Thought I'd start off with our Christmas decor. We got this many years ago in Germany and it hasn't seen the light of day in almost as many years. Needless to say, I found it in the basement and chose it to put up instead of a tree. The heat from the candles turns the fan blades and the scenes in the middle spin around. It's very cool! Also found a holiday / winter wreath that Darling Girl made when she was in grade school and I hung that on the front door. That's as festive as it's going to get and it's more than I had thought to do. Thanks for the nudge from June who urged me to decorate a little.
So on with the decluttering...I got a bit behind posting pics but have made some progress. Feeling a little discouraged that it will ever be done. I'm currently thinking it will be a 3 part process. 1 - get the house decent enough to have visitors without total humiliation. 2 - go through the process again to winnow out the things that I'm not quite ready to make a decision about yet or don't have time to sort thoughtfully. 3 - empty the storage unit (thus filling up the house again!) and sort through that. It's going to be a long term project.
For those who have forgotten, here's where I started in the laundry room:
Here's what it looks like now:
And then, slowly I turned...
The other side of the laundry room. I was skimming through a book about decluttering and one chapter was called "Don't Look Up" meaning only look at the area you are working on or you will go nuts! I'm finding it to be very true. That little white basket turned out to be laundry that I apparently simply forgot to do several years ago (at least 5) and then other stuff piled on top and it was forgotten. You'd think someone would have missed their clothes.
And then turning once more there's this...There's a sink there on the right, not that you can tell.
It took a couple days but that room is done as far as sorting. Still doing laundry for clothes to donate and Darling Man has the house gear and tools to organize.
So on to the next disaster area...the finished side of the basement:
That's the chair I rocked my babies in. One arm spindle is broken from those same babies getting much bigger and sitting in the chair sideways. This is the space that needs to be cleared so we can put the extra bed in for guests. Who, let's not forget, are arriving in a little over 2 weeks! This corner had a whole lot of stuff that just went to recycle or trash. Unfortunately I found another huge box of clothes under the desk (yes, there's a desk back there) I sincerely hope that's the last of them! I haven't uploaded the pics of the "after" for this corner so will save that for next time.
This process has brought up some feelings about how all this mess reflects my inner life as it was for so long. And, also, the relationships in this house and to this house and the idea of "home" and what does that mean anyway? After this came up, I started seeing the idea of home as a reflection of who we are in other places (a book I got from the library that I'm kind of afraid to read beyond the first few pages I've read, and the Dr. Oz show yesterday). I'll write about it at some point. but not yet.
