👋 hey all, just checking in... coming to you live from small town Wisconsin on my 2 day vacay with bff. We just saw roadrunner - the tony bourdain doc.

Yaaay Tatoulia is back. !! Thanks for sharing your overview of your situation. That helps my frame of reference. I could relate to the terms you were using to describe where you have come from. I was telling my bff (who is adorably beating herself up for having a handful of unpacked boxes since their move 15 years ago...) about my progress with the hoard situation and then I quickly realized she can't really understand how significant what I've done is because she has no idea how bad my room got in the haze of the last few years. She started asking questions and I,found myself tap dancing trying to side step the whole "Cubic feet" and "floor full of garbage" issue. This is the one person in the world who knows all my secrets - and I have some doozies - but even she had no clue what condition my room was in.

I also sized. Up the garage situation... oooh boy. I'm just gonna lay it on ya and then try not to think abut it again til I start working on it cause it's soooo much. It's a 2.5 car garage. Along the edges are the customary workbench, tools, yard and garden, bikes, outdoor kid toys, etc. but in the center is a sea of large clear plastic bins. I stood at. One corner and looked north... 15' of hoard, looked west, 15' in that direction as well. Average height about 5'. I just signed audibly here in my Hampton inn hotel room. Across the north side is the stuff that's been in there the longest, And the biggest solid wall... mostly fabric... 5 bins high x 10 rows. 50 bins... FIF.TY. Not 50 bins of fabric. But 50 bins in one row. Big bins. Like 2'x1.5'x1.5'... x50. Ok, then there's the rest. I'm guessing conservatively 200 total. At least. So that's (now my head was in my hands until I brought them back down to type this sentence)... it's quite horrifying. I will say a layer of it is newly moved crap from my room, and quite a bit of inherited stuff from mom and dads move. Some of which I have no intention of keeping, but had to absorb to keep My dads anxiety at bay. My bro did the same. My sister who is. Further down the line with the same issue but has been forced to downsize several times by her husbands death a number of years ago, and several floods, just refused to help us with th8ngs - she just couldn't or wouldn't deal with it. I will also say stupidly that doing my initial assessment of the garage has made The prospect of clearing out my room Seem like child's play in comparison. So hopefully, I will keep moving forward with that and bring it to a conclusion and feel all the good feelings which will then prepare me to move on to the garage.

So that's me this week...

Hope everyone has a good week! 🙏😘💕

Pretty chaotic here, construction has resumed so at least that's a good reason.

So many "moving parts," e.g. things to keep track of such as moving cats and bunnies out of the areas being worked on, and since cats don't have cages, making sure they aren't where there is, say, a gaping hole where usually there's a door. They are 100% indoor cats, and normally they don't dispute the point, but amidst the craziness and the noise they might get curious and/or spooked.

And a zillion other things like roommate needing to go buy components for projects, cars to move so the workmen can park in the driveway, stuff to shift for things like ceiling fans... the list goes on and on. And everything's intertwined. My roommate is good at figuring out sequences to do things in. I'm not.

Both our brains are pretty fried though.

Had my doctor appointment today. It went well. I do want to work on my blood pressure - nothing bad but it could be better. My knee problem is patellofemoral pain syndrome, worth a few Scrabble points there. Or more commonly known as runner's knee. So nothing major. I'll be fine if I can survive all this "home improvement" 🤪

Hello ladies! Sorry for the absence. I am here!

I've read a lot of your posts and realize what I've been missing! Your friendship!

I am a city mouse. I live right in Boston in a tiny little place! My only farm animal is a 17 year old cat. She's a good girl. I had let my place fall into ruin for a period of about five years. I'd been a pack rat or archivist but then I let it become filthy and unsanitary here. My bed was always clean and my towels were always clean during that five year period of disgust but that's about it. It was filthy here. I've gotten rid of so much stuff and have curbed the influx. I now have house cleaners once a week. I had them every other week but switched to every week once my friend moved in. Friend is no longer here but I'll keep the once a week through the summer. I hate the heat. So I've lived in a clean and clear place since 2018.

I'm in pretty good shape these days. Very little that I'm not willing to get rid of. I took another bag to goodwill (actually just to my car). I would like to make another bag before the week is out. It feels really good to get rid of things.

Right now I have room in all my closets, including two empty shelves in the dining room closet. But I'd still like more open space. My linens are paired down to a reasonable number.

Mom has been remarkably open to getting rid of things since her move! It is shocking and thrilling! I'm really proud of her. When I convinced her to donate a duvet cover, she said, don't forget the pillow cases. Pretty good! I'm being gentler with her too so that is helping. But I think it is mainly her beautiful newly renovated room in her assisted living that is making her so easy to work with!
I had my physical last week and got my Tetanus booster. I'll have mammogram next week.

Roadster, I only have room in my closets because my friend moved in during the pandemic and she cleaned them all. Ditto my dresser draws. She didn't exactly Marie Kondo them but my friend is Japanese and very organized. One night I went to run errands and she sent me a picture of all of my drawers dumped on top of my bed. She did a really good job for me.

SubC,

The room is L shaped - the top leg of the L is narrower and that's the "back 40" (Office / storage) The lower leg is chunkier and is the bedroom (bed, dresser, closet, bookshelf, china cabinet)... the bookshelf and dresser both come out from the sides of the narrower leg and the space between them is 4'. That's where the curtain is hung. Picture an old ship with floor To ceiling storage... Once I get hanging clothes or shelves in the closet and get the back cleared out I will take down the fabric or put it up more decoratively somewhere because it would get in my way where it is and how it's hung. Just temporary. I'd love to hang this one piece floor to ceiling in the living room but might be a stretch for the H. When we were young, he went along with everything And said he liked everything I liked and I thought it was because we had the same taste. Now I think it was because he was too scared of his heinous mother to ever object to anything and I wonder if he might be happier in a metal box with a fork, knife and a spoon. The hoarding has definitely muddied the waters. Have you ever seen "Diana vreeland the eye has to travel?" I wouldn't go that far (and don't have any $) but I am more on that end of things than minimalist, that's for sure.

Fascinated by the farm thing and all the different teaching experiences. We actually have a place here that's a farm and there's a house/shop/pottery studio. They have turned it into an agribusiness where they host weddings and kind of tent show craft fairs. They cater more to women so you see people meeting for lunch and strolling through the tents shopping with friends. The tent things I think are occasional but the cafe And shop might be open most days now.

I can't do Marie kondo storage either. If I can't see it it doesn't exist in the universe. I am not sure what I will do when it comes to getting rid of things that spark joy - which I shall also have to do - but since there's so much I have that I don't care that much about I am starting there. Well, starting with actual garbage in my room... Check.

Congrats on the wedding ring. That's pretty major. My biggest achievement so far is about 30 lbs. which isn't much of a track record in about 20 years of needing to lose 100+...

A birthday cake, a triathlon and a visit from Bean sounds like an amazing weekend with the family. Enjoy!

CM, glad you guys got the door checked off. Definitely worthy of a triumphant celebration. I definitely think we need to acknowledge the day to day achievements. I know that would motivate me mo to get the unglamorous (but Very important!) tasks done.

The aspects of Marie kondo I like is that you do an entire category at once. I don't know how feasible this is for some categories but the concept is appealing to me. I also like that it's positive centered - in that you're focused on what attracts you In the most positive way and let the rest fall away. I also like that she orders the stages of work from the easiest to hardest. I would doubt that it would work with a large volume of stuff but I have seen a few episodes of her show where they did tackle a house packed with collections. I know I can do clothes because I've done that before. Some of the things I collected that used to bring me joy no longer do because their existence - where or how they're stored or the expense. In acquiring them - has caused so much stress in my relationship I now have negative associations with them. Or, the volume of storage has caused them to be stored in ways that later caused them to be damaged. Once you can't see or use those things every day or frequently, they are no longer of value - they become a burden. I have tons of books. I think I can probably reduce the overall volume of those because I have done that before with some success. Also I probably have a fair amount that are damaged and wouldn't be nice to keep anymore because of that.

General update: showered. I will be really happy when this is no longer anything to report. Got my nephew's 3 yo to help me pick some veggies. They do garden so I didn't think he'd be so surprised to see the carrot when he pulled it out of the ground. It was so cute. He wanted to pull lots of tiny carrots and one onion and one beet. My son has been amazing with him. He's been so gentle and sweet trying to show him different things And comfort him when he's upset about something. This is one of those emotionally tough things because you're so proud of your kid but the response other kids have to him is so negative sometimes - even at an early age - that it can crush your heart a bit. I've done quite a bit of cooking and hosting and lots of cleaning. I leave tomorrow for two days with my bff. Just going to a small town a couple hours away to kick around. Nothing exciting but we both have school aged kids with special needs so It's a vacation to just not have any responsibilities for a few days. Tomorrow is our anniversary (29?) and timing is therefore not great for leaving on a vacation with someone else. H let me know he rescheduled his boys weekend (had previously been for this weekend) due to our anniversary. I am not scoring points on this one. In my defense, she initially said September and then when she realized it The terms were changed to days of the week not date/numbers so I didn't connect the dots, but then when I figured it out I was so disgusted with him for something I just didn't care. What would we have done had I been here? Nothing. But that's irrelevant. Blurrrrgh.

I managed to kick my dirty laundry into the closet as it was created, Got all new garbage into the can, and swept up the floor a few times. I did another load or two... when I get back I may try straightening the visible surfaces In this half of the room. You get so used to seeing it you don't even see the mess anymore, you know? But I think that would make sense. I do have a lot of pretty things in here but I can't enjoy them the way they are right now. Prob only take a few hours. So that's what I will probably do. Then I will shift gears to the "back 40."

Now that I've been up for three hours I'm exhausted again so might sleep for a few hours if I can. Back later in the morning...

Good morning,

Quick stop.

Dd2 is here to celebrate her bday she is doing a Lucas triathalon this morning and I am going with her for the start of the race, leaving in about an hour. The others are joining us before the finish.

Bean's family surprised us with a call yesterday afternoon asking if they could come out and stay over (yes!) so my house is in a state of happy chaos and my counter is just gone. Dd1 took over the making of the birthday cake. It is lovely.

I am making progress on my weight - I can wear my wedding ring. I actually had to leave it off for a while.

Good morning!

Roadie, I would love to hang beautiful textiles around my house. It would drive Dh crazy. 15 years ago I took the sliding doors off of one of the closets and hung a sheet (it is a pretty, heavy cotton sheet) I put a second tension rod up at the top with the matching dust ruffle and I think it looks really nice. Dh is still storing the doors because he is sure I will want to put them back.

How big is the space between your dresser and bookshelf? That seems like a long run for a tension rod!

My family were teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, homemakers, and farmers. (My dad was an engineer who lost his job and ended up selling insurance his whole career.)

My degree is early childhood Ed. I taught preschool before I had kids and then worked as a church secretary/supply sergeant (part time and baby came along), briefly taught preschool tumbling (took gymnastics as a kid) homeschooled my own kids and got more and more into pottery and the farm, started teaching at the place the kids were taking a la cart classes, my kids all opted into public high school (I managed to convince the youngest to wait for tenth grade) and now I teach four days a week - pottery, farm/animal focused classes, and a few random things that meet a need or interest me. Ages 5-18. Before covid I also did pottery sales at a few fairs or markets, and plan to start again eventually.

CM, I'm glad you are getting doors!

Marie Kondo doesn't work for me. I don't like her storage solutions, I love books, and nearly EVERYTHING sparks joy individually - it's the conglomeration that's overwhelming.

Road, great minds think alike 😉 I checked out Marie Kondo's books from the library last week. The other ladies here know of my assertion when I joined this board that I wanted to become a minimalist.

That was in 2015. Progress has been up and down. The surge of interest in doll collecting circa 2018 has been the thing that makes me wonder - however, if I divest of much clutter and fabric stash etc., and put the dolls neatly in cases, I can just display a select few at any given time.

Plan is subject to reevaluation and revisions if it doesn't seem to be feasible. I do periodically let go of some dolls to the thrift shop, church sale, etc. because there was a time when I bought indiscriminately and had too many that didn't "spark joy" as Marie Kondo says. I'm more particular now.

I think her books will give me some useful insight into strategies for tackling the overall conglomeration of stuff that I still have to deal with. My situation is complicated by the fact that I don't have a residence (whether rented or purchased) that is mine to do with as I wish. Shared single bathroom here, that's probably the toughest thing. Shared laundry machines, no big deal. Shared fridge and pantry, rather cramped; shared upright freezer which helps.

House is just not that big and has small rooms and tight passageways, my roommate has a lot of furniture and stuff too, and then there are the pet gates and it can sometimes feel like living in a maze obstacle course video game. And my own clutter problem has made things worse.

So... I have my work cut out for me.

In other news: We did get the new front door installed today. 😀 It's been several weeks of only having the back and side doors. Sort of made us want an orchestra and choir doing a triumphant soundtrack when we walked through the front door again. Maybe a ribbon cutting ceremony, bottle of champagne to break - something.

Tomorrow we may be having the back door done. Last night I didn't get much sleep. There was an Amber alert right as I was getting settled. Domestic violence situation, father with warrants who took his two tiny kids and was threatening murder and suicide. I followed online, praying, and thank God they were found and the kids were unharmed (physically anyway) and dad taken into custody without any officers being harmed or himself. Hope he gets mental health help and turns his life around.

So though relieved, I was keyed up and stayed on the internet piddling till way too late (or early). Took a nap today.

Well, I'll be back with the latest when we see what happens with the repairs and stuff.

Yes, Tatoulia !

I don't think I've met Lila yet. Come back ladies!

SubC, It sounds to me like you're getting a lot done! That's cool that you have some close relationships with your students. I am from a family of teachers. I majored in social work/art but I have always had teaching gigs... from aide in special ed to subbing in all the subjects all the grades (6 years) to teaching graphic design software at college level and then back around to being a private teacher (sorta) for my son.

The curtains are on tension rods. So my closet doesn't have a door so I just put up a tension rod and hung some sari fabric on that. Then to hide the back half of the room I put up a tension rod in between my dresser and the bookshelf and hung a big panel of gorgeous gold/cream jacquard fabric on that and that basically blocks the view.

You know what it looks like? It looks like a hoarder who loves textiles lives here. Haha. There are still four bins of stuff on the bed, a stack of elfa Drawers On the floor, and piles on the dresser, bedside table and bookshelf. BUT the floor is all wood, no garbage in sight!!! Yay me (But just don't look under the bed yet.)

My nephew and his son (toddler) are here through the weekend. We hung out a bit this am then went over to visit my parents at the new place and poor little guy finally crumbled from lack of sleep so we came back and everyone is having some quiet time, including the doggies.

I leave Sunday for 2 days with bff then when I get back I think I will try to clear enough out of the "Back 40" To get my "on the bed" bins back there. If I can do that then I can focus on fixing the bed. I want to get it up so it's standing against the wall, clean underneath it, put it up on anti snoring risers... (on an incline).

At some point I want to start working through the Marie Kondo thing - I will start with clothes since that's the easiest thing for me... Feeling good about progress and trying not to look too far down the road...

Good morning!

Tatoulia, where are you?

And Lila too!

I got a lot done yesterday, but none if it was decluttering and I didn't get my counter back.

Well, I put away almost half of the clean laundry - I guess that was decluttering? I ran two more loads, ran the dishwasher, picked beans and tomatoes, dehydrated kale and started beans (they run overnight), made vanilla ice cream, cooked dinner, and chopped up tomatoes. My kitchen looks better this morning than it did yesterday. Also, according to my scale I did not gain any weight.

I cooked dinner because Dh had a class, and he offered to pick up a pizza, but pizza makes me fat. Also, why would you buy pizza when you have so much food in the refrigerator that you are playing Tetris? Pizza is for winter!

Today I need to buy the box cake and icing that my Dd wants for her birthday. My kids are funny. Boxed cake and boxed Mac n cheese - such treats! I also need to work on some school stuff. A student emailed me and I promised to get him some information (he's on my list of "kids I would take home with me if their parents died and left them alone" - that actually happened at my school - we had a student orphaned and taken in by a teacher - not me.)

Roadie, I understand your point, but unfortunately the only people putting stuff on the counter are Dh and me. And he is doing it because I told him to. It's the taking stuff off the counter I need to work on.

I'm trying to visualize your curtain - does it cut across the whole room? What holds it up?

Hey, thanks so much for your background. That helps me a lot actually. Wow you DO have a farm! Amazing!

We are getting sloppier around here with garbage instead of more careful. *although I did just buy Eco friendlier laundry sheets. Will try your brand next!

H came home early. Boo? Not sure. But in the meanwhile, I got the bins moved and curtains "installed" to cover the closet and the back half of my room. Is a shock e very time I walk by. 😁

*PREVENTS PEOPLE stupid auto correct. Lets *

OverFILL

Re: fridge. Yep, I overlap it and then waste everything. This essentially makes it smaller but let's the light through. I was thinking for your counter it could be a placeholder sort of. And enter people from putting stuff there ?

Hi again,

roadie, I just saw your p.s.

I don't really understand the advantage of having upside down shoeboxes in the fridge - do you mean it keeps you from buying too much food? We have a relatively small fridge in the kitchen and a slightly larger one in the basement for extra eggs, milk, and garden veggies, and I spend all summer trying to keep them from overflowing.

I did put a towel down to try to motivate myself to keep that space clean, but the problem is that it's a bottleneck. The things on the counter are (mostly, temporarily at least) supposed to be on the counter. So making less space to put them would just be narrowing the bottleneck and backing the process up to somewhere else.

Ideally I would put all of my stuff away when I was done using it (so Dh didn't need to scoop it out of his way) and dishes and containers would be washed as soon as they were used or emptied and then every evening I could just grab the few little items that used the counter for a landing spot and put them away and the counter would start every morning clean. I am not there yet. I am not even to every week. But I believe I will get there.

Hi Roadie,

We have a hobby/subsistence farm. We have 27 acres and about half of it is wooded. The land is squarish and the house is right in the center between woods and fields. Most of the woods is steeply sloped and most of the open is flat. A creek runs through the low part between/in the woods and the road. We have a good sized pond, a small barn for animals, and a big barn for tractors, shop, pottery studio and a "guest loft" - it's literally just a metal loft with a rug and a bed - but that barn has a bathroom with a shower stall, and our house, well - in the words of my oldest "basically my parents bought a tear down and then we moved in."

We bought the house in late February 18 years ago. We started work on it and moving stuff to the big barn right away. For two months we commuted over an hour from our house:
Morning - load car, drop kids at school, drive to new house, unload car in barn, work on house, shower, return to old house, load car, pick up kids, new house, unload car, drive home, eat, pack for next day, repeat. Meanwhile Dh worked and he and the kids joined me on weekends. Then for the next four months my family of 5 lived in that loft. In August our furniture was delivered.

I thought I had reached peak hoard before we moved, and Dh tried to encourage me to use the opportunity to downsize (the new house was much smaller than the old house) but I couldn't manage with everything else that was going on. I moved everything. Things actually got worse. At one point the entire barn was wall to wall and head high (or more) I did start making progress after about a year, but our basement was the same, and I'd say I didn't really get serious about the house until ten to twelve years ago. My kids can't remember living with me in a house that didn't have boxes and bins that needed to be moved and stashed. Things started to get bad when I was pregnant with the now 25 y.o. Youngest and dealing with depression, and they just kept getting worse.

I buy things at regular grocery stores and farmer's markets and thrift shops and online or in normal stores if I have to. I try to buy as little as possible and I pay attention to packaging and to ingredients if it's food. I try to grow and make as much food as possible and I choose no packaging over reusable over recyclable over burnable over trash. Some things I have just stopped buying because the trash isn't worth it. Most of them are things that weren't good for me anyway. I have never worn make up, so that's a whole category...

I can answer more specific questions - for example, here I learned about tru-earth laundry strips, and I ordered them, and I tried them, and I love them, and I ordered "a year's supply", which came total packaging one cardboard box smaller than a shoebox and I still have 1/3 more than a year later and the cardboard box will recycle when it is empty. *neither Subclinical, this website nor any associated participants receive any compensation for this endorsement - lol!

P.s. SubC, rereading posts below gave me a thought. At one point I used upside down plastic shoe boxes in the fridge to keep myself from overstocking it. I think my son (or H) kept taking them out for whatever reason... but I gonna try that again. I wonder if that would work for your counter to guard your cu inches?

Also I had the idée brillante to store the extra bins in my now empty closet while nephew is here because then I am still guarding my newly conquered floor space and I can hide it by hanging a length of fabric (who needs fabric?!) Over a tension rod! Haha 😂 have to laugh at my delusions a bit because as soon as I said that I glanced up and saw the bags and poster boards teetering over the edge of the book case (3 cu. ft) and the pile of "DO NOT LOSE" and "SUPER FRAGILE" on top of my dresser (1.5) and the "a middle aged fat lady with chronic mystery health conditions lives here" on the bedside tables (1.25) and half open drawer ? and I realize my nephew will not be fooled!

Naturally, when describing volume, we should use cubic feet beforehand, and once it's clear, cubic inches!

SubC, sorry about the counter inches... but fwiw I am super impressed with your canning exploits. I am soooo sad my garden had to be minimal this year. But even in a good year I usually end up wasting a large % of my produce because I can't get it together to process things in a timely manner. I have several jars of year old fridge pickles staring me in the face every time I open the fridge. Yesterday morning when my cleaning energy was at its zenith I stared down those pickles and thought "you don't have long, buddy" but fatigue and reality caught up to me before I caught up to the fridge. This year the bumper crop will be the grapes. I didn't prune as much last year and it went crazy this year.

The goat thing just blows my mind. I totally get the appeal - they are insanely cute - but I get tired just thinking of it! But I seriously want to go to a cocktail party now and wait for a lull in the din and yell I HAVE GOATS!

#ihavegoats #guardthe144

Glad you got some bean time. You two buddies have a magical thing going on,,,

The trash thing is interesting. Curious how that works - what do you buy and how do you buy it ? And what do you make yourself? I can tell you have land - do you have acreage or a farm or ? I often wish we had a little more space - like half an acre or acre but I can't handle what we have now, so...

I totally get that you want to show your Dh sister your progress. If it wasn't for wanting to have something to report to you all I'd still be where I was last month!

So curious if you could share (whoever is willing) a little about your situation - like what are you dealing with generally - Where are you in the process - how long have you been actively working on this - is there a particular thing you're working on / focused on at the moment?

Oh, and congrats on the needle moving!

Hugs,

Good morning!

Roadie, check your laundry.

We enjoy hearing about your life because it helps us get to know you, which helps us try to help you better. I'm sorry about your situation with your Dh. It sounds like there is a lot of anger there. Stuff is one of the areas that becomes a proxy for other issues. It can also cause them (just like money, sex, religion, kids/no kids, pets...). I hope that as you clean out you guys can also improve your communication and relationship. So, at least he doesn't also hoard like lila's dh, but not a good source of support...

I'm proud of you for continuing to make progress! Are the wallpaper tubes for wallpapering your closet?

I hope you have a fun visit with your nephew.

CM, good job on the catalogs!

Once I almost bought a t-shirt that said "I prayed for patience and God sent me goats."

My sil struggles with a chronic health issue. Some days it makes it hard for him to take care of Bean, and yesterday morning he called and asked if I could come get him. So, I'm sorry for my sil, but I got a wonderful extra day with Bean! His mommy had some meetings, so I got to keep him until 9pm and give him his bath. After a day with grammie, he needed one!

My kitchen actually looks better this morning than it did yesterday morning, and I was able to cut up some kale to dehydrate today and run a load of laundry during his nap. I ran the dishwasher last night too. Maybe two more loads? Canning doesn't help with that.

Unfortunately I lost my counter. Part of it is just dirty dishes, but also the counter is where Dh puts everything he doesn't know what to do with or that I need to process. This is by agreement. Otherwise he would put recycling in the trash can - because he is unwilling to devote brain space to learning the rules and also unwilling to wash anything he is ready to get rid of, and he would put some of my stuff away where he thinks it logically belongs and where I would never find it because our brains work differently.

I don't know if Lila and Roadie know that I don't have trash service. So everything that comes to my house has to be used, stored, composted, burned, or taken away. This actually helps a lot with my decision making - I have to look at things and think "what will I do with this when I am done with it? We have very little actual garbage for a US household - it usually gets tossed in a plastic grocery bag when I get gas.

My dd2 is coming home this weekend for her birthday, so I have to get the laundry off her bed, and Dh sister and her Dh are coming to stay the night on Monday. Dh sister is also fighting a hoarding problem and somehow it is weirdly important to me for her to see progress in my house since she was here in May. The counter is the biggest target. She is someone who will actually understand what it takes to get those empty square inches.

On a bright note - the needle on my scale moved in the right direction this morning. Not very far, but it moved, and I'm calling that a win!

Hi all,

My nephew and his little boy come tomorrow to stay for a few days. That has little a tiny fire under my ass to get some things done. Conversely, the H has gone out of town for a few days making it psychologically much easier to work on things even though I have less time to do it.

???? SIDEBAR ON MY TOXIC SITUATION - feel free to skip- More and hopefully last tome on the H:
I'll admit there must be some push and pull with him being a jerk being a demotivating force... yes, this is a toxic relationship. We still have attraction and affection for each other but the baggage now is so immense it's completely dysfunctional. There was a major incident last week where he was totally in the wrong but one Result was that he retaliated by moving the bins I was using to sort from his room to the garage. He was on board with them being in there to begin with - we specifically discussed it - but evidently he thought it should take a matter of days and not weeks. So I mention the thing about the bins because this is the most progress I've made so far in dealing with the problem and in my view he took a totally unrelated incident (having to do with my sons behavior in the car) and used it as an excuse to derail my efforts to clear out my room by moving the bins I was using for sorting in his room out to the garage. I guess he didn't put any in my room - I realized what he was doing and moved the remaining ones to my room. Now I'm really going to try to stop talking about him because I think now you can get a feel for how this dynamic is impacted by my hoarding and how me dealing with it is impacted by the relationship. I mean, I guess I've wondered before about whether or not he undermines me with these efforts but now I think there's definitely something Weird /passive aggressive going on there. I can't image how he would possibly benefit From derailing a train that's definitely going in the direction he says he wants.. . he presumably hates that I have a hoarding problem, but well anyway. When he moved that stuff it was so mean spirited I just couldn't believe it. But I had to kind of disconnect from it and realize I just have to power through this - albeit in slow motion - and deal with the other issues at a later date. I know I need to do this. It will ultimately help things. Not dealing with it will definitely hurt things. He's got stuff he needs to deal with with his moods and temper, etc. but I have to keep focused on this for now. I can't tackle both things simultaneously. They're both too big.

??-

Ok, so update on today , I cleared out the stuff on the shelf in the closet and some stuff on the floor. All the clothes are already gone, now I just have a guitar, scarf, hangers, an antique tiger maple chair (maybe my stitching chair?), a shoe organizer, and wallpaper tubes. I'm thinking now I may wash it down and prime it and see if I get the motivation to paint or even wallpaper it...

I moved the six? Bins that were still on the floor in here back into H's room temporarily. Now the 40 or so sq feet on two sides of my bed are bare floor for the first time in ??? A section of the other half of the room is also bare floor. The rest of the stuff over there is all containers that have organized things in them, not loose paper/trash.

Also swept floor again but didn't wash it yet, instead I pulled a little more crap out from under the bedside table, the dresser and the bed (dammit I forgot there was a floor under all of these pieces of furniture) But that's ok. It actually really made me feel good that I could keep chipping away at it and not lose ground. Once I got that stuff done, the state of the bedside tables started coming into focus. So I might try to clear those off tomorrow am. Also have to move the bins back out of H's room because my nephew will be staying in there. Will try not to get discouraged by that. I'm making a lot of progress. Everything that's left up here can be sorted at the standing desk now.

I did forget the laundry today. Someone needs to invent an app that says "you forgot the laundry again!"

I propped up a bulletin board (but didn't hang it yet) that I need to use for sons school stuff. And I pinned a couple things up there. So that's at least a start,

Oh, I refolded tee shirts, undies and paired socks and *put them in a drawer* whaaaaat?! And at same time emptied one of the bins On my bed into a proper laundry basket and filled it up with the last of the dirty laundry. I moved one of the two big stitching bins to the other room and dumped it out and started reorganizing it again. Also took son and doggies to my brothers to hang out and play. He does frisbee competitions with them and the puppy idolizes one of his dogs and chases him when he races out to catch a frisbee, so cute. Went to the grocery store with my son. Most impatient mom store trip of the year so far. Then tonight I made him take a bath and followed it up with 3 different skincare routines he tolerates and 20% of an *omg way over due* pedicure which he hates. Poor kid. Will try to make it up to him tomorrow. Ok I gotta stop talking! I'm so sorry. I think most of this probably needs to go into a journal not here. But I appreciate your hearing me out while I get the hang of things...

Over and out,

SubC, the customer "service" folks make that process the Spanish Inquisition only more complicated precisely so they won't have to own up to their poor quality control, much less shell out any money. 😠

Road/Sara, sorry you and your sister have suffered as well. I can feel the itch from a flea bite but for me it's short lived and without all the big redness and swelling around. Perhaps Pharaoh will let the people go so this plague will end! Little Bible humor there. 😁

We may have a prospect of work getting underway tomorrow. Roommate will fill me in in a bit.

This has been a crazy summer in a different way, with some of the crazy being good, so I really am glad about that. It just varies a lot.

Sometimes I do resist the OCD, but some days I am already on overload. Oh well. You know what they say about praying for patience - that you'll be given opportunities to practice it. Those are never in short supply. Silver lining: I did throw some catalogs in the recycling bin without going through them. Which I probably was ready to do anyway; the anger just kept me from dithering about it.

Hey all,

CM, I feel your pain on the home repair stuff. I get twitchy just thinking about it. I hope you can find a way to Make things tolerable while youre in limbo.

My sympathies also on the flea sitch. I have terrible reactions them. My sister (also member of this "club") had a terrible problem a few years ago - could not get it under control for quite awhile.

My good news for the morning is I got the last of the garbage up and floors have been cleaned. When I am able to move all the bins Back out (prob today Since the H is gone for a couple days) I will be able to wash the entire floor better Without so many obstructions, This stage was a key achievement because if I needed help or EMTs had to come in here I wouldn't be reported or (that) embarrassed. Big relief.

So today, I think I'll move the bins out and Maybe everything that's still touching the floor and see what perspective that gives me on next steps. Definitely do-able.

Will be back later with responses to other posts... everyone have a great day.

Good morning.

CM, I'm sorry you are struggling.

I know the missing thing will keep weighing on you, but do you think you can talk yourself into believing that it is somewhere in the room and you will find it and delay looking for it until you have finished some more steps? Like "I will set this aside and get the rest done and then I will find the thing?"

I have a relative whose therapist told her she needs to not do the ocd thing at all or at least as long as possible because giving in to it reinforces the pathway and the more she can resist the weaker the impulses will become. She says it is very uncomfortable, but it helps.

I would love talking to you at cocktail parties. I used to have to go to them for Dh work, and he would usually identify someone it was safe for me to talk to and point me at them. Unfortunately on one occasion I was talking to someone who was very interested in the "back to the land" movement and the room was very noisy. Bad luck resulted in me yelling "I HAVE goats" into a rare naturally occurring near silence.

I found someone I wanted to hug and punch at the same time and I married him. So far it's going really well. I've never met a man I didn't want to punch at some point, so I think the key was still wanting to hug him.

Yesterday started out really well. I picked the beans and tomatoes, I had the peaches going, I was having a really relaxed day. Then my jars started breaking in the canner. I called customer service and after 20 minutes I got a human and I explained to her what was happening with details about the temperature at each step - and she informed me that the jars were breaking because of thermal shock. As if I were stupid. And I said "I know it's thermal shock, that's why I told you they had been preheated and filled with boiling syrup before they went in the canner. They are canning jars. They're supposed to be designed to tolerate some temperature change." She continued to be very unhelpful and unsympathetic, but she offered to send me an email I could respond to, with photos of my broken jars, and a photo of my receipt, and they would reimburse me the cost of the broken jars if they determined I was not at fault. (My email is currently broken and will not send. I asked for a physical address.)

Got the email, no physical address, mandatory 40 item questionnaire that requires me to type in the entire recipe I was using (one item) and provide the title, page number, and publication date of the BOOK it came from (another item). so I will not be getting a refund on my 3 broken jars.

Googled and Ball no longer makes Ball jars. The same company now makes Ball, Kerr, and Golden Harvest jars. So my options are off brand jars that get bad reviews or more expensive French made liters that won't take my lids. I weighed an old jar and a new jar and the old jar weighs 15 grams more. Guess I should just expect breakage.

Anyway, I ended up with 11 quarts of peaches plus one not quite full in the fridge plus a bowl that had to be scooped out of the canner for the chickens. And it took way too long because of having to completely empty the canner and bring it back to a boil after the breaks.

I was looking at the jars and I told Dh, you know, the last time I canned this many peaches it was 2011 and (friend whose kid is in jail) was here. And I swear I was remembering a happy thing, with all the kids around, but then I thought of her sweet little boy and I just started sobbing.

I went to bed last night without setting up the coffee or setting my alarm, and this morning Dh had an early meeting. His alarm went off, and he went straight downstairs instead of getting in the shower. Then he came back up and said "I made the coffee." And I said "I know. I heard the grinder. I'm sorry. I'll get up and make your breakfast in a minute." And he said "I didn't make it so you would make me breakfast. I made it because you are having a hard time."

(And when Mr kitty saw it was Dh making the coffee, he came upstairs to see if I was ok. He gave me a thorough sniffing and then curled up on the bed with me.)

So, I will try again today. No progress to report on the counter.

SubC, I can so relate. I had a bad mental health day yesterday too. Was organizing Barbie sewing patterns and almost done, feeling pleased how much nicer and neater and easy to use they would be. Then I found one that had 3 sets, S M L sizes - and the Medium pieces were missing. 🤨

Well. I looked everywhere, and grew increasingly frantic. Went to Joann's but patterns weren't on sale so I balked. Came back home, continued to tear my room apart and my hair out (figuratively, but there were cusswords 🤬 and tears 😭). Finally admitted defeat and went back to Joann's in the evening and paid highway robbery price for the silly pattern. The whole business is my OCD completist compulsion and I know it.

It's also the tip of the iceberg. The home repair work has indeed ground to a halt. It had last week but we weren't sure. Those stupid missing parts! No wonder missing things are a trigger for me right now, sigh. Some of what hasn't arrived has to do with the Big But, and the remainder is for doors and windows and other things that are half done.

We are finally making a bit of progress against the terrible flea pestilence of 2021. Since the dog doesn't sleep in my room and I don't have allergic reactions to the bites, I've fared better. But my poor roommate has had to deal with the itching and the extra time spent vacuuming, combing her animals, etc. She's sleep deprived to the max. Retreated the critters and the numbers have dropped significantly. Bunnies have been okay with the first treatment last month since they're clear in the other end of the house.

Such lovely cocktail party conversation starters! 🍹🍸 Good thing I don't go to cocktail parties. I don't even know anyone who has cocktail parties. 😅

I don't know that I have dysmorphia but I've known the pain of extreme self consciousness about my weight. My skinny cousin used to like to smack my thigh fat and laugh when it jiggled. 😠😡 And she was my favorite cousin, so how do you reckon wanting to hang out with someone and wanting to punch them at the same time?!

Right now I just want to figure out if I can really get rid of the droopy loose skin in the midsection where I did manage to lose some weight over the last 4 years - and I would like to do more but I've hit a plateau, and am almost hesitant to push it if it's just gonna mean more loose abdominal skin. It creates such a disproportionate fit for pants, making it hard to find anything that fits the tummy without being ridiculously baggy in the legs. 😝 I feel ya, sis.

So much more to tell and posts to catch up on but much to do today so better hit pause. The clutter business is not getting addressed because my executive functioning is toast right now. I pray it improves.

Good morning all!

Lila, don't let the long conversation get intimidating - just jump back in with your stuff!

Tatoulia, I hope all is well.

CM, are the dolls contemplating their move?

Hi Roadie!

Fantastic job on the laundry!

My counter is at 12x36x45

Have you washed your floor?

I understand what you mean about the good day. We are working really hard with my heart grandson to help him see good days. His (insert your favorite expletive here) father insisted that he stay in public school until he was literally failing everything and coming home with behavior penalties every day. So no matter what happened that day or semester, it was summarized by a demerit card and a failing report card. And he was internalizing "I am bad" and "I am stupid".

He has been in the program where I teach for a year and he is becoming a different kid. I mean, he is the same kid - smart and kind, and funny - but now he is also becoming happy and confident.

I wish for you to have a nice stitching spot. How hard would it be to set up a clean chair and a little table with just that tray on it in your room? Do you have a window it could be close to? Or if it was a corner, the corner would give you a point to work out from....

I worry about you and your Dh (I want everybody to have positive domestic situations - be that CM her roommate, Tatoulia and her BF who lives elsewhere, or couples in the same house. I feel like our relationships influence so much!) do you still function as a couple or are you roommates with a son? (Or you can ignore that because you think it's none of my business.)

CM and I both have fabric challenges, so if you want to post your ideas and actions here, I know I would love to see them, and maybe CM would too.

I am doing a little better today. Yesterday I had a very good day with Bean and then after I dropped him off I went to target. His parents keep forgetting to send his sippy cups, so I bought two if my own, and I also wanted a dozen canning jars for peaches. - I have a lot of canning jars, but I have been using the wide mouth quarts to store dried food, and that is what I want to put the peaches in. And I impulse bought him a Christmas present - it is a purple cat water bottle with a straw that he will be just old enough for at Christmas. He loves cats, and his favorite cat picture is the purple one in his Eric Carle book.

But there were so many people at target - which is hard for me on a good day in a normal year. And only 7 of them were wearing masks - a family with three kids who had two of them in the shopping part of the shopping cart and they barely fit - I feel like the mom was trying to keep them contained so she could make sure nobody got too close, and a dad and teenager who had an unmasked very little girl in the seat of their cart. (Plus me) I wanted to scream at all of the families back to school shopping with unprotected children. Newsflash - Delta is hitting kids harder. Keep breeding strains in kids and you're eventually going to come up with a strain that kills them more often.

So I came home exhausted and I made bad food choices and I felt angry at myself and I finally decided that I just needed a mental health reset. So I went to bed at ten, and I didn't set my alarm, so I slept 8.5 hours until Dh alarm went off, and I have done nothing but drink coffee, pet mr. kitty, make dh breakfast, and wander around positive parts of the Internet since - for almost two hours. I have three goals for today - relax, can peaches, and pick beans and tomatoes.

About the weight - I literally have dysmorphia - when I look at my body it doesn't look like part of me - I just want to take it off and walk away from it like you would if you tried on a dress that itched. Also parts of my body are now big enough that they touch other parts of my body in unpleasant ways - like I can feel the roll of fat against the top of my knee when I stand or walk, and it is irritating, and I literally want to peel it off like a piece of tape. None of which is helpful.

Ok, I do have to do chores, the poor goat needs to be milked!

The prompt for today was to post a picture of your stitching spot. If I was not in this situation I would picture it in a comfy chair by the windows in the dining room... work table and reading light... but alas, this is not my life. My son would never leave the things alone and my husband would never think you should leave a project out (it should be put away)... like if I leave my purse hanging on a dining room chair he will put it in the closet. because of his views which are getting more extreme, and my problem, which has become more of an issue, we've gradually kind of stopped hanging out on the first floor And with each other altogether. We each have a bedroom Upstairs and that's kind of where we all hang out. At one point my room was ok with half of it a bedroom and the other half an office with Two desks and almost floor to ceiling storage. I couldn't even tell you when it got out of hand. Or how long it's been that my floor has been buried.

So all that to say, I couldn't show a photo of my stitching spot because it's my bed... which is terrible for my back and all the things, and it's piled with 5 bins at the moment,,, paper, stitching, toiletries, dirty laundry and clean laundry. It's a goal of mine to have a good stitching area, whether downstairs in the ideal location (one day) or more likely, part of my room. And for today I settled for cleaning up and repurposing a beautiful reproduction shaker carrying tray to put my stitching stuff in.

Sorry so long. Hope everyone is having a good Monday and I will check back in a day or two.

Hey,if you make ice cream and berry jam you better be licking all the everythings! Speaking of which, if you figure out a way to peel off this troublesome fat layer, do let me know.

We were gone all afternoon and evening except for a quick stop home to let out the doggies. Haven't done that in quite awhile. It was great. First we met one of my sons teachers for lunch and talked and talked and then we went over to my parents new place and Thankfully my dad was mostly pleasant and cognitively normal seeming?well, except for making a bit of a scene moving tables around at dinner, and the part where (I think) he got confused what floor he was on... And insisted we follow him like a line of obedient ducklings in the opposite direction of their place. It was a little problematic because my back was killing me and My son Had reached his new threshold of "the good behavior reservoir has been expended for the day... and I will now start behaving in unpredictable, chaotic, and sometimes dangerous ways..." any way, I think I was trying to say how well it went. Haha. But overall it was a very good day.

Space-wise I got a load of laundry done, got the very very last piece of laundry (I think!) off the floor of my room, and am down to about a square foot of crap on the floor - mostly garbage. I sized up what is left in terms of paper stuff and it's about 15 sq feet. Some of it will be fast and some of it will be very slow as it's drawers and Containers of mixed paper. I actually feel very positive about things though because I know I am through the worst of it - in this room - and most of what remains I can do standing or sitting in a chair. The garbage is all but gone and I can bring in an air filter again and try to get more of the dust out of here. I am going to avoid thinking of the garage and the basement (where the majority is) and just keep focused on this room til I get it done. Then hopefully my husband will have some hope and won't derail me. One other positive thing was that I'm participating in this 30 day "common threads" ... continued

I just came back so soon to saY thanks for all the motivation... had a little breakthrough on my floor. Between this board in general, the cubic inches challenge in particular, and the impending visit of my nephew on Thursday, I achieved some clarity... I have been working on this task for weeks. It's so mentally burdensome my perception of it was like it w@s a mountain. But when I started working on it and started trying to gauge how big it was in order to explain it verbally to you all I think I started having a more accurate view of the size of it. Don't get me wrong, my overall situation is BIG but this floor thing is coming into focus. So anyway I realized if I just gathered it up into a box or two I was done. I just did the first half in between the last post and this. And now I'm going to do the second half. And then I will finish the piece by piece sorting standing up at the standing desk which I can now reach walking on wood floor and not a mountain of garbage.

Don't get me wrong (the editor in me is cringing that I'm saying the same thing twice in one short post) but I totally know the answer is not to bin things up. But in this case I am only moving it up to the table to save my joints. I am still committed to getting rid of all the garbage in this room.

Last thing I want to say is on my Instagram account I identify myself as a recovering fabric hoarder and someone just messaged me and told me they have a problem and wanted to know what I was doing. In telling her where I was in the process and what I thought I might do it gave me some ideas of what I might do. That was a pretty amazing experience, too.

I am going to try to measure how many cubic inches of paper I need to go through just in this room and keep track of that... do I need a spreadsheet? Perhaps! Back later,

Hi all, just checking in. Some lovely words to read here this am. I smiled and laughed more than once. Will be back.

I need my people.

After I posted I decided to try to at least cook the berries down so I could can jam tomorrow night after Bean goes home.

When I went to get the berries out, I realized that the reason one of the jars of dill pickles didn't seal was because the jar was cracked. The pickling brine had leaked out and was all over two shelves and the bottom of my fridge and in a vegetable crisper. By the time I got that (mostly, there are still vegetables on my counter) cleaned up, Dh suggested dinner.

So after dinner (leftovers Dh cooked) I decided I was not going to be stopped. I went downstairs to get out my berry mill, and I found another case of canned food from 2011. I mean, I guess it's progress that I'm actually finding this stuff, but I had to ask myself - what the heck happened in 2011?

...nothing. 2011 was really good - I canned a ton of stuff! So much that we didn't eat it all. So normally, I would can less of the leftover things the next year and we would eat the older stuff first.

But in spring if 2012, my ds graduated from high school and got a summer job. Then he moved away to college. I lost 80% of my farm help. I didn't produce as much, or can as much, and I apparently forgot to rotate my stock. And then in late winter before the spring of 2013, my grandmother died.

And that's a novel.
And for some reason I seem to be revisiting it this year.

So I'll keep feeding spoiled food to the chickens and try to be proud of myself for cleaning out instead of mad that I let this happen.

I froze my ice cream and I made 2 pints of jam - which was all the berries we had picked and not really worth getting all the pots dirty for. And I think I may have overcooked it....

And I'm just tired and sad. And fat. My body doesn't feel like it belongs to me - it feels like I'm trapped in it. Like all this extra fat is just stuck to me and I want to peel it off like my shorts so I can be comfortable again. But I made ice cream and jam and licked all the everythings when I cleaned up....

Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow will be Monday, and Bean will come. And all he sees is arms that hold him and carry him and hands that bring him things and feed him and a smile and long hair to wrap his hands in and someone who loves him and plays with him and when he is tired I am soft and warm and he even seems to like my awful singing.