So, today I had one of those manic clean ups. It started with Jimmy complaining about the house. It makes me feel as thought he's complaining that **I** don't do it for him. He says he's not, but, why else would he say something to me? I feel like he would just clean up if it bothered him and it had nothing to do with me. I have some huge resentment surrounding having to be the one to take care of everything.

So, today I decided to clean up a bit. It needed done anyway since my parents will come here for Christmas day and I always seem to do a bit when Jimmy gets upset about the house. He reminds me of this helpless little child who has austistic leanings and gets kind of off kilter when things are too messy. Where I get totally overwhelmed and slip into a depression.

I was going to go the box route...you know, just throw things into boxes so you could at least see the floor, lol. But, I didn't have enough boxes and the dollar store's were too expensive. I would have checked another store, but, it's the weekend before Christmas and I didn't want to deal with the crowds. I end up deciding bags are a fun idea and I buy these pink bags that are smelly. I thought, fix two problems with one solution, yay! Well, they turned out to be tiny bags, like for a small office garbage can. However, they were excellent for putting bundles of dirty clothes into them (bonus on the smell, too). So, the bathroom looks much prettier and I can take a bag or two to the basement to wash. I then had some garbage bags for the LR, but, didn't end up needing all that many. Luke helped by taking one corner of the room, which helped me tremendously. Also, as I was doing the kitchen garbage, Kira was helping me and I noticed I felt a little better with someone there helping.

Throughout the cleaning, I kept getting heartburn. I also kept wanting to stop. I resisted the urge over and over. I kept wanting to eat and I also kept feeling like finding something on TV or logging onto the computer. I even grabbed the laptop twice with the intent of sitting down and logging on. I resisted though, and I think that made all the difference. I would stop what I was doing when the feeling got too much to bear and I would sit with my emotions and tell myself that I know I feel crappy, my stomach hurts, I have heartburn and pretty bad anxiety. However, It's OK...I can get through it. I can DO this. I took some cleansing breaths and then I got up and continued what I was doing.

So, what I needed was: #1 Helpers #2 When feeling extreme anxiety and the urge to eat and watch TV/get on the laptop, it's OK to stop for a minute, give my body time to calm down, tell myself it's OK to feel crappy and that I'll feel better later and that I WILL get time to relax and do those comfort things later. The funny thing is, I'm on the laptop but, now, it wasn't the huge urge that it was earlier. I got some energy going in the right direction and I kept going a little longer than planned.

Day 2...Dishes

This is a progression of my day:

BIG project today! My goal is to clean up the mess in the LR that happened when I didn't get bookcases when I thought I would and stuff sat for a few weeks. Then, it was hard for me to clean it up once I got the bookcases. So, it's been sitting there for probably almost two months now. I also wanted to do the dishes and empty the garbage, plus do laundry. At this moment I'm totally feeling that I can do it!

As I got some more laundry ready to clean, I took another load to the basement, but, the washer and dryer weren't ready yet. I came back up and I was out of breath and started to feel like I needed to stop...I need to stop and rest. Then, I got stressed thinking about how the internet is down right now and I need to call the water company. My head hurts and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed about all the stuff I wanted to do today. I'm starting to get worried that I won't do it and be a total failure.

Ok, well, I did get one of the declutter projects done today. I had an unexpected headache, it was so bad I felt nauseous and I actually started to cry while I was trying to do dishes. I completely stressed out that I couldn't get stuff done, I was very hard on myself and couldn't find a way to stop. Eventually, my headache lightened a bit and I was able to get the dishes done. TBH, anger spurred me on a bit. Someone made me angry about something that has nothing to do with clutter and that, coupled with my headache feeling a little better, made me go and do the dishes. You will see by the pictures why this is a big deal. It's completely embarrassing to post this and I had second thoughts thinking of everyone judging me. However, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to be completely honest about it and not hide anything. I want others to know that they are not alone and when I say "clutter" I mean real clutter, not occasional mess that gets cleaned up fairly often!

Here is before:




Here is after:




AND I actually DID the dishes, I didn't put them in a box and clean the sink out! lol

I'm feeling proud of myself for doing them. I just couldn't get to the other clutter yet. I think I need to make my lists smaller. Like a portion of the clutter, not the entire pile.

Ottoman

Today I decided to declutter the ottoman. It was a quick "I'll do that NOW" decision and I jumped up and started. I was excited to get this blog started, so, that could have been part of my motivation. It was slow going today on the clutter front until that moment. I woke at 5:30am because the hamster wheel was squeaking. So, I got up and oiled it. Then, I noticed that the TV in the bedroom was flashing a comcast signal, which was odd. I started to worry that our cable got shut off, which got me worrying about the bills and wondering how we were going to pay them. Hence me waking for good at 5:30. Then, around 8a, one of our cats had some sort of spell where she meowed loudly and lost control of her limbs and fell. Freaked us right out! She got better, but, then it happened again around 11a. So, I called the vet and we have a 4pm appointment. Which also made us cancel everything we had on the schedule for the day. No, hanging with friends, no karate class and no grappling class. All of this stuff had me completely stressed out this morning and not in the mood to think about clutter. Though, I really felt strongly that I wanted to do SOMEthing today, even if it was a corner of a table, I wanted to do it!








So, I tackled the large ottoman that we use as a seat when it's not full of clutter. You can see the before and after photoes. A lot of it was laundry. I put the laundry away, there were some magazines, books and games underneath the clothes. Not to mention some old tissues and mail that belonged in the garbage. I put everything where it goes and I feel better that I accomplished something today.




As I was cleaning off the ottoman, I felt rushed, I felt like I was in a race and needed to get it done as quickly as possible. I started to feel sick to my stomach, my abdomen tightened up and I became really tense. I got heartburn and felt relief when it was over and I was done. What I really wanted to do was to stop and really feel these feelings as they were happening, to kind of try and get to the root of them, at least figure out more clearly *what* I'm feeling. Unfortunately, I just pushed through them like I usually do and so I have no further insights. I still feel queasy as I sit here and write this and my throat tightens up and my head starts to feel like it's being squeezed. Obviously I have a lot of work to do, but, the end result is..Day 1...success! I cleared off one thing! :-)

Time management

I had an epiphany this evening. I was thinking about time management and I've always thought that people with time management issues were the people who were always running behind, having too many things scheduled and overbooking themselves. Which never described me, I mean, sure there are times when I've had a few days of driving around doing things, but, I could never sustain anything like that. However, I had a realization today that if I don't schedule anything, I most likely will not do anything! I guess that would also be a time management issue. I need to manage my time more wisely and put a little more thought into what I want to be doing with the time I have.

I also have trouble with rebelling against any schedule that I set for myself. I feel as though someone is forcing me to do stuff that I don't want to do...which makes no sense since I, myself, made the schedule and would only benefit from doing the things on my list.

These are only a couple of the issues that I have that I'm up against on my journey to becoming clutterless. As I post more, more things will come up and I will talk about each thing as it comes up for me. My hope is to show others that they are not alone, there are many other people out there who live with clutter. You are a beautiful human being who deserves the same respects as anyone else and you have nothing to be ashamed of. You do not deserve to be treated as less-than because your home is cluttered.

Welcome to my blog

So, this is my clutter blog. I am reading "Stop Clutter from stealing your life" by Mike Nelson and in the book he recommends us clutterers use a clutter diary to write down how we're feeling and what progress we're making. I decided doing a blog would be much more fun and I am going to use pictures to document any progress I make as well as writing what I'm feeling as I'm getting rid of the clutter. Welcome to my journey.