Posted on 01/09/2006 6:22:49 AM PST by plain talk
DH and I have a deal. I stay out of his shop in the garage, he stays out of the school/craft room. We share responsibility for the garage, tho. Uh...that's not working too well. a two car garage means two cars will park comfortably...just outside the garage doors!
" a squirrel died and remained dead in the house undetected! "
It cudda been worse. I heard on Rush's show yesterday about a guy who caught a mouse in his house and tossed it into a pile of leaves he was burning in the yard. The mouse, on fire and ablaze, ran back into the house and the man's whole house burned down - everything!
Solved his clutter problem instantly if he had one.
Do we know anyone to send this to???
A friend of mine's ex has this problem, but she gets all the stuff from the Home Shopping Network. She has a real, and serious problem. She cannot stop herself from buying the stuff. He home is cluttered with UNOPENED boxes of TV's, appliances, jewelry--all because they were "good deals" that were just too hard to pass up.
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I guess I should have called it the "New England cleaning tip of the day"!
You should have taken it and dumped it all in the realtor's front yard. They make me SICK!
books are great recyclables.
Hubby always buys hardback and wants to save them.
That kills me. I always buy paperbacks and then swap with friends who read the same authors as I. We pass the books on to other friends when finished.
Hey--just got this email...
Dear Friends,
We have received several emails about the sad story of the lady from Washington who was suffocated by the clutter around her. My heart goes out to that family and anyone who is living with piles of clutter surrounding them.
I have been in homes that were piled to the ceiling. One home that I can remember had the second story filled with magazines and newspapers. Every room was packed solid with them. There were strange cracks in the walls and creaking noises coming from the floor. I was with an engineer and his first words were, "We need to get out of here, this is not safe!" The sad part was there were no working smoke alarms in the house. I went back with new batteries for them. The people who lived in the house were sick and on oxygen.
Clutter has a way of creeping into our homes one bag at a time and it never leaves. Unless we make a habit of tossing out the old as we bring in the new. If we did this every time we brought something home we would at least keep the clutter from getting worse. This is why we have Super Fling Boogies three times a year. We need to reduce the amount of clutter in our homes not keep it at the same level. The more we get rid of; the easier our routines are going to be.
We spend hours organizing and messing with our clutter. We put it into cute little silk boxes, bankers boxes and plastic totes. Then we need to find something and we know it is in one of those organized boxes. You wanna what happens then??? Those pretty little boxes throw up all over the once nicely organized room. All because we still have too much stuff and we labeled all the boxes MISC.
Why do we feel the need to hold on to this stuff. Are we afraid that we might need it one day? Is it because we have guilt because we have spent good money for the thing and we can't get rid of it? Are we saving it for our children? Are we afraid that we will never be able to buy it for ourselves again if what we have gets broken? Is it fear of not ever having enough? Is it shame because you grew up not having very much? Do you want to give your children what you didn't have? I think there is a bigger question here!
Why did we get this stuff in the first place? How did it come into our homes? What possessed us to pick it up and bring it home? Why did we need it at the time? If we can ever get to the bottom of this pile of mental clutter which we like to call Body Clutter then we may actually be able to curb this nasty habit of filling our houses with stuff!
I think I know the answer. We are trying to fill a hole we have in our hearts with stuff and this hole has been created because of a lack of love. So we shop till we drop. It can be on eBay, thrift stores, department stores, yard sales and on the TV shopping networks. Lots of our stuff is still in boxes; this is when the guilt begins to eat away at the hole in our hearts and make it even bigger. This guilt continues the beating up process and we feel worse and we continue to try to appease that hole with more stuff. We keep collecting till there is no more room left in our homes and then we buy storage buildings and rent storage units to hold all of our stuff. Are we afraid that if we get rid of this stuff that we are going to lose part of ourselves in the process? I promise you the one who dies with the most stuff does not win! Their family is the loser!
We can't take it with us. There is not a Uhaul trailer behind the hearse as we are paraded to the cemetery. All that stuff is left at the house for the next generation to have to face! It is time that we thought about what we are going to ourselves and our families. Wouldn't it be awful that your last words to your family was, "I sorry I have left you with all this mess to deal with!"
We have to take charge of our behavior and look deep down at why we bring this stuff home and why we won't get rid of it! We are never going to be able to make up for a lack of having things as a child! Just because you have the money to buy something does not mean that you have to buy it. Our childhood is over! It is spilled milk! Let's just clean up the mess and get on with the fun part of living! When we are continually trying to make up for the deficits of childhood we are stuck in a revolving door that does not allow us to go on with our lives.
I know how to fill up that empty hole! It all starts with loving yourself enough that you will not suffocate you and your home with the clutter of trying to make up for past loss. Practice doing nice things for you and quit beating yourself up. These are the first babysteps to FLYing!
As we remember this woman who died amidst a pile of clutter; let's fling our clutter in her memory and thank God for her story. Please keep her family in your prayers. We don't know whose clutter it was. All we know is that she is gone. I just wish I could have helped her to see how clutter suffocates our lives. Maybe you can help someone you know who has become overwhelmed with their clutter.
Your home may be suffocating with the clutter from past generations too! Our homes are not a depository for everything from our ancestors. We don't have room for it. Our homes are not museums. Our homes give us shelter from the outside world; they are meant to nurture us not keep us held hostage by all the stuff piled to the ceiling.
We can do this one bag at a time! Now Go Fling your clutter!
FlyLady
In a few years when I move to the country I am building a 10,000 sq ft steel building for storage.
If I eventually fill it, I'll build another.
I'm a keepin my stuff.
So9
I need to send this to my mother!
The clutter in her house makes me ANXIOUS each time I visit. I'm always filled with the feeling of dread, knowing how awful a job it will be to clear out her junk after she is gone. I'm a BIG fan of throwing thing away!
Considering what God was willing to do to Job just to win a bet, that's called being prudent.
So9
Is that a true story?
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LOL! You must have better stuff than I do.
Sounds like a plan - have you devised a cataloguing system yet?
Where's the sport in that?
So9
I have to admit that searching through closets and storage can be exciting. No telling what I’ll find.
lol. Re pots: Before I got married, the dog was handy...
Take something like a couch, and move it to the deck, or porch. Convince him or her, that that's the place for it. Aafter a couple of months, move it to the sidewalk, and put "For sale 25 dollars" on it. Like someone said, it will disappear during the night.
When they are at work or asleep, pack up the truck or car, with stuff you know you don't need as it's been in the garage, the shed or the barn, for 15 years, and he or she, has never missed it. The next day, take it clandestinely to SA or Goodwill or whatever.
Never, ever let them see you put stuff in the trash. When we got here a month ago I was congratulating myself, but.. we took her SUV to get groceries last week, and in the back is stuff I know I paid someone to take away years ago!
Last, but search your conscience first, rent several storage places over the course of several years and just move away and leave it, or stop paying the rent on them.
Got a kick out of that. I guess that means a three car garage means three cars can park comfortablyy just outside the doors. I'll share that with hubby.
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