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Post by CourageouslyLion SeeksSerenity on Mar 29, 2012 12:14:43 GMT -5
I have made a new rule that footwear must be stored in the room of the person to whom it belongs. We have 8 people in our family and each one (me, included!) seems to keep at least 3 pairs of footwear in the entryway--be it shoes, boots, sandals, slippers, sneakers, or whatever. So I am giving the shoes to their respective owners to put away. I know that it is going to require serious diligence to keep that going. Especially since in the winter we leave shoes there to dry. But there simply IS NOT enough room for 25 or 30 pairs of shoes there!
I am picking up all the winter coats that get tossed there, as well. I am going to wash what needs to be washed, give away what has been outgrown, and hang up the rest. Lighter jackets are going to have to be stored in people's closets, though, because we only have a small coat closet that cannot accommodate a heavy coat, dress coat, rain coat, spring jacket, hoodie, and sweater for each of 8 people. Not to mention snow pants, ponchos, windbreakers, and whatever else they have accumulated. Congratulations on finding a solution for all the shoes, coats, etc.A lot of us struggle with that.There was a thread brainstorming solutions for that "Mitts/gloves/touques - how do you organize?"takeonestepatatime.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=17026By the way, to save all the curious readers time, "touque" is explained here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toque_(Canadian) From reading that other thread, it does seem that whatever organizational system is implemented, it works ONLY if all the family members cooperate.
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Post by morningglory on Mar 30, 2012 7:47:56 GMT -5
Thanks, Courageously. I think I will have to appoint myself to keep on top of everyone about the shoes, etc. The coats might get a little easier now that I am clearing out that kitchen corner. . .because above where that big pile was is a row of coat pegs. We hadn't been using them because it was hard to reach over the pile and the coats would hang down onto the top of the pile!! These are the kinds of absurdities we get into with this problem (squalor).
Another example: I mentioned to my husband that I had found a bunch of things in that pile that I couldn't understand why we were storing in the kitchen, when they really should have been in the garage. He reminded me that with the big pile there it was hard to move things in and out of the garage! In other words, the pile itself was creating the circumstances to grow larger. Of course I mean that our putting the pile there created those circumstances. But my point is that if we address the UNDERLYING problem (pun intended), it moves the momentum in the other direction. Now that the pile has dwindled, it is easier to move objects through that back door.
Speaking of the pile, I have already removed a bunch more stuff from it this morning! Lots of it is just trash, others were useful things that I could easily put where they belong, some is stuff that I am tending to fall back into spending too much time considering.
I want to get back into my TOSS AGGRESSIVELY mindset! Sure, if it's something of obvious value that will take less than a minute to put away, it's worth dealing with. But when I have to look at it, examine various parts of it, think about whether we should keep it--THEN I NEED TO PRACTICE LETTING GO!
More to come.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 9:30:39 GMT -5
ROCK ON girl!!! You, with your sassy new couch and fixed washing machine, and your rapidly disappearing kitchen pile. The reason I come to SOOS is to read about this exact kind of thing....cuz it inspires ME to keep my own house together. In a different thread about self care in the byways, someone talked about an ad campaign that was "Be A Force of Beauty." You, sister, should have the slogan "Be A Force of CLEAN." Side note...holy crap, you have a family of 8. I can barely manage a family of 3 (we had Baby Hurricane join us ten months ago). I stand in awe that you can do this. And heck, if you can do it with a family of eight, I should be able to do it with a family of three.
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Post by morningglory on Mar 30, 2012 9:57:08 GMT -5
THANK YOU, HURRICANE! Your praise and encouragement is tremendous and keeps me motivated to jump in again when I am feeling trepidation.
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Post by morningglory on Apr 2, 2012 18:35:51 GMT -5
I'm still here! I had a couple of "out of it" days. It used to be that nearly all my days felt like that--unable to do more than 2 or 3 hours of work, difficulty moving (no pain, just great effort), inability to think clearly (other than a tendency to get totally transfixed by some particular subject and unable to tear my attention away from it). I have no clue why I used to have that most the time, or why it is less common now. I know that I have worked hard to take better care of myself--eating healthier, exercising more, getting enough sleep, etc. Recently a blood test showed I was low in vitamin D (which it seems is pretty common), so I have been taking a big supplement of that. Vitamin D is involved in tons of physiological processes and low vitamin D is implicated in many common disorders (including depression, of which I tend to suffer periodically). But I have no explanation for why this hit me just now, unless it is hormonally related.
Anyway, I still did make some progress on those "down" days. The kitchen pile is on it's last leg--a smallish cardboard box and a plastic milk crate full of what remains, plus a plastic drawer organizer without the drawers. (I imagine I must have the drawers somewhere, or I would have thrown this out long ago.) I am committed to eliminating that pile by Thursday, and washing and sanitizing the floor underneath it. It is going to be the place where we store the 5-gallon water bottles (that we have delivered from Culligan).
I am also committed to cleaning and sanitizing the rest of the kitchen floor, the kitchen counters and work table, and the stove and sink by Thursday. This actually must be done by then, because Passover starts Friday night and everything has to be ready to go before that.
This also means that I must clean all crumbs, etc. from the dining room and living room by then. The kids have been assigned to remove all dishes and food from their rooms by tomorrow. Including vacuuming up any crumbs.
Seems amazing to me, but we do this every year. Of course, last year (and however many years before) I just cleaned *around* that pile in the kitchen corner, because there was no way I was prepared to clear it all out at that point. I am so thankful that I have progressed to being able to attack it this year. :-)
As for getting rid of all leavened grain products from the house, I remember one year when the kids were all very young, a rabbi consoled me, "Really you only have to worry about larger pieces." "But rabbi," I said, "you don't understand." "Well, big enough that someone could eat it." "Rabbi, you don't understand!" "I mean, big enough that if a kid picked it up, he would actually try to eat it." "Yes, rabbi, THAT'S the problem!" In fact, when the kids were little, it wasn't unthinkable that I would find half a bagel under a chair, or a complete cookie shoved behind a bookshelf! Little kids carry food everywhere, and they will eat it if they find it!
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Post by Bizzy on Apr 2, 2012 18:45:43 GMT -5
oh morningglory-- you made me laugh!!!!! Thank you so much! I have been taking 4k of vitiman D per day for a year now-- after the doc discovered i was low low low! Made a huge difference with mood- although I still get lost on the way to the bathroom( menopause ) You certainly gave your Rabbi something new to think on!- Is good-- got to keep shaking the clergy up! You have made amazing strides toward what you want to have in your life. Thanks for the humor and inspiration! Hope Passover is lovely for you and your wonderful family. Bizzy
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Post by morningglory on Apr 2, 2012 19:25:41 GMT -5
Bizzy, thank you for the kind words and for making me smile.
I just posted a "re-introduction" to give an overview of what the condition of my house has been and what it is like now.
I do feel that I have made great strides, as you say. And I still feel really determined to keep going until things are as they should be. I keep feeling tempted to get sidetracked (like by applying for a part-time job!) but I know that I need to really focus on this and get it done. Once the house is in order I can work, and then hire someone to come in and do maintenance cleaning!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2012 20:22:06 GMT -5
I'm so darn impressed I don't know what to say anymore. You're sorta like the Energizer Bunny, working until you have no clutter left in that kitchen pile except a small box and a milk crate!!! That is incredible progress!!! You are CHANGING YOUR LIFE, right here and now, Morning. By the way, I've decided I'm no longer calling you by the shortened name Morning...it's gonna be GLORY from here on out. Cuz you are making a glorious difference for your own life and that of your family....and you're inspiring me too. Way to Go!!!!
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Post by morningglory on Apr 3, 2012 6:43:15 GMT -5
Wow, Hurricane! Thank you so much for all the encouragement. It really helps motivate me.
I think you are 100% justified in hiring help with maintenance, because it is a matter of both physical and emotional health for you and your family. I am totally proud of you for taking serious action on your home issues at the same time as dealing with a disability and nurturing your Baby Hurricane! Any one of those issues alone could be enough to completely consume someone's time and energy.
I fully intend to hire cleaning help when the house is ready for it, whether that means I have to cut back on other expenses or find additional income sources or whatever.
I have been eyeing the little remains of that kitchen pile. It's funny, but I feel a little bit of resistance to the idea of dealing with it, and part of the issue, I think, is that there will no longer be a "pile" of any sort once those last couple of things are taken care of. However, I have no idea why that should seem to be a problem for me! It seems to me that I should be all the more motivated to attack it now that it would take so little effort to finish it off.
I could just pick up that cardboard box and chuck it in the trash without looking into it. Again, it wouldn't be the end of the world if I never saw the stuff that's in it again. I haven't seen it in months or years as it is. I think I was definitely drifting more and more toward salvaging as the work progressed.
Though I am proud of myself for putting a certain toy in the donation bag the other day. I had been shifting it from container to container in that pile, unwilling to throw it out. Here's the funny thing, when I think about it. It wasn't even an expensive or much-loved toy--just an inexpensive spin-art apparatus from the drugstore. Didn't have any paint or accessories to it at this point, but the batteries still worked! For whatever reason, I perceived this as something valuable that I should maybe keep. Ugh.
I need to get my mind back in gear to TOSS AGGRESSIVELY and finish off that "pile". Maybe instead of thinking about it as a pile, I should think of it as my kitchen corner. That way the focus is on the space I am reclaiming and whatever is currently blocking that is unwanted.
Today I plan to ruthlessly sort the remaining items in my KITCHEN CORNER. (As I write that, I feel a little anxiety rising in my chest. This is the dysfunctional aspect. It's one thing to fall behind on work and let things pile up in the house, it's another thing to feel nervous about getting rid of it!)
EDITED TO ADD: No, it is really not the "getting rid of" that is the issue. It's the sorting process that makes me feel anxious. When I imagine just tossing the whole box, I actually feel relieved.
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Post by morningglory on Apr 3, 2012 7:28:29 GMT -5
Just wrote a little in my "reintroduction" thread that gave me some insight into the problem I mention in the last post here. I realize that the anxiety I am feeling has to do with that perceived need to sort things out and get use out of everything. It will give me tremendous discomfort to struggle with those decisions, and that is causing me to want to avoid the task.
That's why I think I am on the right track with this new mindset of tossing everything except what *must* be kept.
Right now I see several things in the remains of that pile that I feel pressured to try to keep:
-Part of a costume that was given to me by someone who was my friend at the time. It was a costume her child had used in the past and she thought one of my children might be able to use it. No one ended up using it, and she expressed irritation at me for that (even though I hadn't asked for the costume). See, she really was the type of person that I have in mind when I hang onto stuff that people give me, thinking that it really matters to them that I use it. I have kept the costume all this time with the idea that one of the kids may eventually use it! Right now I realize I need to throw it away.
-Two pieces of plexiglass. My husband one day encountered a business that was closing and had a ton of plexiglass they were going to throw away. They told him he could take whatever he wanted, so he loaded up his car with as much as he could. He put it all on some shelves in our garage, and there is still a bunch out there. These two pieces have been used by him for various purposes (usually when he needs a rigid work surface), and ended up getting shoved into the kitchen pile. Maybe he used them as cutting boards at one point. Anyway, I know he always gets mad when someone (any of the kids) uses his plexiglass without permission, or scratches, or whatever. In my mind, I know that HE places great value on these sheets of plexiglass. They are one of HIS hoarding categories. Yet as I write this, and think about the fact that he got it all free and still has a bunch of it on hand, I realize it is absurd that I feel pressured to keep these two pieces!
-Plastic drawer organizer. It is one of those desktop organizers that holds three plastic drawers. Medium-sized, like 12x18 inches or something like that. But there are no drawers in it. I *think* the drawers may be floating around the house somewhere. I feel like I should hang onto it long enough to determine whether they are around and usable. It could be that one or more of the drawers has become damaged and may even have been thrown away. WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH THIS? [EDITED TO ADD: After writing the last paragraph and posting, I re-read this part and realized, there is no way this item qualifies as an essential, so to keep it would go against my current game plan!]
-Nebulizer. This one I really do think I should keep, but I am not sure how to deal with it. Years ago, a couple of my kids had some intermittent breathing difficulties in the winter. Thankfully, it wasn't very bad and didn't last very long. We haven't had to use the nebulizer in probably 5 years. But when you need it, you are very thankful to have it on hand. So, since it is a good piece of medical equipment that can be useful in an emergency, I feel that I need to keep it. On the other hand, I am not sure how whether it has all the attachments, or how to sanitize and store the attachments. I am not sure I would remember how to use it, if I needed to do so quickly. Probably the medicine that you put into it is expired (I haven't checked yet). The one child who had the most trouble has a prescription inhaler, which he recently got refilled, just to have in case of emergency. So we wouldn't be totally without help should something flare up. So I think perhaps I *don't* really need to keep the nebulizer on hand. But if I don't keep it, I feel I should get it to someone who could use it. SUGGESTIONS?
Well, it has really helped me to type these thoughts out, because it made me realize how ridiculous my thinking has been about these things (free, used, and unneeded, yet trying to sneak into my "keep" category). That, in turn, has galvanized me to look at whatever is lower down in the pile with a similarly critical eye.
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Post by dayeanu on Apr 3, 2012 7:50:31 GMT -5
Morning-glory, you are doing great! I've been having slow days since Friday - last night, it occurred to me that maybe it is how I deal with stress. I lose momentum. This is when 8 minutes really works for me.
You have been dealing with stress, too. The stress of dealing with clutter.
About the nebulizer - if someone offered me a used nebulizer for my child, mmm, no thanks. I'd have to be really desperate to accept a used nebulizer. That said, can they be sterilized? If so, I might sterilize it and donate it to a shelter. (if I was in a shelter, I might be desperate enough to use a used nebulizer. Otherwise, toss it!
About the plexiglass, since that is DH's, I think it could go on his shelves with the rest of it. It's best, when possible, not to throw out other people's stuff. No matthew how badly you might want to.
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Post by morningglory on Apr 3, 2012 8:30:49 GMT -5
Hi, dayeanu! I was just thinking of you, because I just did one of your 8-minute timer sessions!
Regarding the nebulizer--the machine itself doesn't come into contact with the person, only the attachments. People do share or re-use nebulizers and just get new or sterilized attachments. I'm just not sure how to go about giving it away.
Too late on the plexiglass! I tossed it into the big black bag, along with the drawer thingy and the old costume (and a bunch of school papers from about 5 years ago--ugh!). In general I do agree with your principle of not throwing other people's stuff away, and I would not in a case where it was something substantial (like a tool, book, or clothing). But I don't think it is a problem in this case, because he's got so much of it and it's kind of a consumable resource, like paper. (I take heart in the fact that he has said more than once that it would almost be a relief if a flood or tornado that would just get rid of all his stuff so he wouldn't have to deal with it any more.) I know he would rather have me throw out stuff like that and make progress toward a clean and neat house for all of us than to let it slow me down.
But I didn't anticipate how hard even this 8 minutes was going to be for me today. I found myself picking through the box to collect things that I consider important, like old toys. It is funny, though, because I pulled out two Hotwheels that have been in the box for at least a year, if not several years, and was going to put them in a toy box. But I thought about the fact that these particular cars hadn't been missed at all, and that even the Hotwheels they have are not played with. Our youngest is almost 11, and even he doesn't use them except once in awhile to idly run them over things. Never for an extended period or in any kind of involved play. So I put them into the donation bag, along with other items that I consider to be "good" but not essential to us.
But there is a baby toy in that box that I have had since our oldest was born, so it holds a lot of sentimental value. I know I really don't need to keep the actual object. The babies got their use out of it, and I'm sure it is seen in various photos. There is nothing particularly special about this toy, other than the fact that my babies loved it. I think I could launder it and give it away for another baby to use. But I have spent time thinking about this and left it in the box for now, which annoys me.
Also, among the ancient school papers, I found one that includes a photocopy of a photo of our youngest when he was about 6. There is nothing special about this photo. And we do have actual photos of him (not just photocopies of photos that were used in a school project). Yet I have this "feeling" about not throwing it away. I set it aside on the kitchen table with the idea that I would put it in his keepsake box, but the truth is there is no compelling reason to keep it. I guess I feel more like keeping it because it has a religious theme, so it shows him participating in religious activities as a young boy. It's almost a superstitious feeling that makes me think I should save something like that. Ugh. Help.
The worst part of all this is that it is S L O W I N G my progress. Even when I end up putting things in donation or trash bags, I spend too much time examining each item, thinking about it, actually walking back and forth between various places I could put the item. Sometimes I even put it one place, then change my mind and move it into another category! So I didn't get full use of those 8 minutes. I don't want to do this. I want to TOSS AGGRESSIVELY.
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Post by morningglory on Apr 3, 2012 9:19:45 GMT -5
OK--Just did another attack on the stuff cluttering up my kitchen corner.
I did go ahead and save a few pieces of my kid's school things in his keepsake box (including the photocopy mentioned earlier). It was a small concession to my hoarding in order not to spend too long agonizing over whether or not to throw it away. It was only about 4 or 5 pieces, and his keepsake box is the least full, anyway, since he is youngest. The main thing is that doing that kept me moving.
I threw out a bunch of other school papers of his and the other children's, even though I did allow myself to glance through them first. Also tossed out other questionable items. And threw a couple more things in donation.
So. . .was able to crush up that cardboard box!! Whew!
All that remains now are the aforesaid milk crate and a plastic bin (about 8x12) stuffed with miscellaneous paper and other junk. (Going to smaller and smaller containers!)
I will just need to keep the ruthless and pragmatic attitude for those last two containers, which I will try to attack again after doing some regular housework (laundry and dishes).
I also need to clear the file boxes out of the living room, where they STILL are since I began working on tossing out files a couple weeks ago, when I started this thread. I have to put that away and plan to get back to it later (probably after Passover, because right now the focus is on cleaning the living spaces, not sorting the old stuff).
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2012 9:35:10 GMT -5
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Post by morningglory on Apr 3, 2012 9:47:36 GMT -5
Hurricane, it is so inspiring to read your words urging me on and removing the guilt I feel about throwing things away!
As for the nebulizer, I actually already contacted someone about it. She is going to post it on a list for people who need medical equipment given or lent to them. I asked her about the attachments and she said they should be thrown out, so I have "permission" to do that, now! I will just keep the machine set aside for awhile, and if no one says they need it, I will follow your advice and toss it, too.
You are so right that I just need to FREE MYSELF of all this junk. I agree about keeping sentimental possessions to a minimum. Right now I have some recently-purchased plastic boxes (about 10x14 inches), with lids, that I am using for the kids' keepsakes--one box for each kid. I might consider keeping two boxes for each, but even that will be a big improvement, and it will all be kept safely in one place, instead of being strewn in various boxes throughout the house, getting dirty and damaged.
Going to dive back in now, with renewed desire to release myself from these possessions.
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