Happy New Year All!
We have big plans for 2022 let me tell you! One of my most significant projects is already underway and I have been lost in my house for days. ‘What am I doing?’ you ask, well lately I have been feeling the urge to purge. Too many years have gone by packing, stacking and storing unused, broken and/or out of fashion ‘stuff’ in my closets, spare rooms and basement and now I need to deal with this personal epidemic or risk being swallowed up by my possessions. Many people say, ‘your house is so clean’, but in fact, that is not true. It is tidy but not clean. I fully admit I do not dust, wash the floors or vacuum behind or under anything on a regular basis and therefore dear reader, I am here to tell you, things are looking rather ‘fluffy’ around my neatly arranged boxes of garbage. Ok, that may be strong language to describe years of happily collected souvenirs, inherited gadgets and charming gifts from friends near and dear to me but what I have curated is out on the walls or tables so what, I ask, is everything else?
I am not talking about my seasonal Halloween or Christmas decor and although many ‘party’ decorations are on furlough since Covid, I am confident they will be pressed into use once again in the future so they, luckily escape the executioner’s gaze. But, there are many items that could be donated to a cause or a class or a community centre. Art supplies, excess tableware, used toys, multiples of tools, fasteners and why oh why are there so many empty boxes? Clothes; that don’t fit, need repair, have gone out of style – you get my drift. I suppose we all have this same story going on behind closed doors. The work is thankless and never-ending.
And, it is hard to let go of sentimental objects particularly when they relate to one of the kids or my own childhood and I also struggle with recycling everything properly preferring to re-home where ever possible but believe it or not, my biggest obstacle is neither of those things, it’s actually my attention span.
I rarely manage to really get going on the sorting and dumping of one closet before I start on another or perhaps something unexpected will catch my eye and I’ll be off on a tangent sifting and laughing through a lost packet of photos or flipping through a trip diary from AGO. I mean, come on, it’s riveting stuff…why else would I have kept it for so many years?
Anyway the upshot is, the process takes for-evah! I may wrap things up by Christmas 2022 but I am not making any promises given I also battle the weekly influx of ‘new and improved’ odds and ends from 3 other members of this humble home. The struggle goes on..
In the meantime; new year, fresh page, clean house…. hello 2022!