work.

I am going to make this snow day a productive day.  Instead of napping the morning away and lazing around I am going to use it doing stuff that I really need to do.

1.  Finish the task of the cleaning and organizing the hallway closet.

2.  Tackle the kitchen bar area and catch up on washing dishes.  I’ll also need to clean off the kitchen cabinets as much as I can.  Both these areas are still holding some of the breakable items that came out of other rooms from when they were pulling the floor up.  Some of them are also items from my grandma’s house, so I’ve been trying to keep them safe until I can get the little curio cabinet gets moved in.  I’ll need to sort through some of this, and see which items of mine I am willing to let go of.

3.  Deal with the I don’t know boxes from last night. 

4.  Put my bathroom back together, at least for now.  I haven’t made the decision on the cabinet I want to go in there, so until I do I am just going to put it back together as was.  This will get the stuff out of my living room, and will allow me to find things more easily while I figure things out. 

I think that is enough to get my day started, and if I keeping moving forward through out the day, should all be easily accomplished.  I’m off to crank up some music, find breakfast then get going!

11:26 pm

You know when you are coming home from a long trip, you’ve been in the car forever and that one thought keeps flowing through you mind.  Are we there yet?  You know the feeling you get when you see that first mileage sign that your city appears on?  That feeling of we are almost there.  Yes, of course you are still a hundred or more miles away from home, but you know the end is in sight and that you are indeed heading the right direction.

That’s how I am feeling tonight.  I know I’m not done.  I still have a lot of work to do, just to get to a point where I can switch over from cleaning out and organizing to maintaining the order.  Again I’m not there, yet.  But I’m closer.  When I looked around my house tonight, I for once, felt like the end was near, that I was almost there. 

I’m hoping these feelings mean that I am adjusting the thoughts in my head.  I said last night that cleaning had always felt like moving things from one place to another then to another.  You’d clean off the coffee table, and sure you’d throw away the trash that always seemed to pile up on it.  But then you’d be left with all these random things that you ended up tossing in a box, because if they had a place they belonged you hadn’t figured it out yet.  Okay, so I am guessing with the average, dare I say normal, person would probably be shaking there head and saying no I don’t.  But I do.  Because when I didn’t know what to do with something, I’d throw it in a plastic container.  And that container would work its way from the living room to the kitchen, and then get shoved somewhere else.

If I actually got the house completely cleaned up, and yes there were many times I would do it, all the random boxes of things would end up shoved in to the ‘cake room’ which could also double as the all purpose I don’t know what the hell to do with it, dumping ground.  And that door would be closed.  Because isn’t that how you clean house?  As long as the surface areas looked good, and no one opened your bedroom or closet doors or the ‘all purpose dumping ground’ area, the house looked clean? 

Before long though, the coffee table would be covered and I’d put off cleaning it off.  Or I’d get it in my head I was going to start organizing this or that, usually the ‘all purpose dumping ground,’ and get started on it, only to get distracted and everything would lay where it was.

Then there’d be so much stuff to deal with it was easier just not to deal with any of it.  Much like when you were a kid and you were told to clean your room.  You’d stand in the door way and stare inside, because while you knew the goal you just didn’t know exactly what steps to take first to get there, because at that moment it all just seemed impossible.

I’m learning now, through this process, that cleaning shouldn’t be about shoving everything into a container and not dealing with it.  I’m sure a therapist would have a field day with that statement, and I’m sure it says more about me than I even want to think about at this point.

What I am focusing on is that I am learning.  I’m learning that cleaning should be just about dusting, sweeping, and vacuuming.  You know the little things that really honestly don’t take a whole lot of time to do, but when you have to dig all of the furniture out from under piles of stuff, ‘cleaning’ takes on a whole different meaning.  Cleaning meant you spent a full day in a room, getting it all in order only to look at the next room and realize it would take just as long to do the same thing.  And when you got done, you had a pile of stuff you didn’t know what to do with.

I’m working on that too.  I’m working on all those piles of things.

I told someone today, I’m a work in progress but at least I am making progress.  I realize that I will at some point have to come back and go through things again and let go of more stuff.  I’m okay with that.  Maybe when that time comes I’ll see that I haven’t used something and be able to trim things down even further with out all the thoughts in my head.  Right now I’m doing baby steps.  Because I am afraid if I try to do way to much all at once, I will get completely, totally overwhelmed and quit.  I have before.

As I am going through the things I’m having some new conversations with myself.  Once you have every bottle of lotion you have in the house all in once place at the same time, you see just how much of it you have.  This process is reminding me of something I’ve already known, which is that I need to curb my spending.  I do feel though, that the visuals are adding impact to the thoughts I have already had.  I have always known I have too much stuff surrounding me.  But seeing it sitting there in front of you and really dealing with it, adds a whole new level to it.

I did go ahead and throw out some lotions, body washes and body sprays.  Okay honestly, I put them in the garage sale pile.  While I do realize that is crazy, I just had trouble throwing away some almost full bottles of stuff.  Part of it is the money spent, but the other part is the ‘it’s still good, it can still be used’ thoughts.  I knew though, that I just didn’t have room for it, and even if it gets thrown away before the garage sale, it is now currently out of my house, or will be as soon as I brave the cold and move it to the store building. 

No matter if something ends up in the trash or in the garage sale pile, the important fact is that it wasn’t shoved somewhere in my house, taking up space.

I feel I can call today a success.  I have a few more little things to do, before I could honestly completely cross all the items off my earlier list, but I completed the majority of the main elements. 

To me that is a success.

An empty dining room!

I’m done, with one major thing, at least.  The dining room has been cleared out, minus a few things that I need help moving.

Of course instead of leaving well enough alone, I decided I would go ahead and start the hall closet.  I pulled everything out of it, and all that is now on top of the dresser and coffee table that were left in the dining room.  This means that I will now need to clean the dresser off again, before I can get it moved out.  It really won’t take me more than an hour or so, I hope, to sort through the stuff.  A good portion of it will go back into the closet.  The rest will go where they belong, or into the garage sale pile.  Even though it shouldn’t take that long to do, I have run out of energy for the night.

I’m hoping I will figure out how to put pictures in this thing, because when you start with a ton of things in a space and end with very little, you just have to show it off right?  Wish me luck and let’s see if I can get this to work…

I was going to plug in a picture from when all of the furniture from the two bedrooms were in her, but you really ccouldn’t see much over the mattresses.  Just know this room was FULL with only a pathway through it.

These pictures are where I started from this week. 

I also realized after I started cleaning that I would have to deal with this area as well.  It is the area under my bar in the kitchen.  It is where the two rolling drawer units that have been hanging out in the dining room will need to go.  When you have no pantry storage one must get creative.

After three evenings of work the room now looks like this…

…and this…

The box and bags on the left are trash.  The containers on the right are ones I emptied while going through the things in the room.  The mirror came out of the middle bedroom, and I plan to hang it on this wall, once the painting is done.

During the remove of items I had a thought I’ve had many of times.  Cleaning is just moving things from one place to another to another.  The only thing different was that I actually understood if I had less items that didn’t really have homes, there would be mess to move from place to place and that cleaning may actually feel totally different to me, once I complete this process.

But until then, I am still having to move things around from room to room.  While the dining room is virtually empty, all of those items had to go somewhere.

My bedroom stuff went back in my bedroom.  Most of the clothes got hung back up in the closet, though I still have a clothes basket full that needs to go in there.  The dresser items are still in the boxes I put them in, because the dresser is not coming back into my room, until it is painted.  Or at least that is my hope.  This limbo business is part of the things that are driving me batty, but anyway.

I had a few items that’s homes should have been the linen closet, so they got piled up in front of the door.  They are now back in the dining room, but that’s okay, before it is over with, they will be where they belong.

That brings us to the next picture…

This my friends is the current ‘garage sale’ pile, items that are leaving my house.

The two of the three big boxes have my previous bedding stuff and actually half of the third box is also some of it, including the curtains.  The rest of the third box are items that came out of my bedroom that I decided would not come back.  The three barstools are also going, they will be replaced with two different ones.

This would be the limbo pile or the to be dealt with later pile.

The cardboard box is full of CDs.  When I get a chance I will go through them and compare them to what is on my MP3 player.

The two boxes behind the cardboard one are staying.  Well the larger of the two for sure, since those are my living room curtains that I pulled down to wash.  Inside the bottom one is placemats, they are a ‘to be decided on later’ deal, since I’m not sure how they will look with the new dining room.

The other four boxes are candles and candle holders (totally different than the ones I had a conversation with myself about last night, as well as some glass jars.  I’m undecided on them at the moment, and am unsure about where their homes will be, or rather the homes for the items out of there I keep.  I’d have to say that compared to all the random boxes of stuff I went through to clean out this room, that these were the least of my problems.

I am, over all, happy with what I have finished.  I am far from done, and some of the things removed from there will have to be dealt with again before I can say I have finished this whole process.  I’m choosing tonight to look on the bright side of things.  While I still may have a box of recipes to go through, that I saved from the trash tonight, it is just one box, and not five boxes with them shoved in there among other things.   I have less random boxes of  the ‘I don’t know what to do with these things, so lets shove them in the box’.  That is progress right?

I have issues!

I really planned to have my first post here be something of an introduction about why I decided to start this blog and blah, blah, blah.  But at this very moment, I really need to just use the blog for why I created it, rather than explain it all out.  Those that know me know enough about me to get it.  If you don’t know me and stumbled your way on to my blog, well I’ll get back to the intro in the near future, for now let me just say…

Hello, I’m TexasSugar.  And I have issues!  Lots and lots of issues.  Issues that are driving me batty, bonkers and tonight, close to bawling.  That last can easily be explained as I’m an emotional woman on the edge, at the moment atleast.

My current issue is this: I am a pack rat.  I get that I am.  I can easily rationalize laying the blame on others, such as my mother and her mother for being the same way.  But that doesn’t change anything.  It’s a mental thing. I get that too. 

I know the first suggest from people that aren’t clutter bugs would be, “Oh go watch an episode of Hoarders, that’ll make you want to clean out your house.”  What they don’t understand is that while I’m no where near hoarder status, I can relate to some of the mild cases of hoardering.  I’m not talking about those that have rotten food under layers of trash that they walk all over.  I’m talking about those more average people that just hold on to things. 

You know those things that you may have a use for one day. 

Things that they thought were super cute when they bought it, but really don’t have a use for it. 

Things that they paid a lot or a little for that you don’t want to throw away because, ‘hello, I paid for that.’ 

Things that so and so gave them, and you just don’t know what to do with it now, because if you get rid of it, it might hurt their feelings. 

Yeah, those kinds of things.

I’m learning that there is a lot more to decluttering than just the actual act of throwing things away, or putting them in a 'to give away/garage sale pile'.  There is a whole mental part, those little conversations you have in your head, the picking something up, thinking that you don’t really need it, then putting it in the deal with later pile. 

Why? 

Well because you don’t know how to deal with it and those stupid thoughts in your head.  You know that you’ll probably never use it, but that little what if voice comes out and makes you take a second look, second thought, and you put it away to deal with it later.  The problem comes when you start getting down to those ‘I’ll deal with you later piles and boxes,’ because then you have to, well, deal with them. 

I’d honestly thought it would get easier.  I’ve read people say that once they got started cleaning out areas in their house they just wanted to keep going and going.  For me, this week, I’m hitting a road block.  It is a self imposed road block, all in my head, I’m sure.  And it is PISSING ME OFF!!

I really do want a clean house.  I’d love to be able to walk into a room and find something right away.  I’d love to be able to walk in a room and not have the overwhelming urge to turn and walk out, or even better yet, to just leave the house all together. 

I’m also tired of family telling me the obvious.  Yes, I realize I have a full house and yes I realize that I live alone.  I also realize that other family member’s unwanted processions have a way of taking up space in my house.  This year I am simply tell them, “No I don’t need that.”  I shouldn’t matter if I don’t already have one and that it is free.  That should be a tip off to me, if I don’t have one I probably don’t need it, right?  And if I do, well then I can just go out and buy a new one when I do need it, right?  That fixes one problem, other people’s unneeded stuff entering my house.

It doesn’t fix the current issues of going through the items in my house and dealing with them.  It is the dealing with it that I am not doing so well with.  I have spurts, like earlier when I peaked in a box, closed it up and stuck in the ‘go through later pile’, because I didn’t know what else to do with it.  I did return a few minutes later, opened the two boxes up and had one of those internal, and maybe not so internal, dialogues with myself. 

The conversation pretty much went like this:

Well who can’t use candles right?  I’ll just pull these out and save. 

Do I really need the ones that have already been burned some?

I’ll just keep the new ones. Hmm, do these candles even really smell any more?   

Maybe I don’t really need them after all.  I mean I don’t burn that many candles because of the cat and I already have a couple of other boxes with newer, never been used candles, that I still need to go through. 

Am I really going to miss some candles that have been in boxes in the linen clothes for a good, oh, four to five years?

So little jar candles go.  Next up, candle holders…

I think I had these two hanging in the living room, for maybe a few months after I moved in, and they have been boxed up since.

And these here and here and here?  They moved in with me, six years ago, and the only time I’ve probably seen them was when I cleaned out the linen closet at least a year ago, and got rid of some other candles and candle holders, but decided to keep these for some unknown reason.

Okay seriously now, if they have never sat anywhere in my house but in a closet why am I keeping them?

See, what I mean about the issues?  It wasn’t like this was a five second conversation either.  It probably took me at least five minutes to come to the conclusion that I didn’t really need the items in the box.  Before I really opened the boxes I wouldn’t have been able to tell you exactly what was in them.  And yet I had to really talk myself into putting them in the garage sale pile.

It is items like those and others, that tend to give me issues.  You know perfectly good, can be used, that I paid good money for items, that I have to have a conversation with myself on why I should let go of them.

I’ll be honest and say that I did rescue five brass candle sticks from the boxes.  These were bought cheap, for a specific purpose, and used for that purpose.  I’m not a big fan of brass, but when I saw them in the box I thought, okay maybe I can paint those and use them in my ‘new’ bedroom.  So I’m keeping them with the idea of repurposing them.  If I don’t, they can in a future box of ‘garage sale’ stuff, because don’t we all have one of those laying around, for that garage sale, you know you will have one day? 

Oh, what, you don’t do that?  Hmm, well another one of those things I get from my mother.  You probably don’t have a junk room either, huh?

***** ***** *****

This was all written last night, when I was in the midst of being totally frustrated and annoyed, mostly with myself, and honestly close to tears.  There was more typed out where I rambled on and on, so I’ve decided to cut that part out for now. 

I did realize a few things as I was typing though.  I realized that there may be a part of me that is stalling cleaning out the dining room, because once it is complete, once the room is painted, the furniture will go in there.  And when that happens, I will have to deal with all the emotions that I am sure will be on the surface when I see my grandma’s dining room furniture in my house. 

I know that I’ll have to deal with it, just like I will have to deal with all the things that are currently surrounding me.  When you just look around you and cringe, you know it is time to do something about it.

I am happy to say after this was written and my head was clearer I went to tackle some more of the dining room area.  I didn’t finish, but I got father along than I was.  I am trying to remember that, even though having to deal with all of this is stressing me out now, the after math will be so worth it.  It will feel good to walk through my house and know where things are, and not to just see things piled up everywhere driving me crazy.

My introduction would have had a note included about how I am a very long winded.  I have always been, and probably will always be, no matter how hard I try to edit myself, I just can’t seem to shorten what I have to say.  Since this blog is mostly for me to ‘talk out’ my thoughts, I’m not going to worry so much about it. I am who I am, and that is a part of me.