so on the subject of stuff, clutter, belongings, knick knacks, what nots, doo dads.... 

its probably my most favorite subject and i can drone on and on over it. it absolutely fascinates me.  we all have belongings and we all have a hard time letting some stuff go.  it could be because something is still seen as useful or it has sentimental value.  it could be something as mundane as a walmart plastic bag but to the right person it has got that something-something making them hold on to it.

i read a ton of books about clutter, organizing, hoarding.  ones that are written for someone who is just a lazy slob and then others that are book forms of a therapy session.  i used to think that there was one definitive book out there that held all the right answers, but that is not the case.  you have to read them all.  pick out what speaks to you.  sometimes it depends on where you are in life as to which book to read.  feeling inspired and upbeat and want to tackle some clutter?  read a thin book with quick tips and bubbly cheers.  or maybe you are going through a rough time in life and decluttering is a key part in moving forward, such as a death or the end of a relationship.  then reading something that caters more to emotional and sentimental matters would be a good choice.

i've read all the books i can get my hands on through my public library and now i am taking on the entire states resources through interlibrary loan.  see, i don't own them all, that would be clutter!

i have to constantly read these books for my own benefit, because i am a hard core junk lover.  i live for thrift stores and estate sales.  you don't have to be looking for anything, it will find you. example: i never realized that i 'needed' an electric lighted make up mirror, but yeah, let's give it a go, only 3 bucks!  

now, ok, this is my issue.  i have this conflicting deal where i hate clutter but love finding neat stuff or finding stuff to fix up.  i have this constant back and forth in my brain pitching pros and cons.  it all comes down to finding balance and getting some limits in place that you can work with.  your house has a limit of how much stuff it can aesthetically hold/display.  your life has a limit of how many projects you can accomplish before it's end.  one of my most favorite shows (obviously!) is Hoarders.  i remember this one episode where the woman had an entire room filled with skeins of yarn, she was in her late 60s, maybe 70s.  the team asked her how long it takes to knit a blanket and calculated that with how much yarn she had it would have taken her nearly 20 years to use up her stash, meaning it wasn't going to happen.  she could live another 20 years but just knitting?  you gotta do more in life than that.

like i mentioned, i can go on and on about clutter and i plan to!  topics that I touched on here:  thrift stores and acquiring, learning balance and limits, resources, personal clutter concerns.  i'll flesh these out in more detail in future posts.

 end of an era.  typically this means the end of a decade or the end of a major moment in the collective of the world.  but the end of an era i think should be more applied to ones' personal life and story.  this theme has crossed my mind on so many occasions over the past few years especially since my son is heading into adulthood.  the first hit i received over this was after the left elementary school.  i cried, i still miss elementary school.  but the situation that really shown as end of an era was in 5th grade and doing after halloween clearance shopping at target.  i realized there was no need to buy party supplies for next years class party....because middle school. 

i had another end of era moment today.  while going through the cabinets in the kitchen i came across these little cloth napkins I had sewn for my son to use in his lunch bag starting in elementary school.  i am an extremely thrifty and cheap gal and to save money rather than having wasteful paper napkins i bought a large cloth dish towel from dollar tree, cut it into 5 squares and hemmed them, thus making reusable napkins.  he used them up until high school, which then was cut short by remote school, and now for his senior year he is doing college dual enrollment...so he doesn't need the little napkins anymore. They are pretty faded and wrinkled and not much use other than what they originally were made for.  so what now?  get rid of them?  this is the kind of object attachment that I plan on writing about more in the future.  it can be some intense shit.  sentimentality over a dollar tree towel.

 when the pandemic started i was kinda excited about all the 'at home' possibilities.  all the old fashion family fun and projects that we were going to take on.  that's also because the original plan was this was only going to be for 2 weeks...maybe 2 months.  remember that?  I sure feel like a naïve dingbat thinking back to those days. after the truth of the dire situation set in (2 years? and counting) i have now been living on a constant diet of anxiety and potato chips.  one thing that has always served me well when i am feeling powerless is to clean and declutter.  it's something that costs nothing but time and the results are a better high than crack...well, so i think.  crackhead declutters out there may need to give me their expert opinion having experience in both realms. for the first 3 months i was hot on it.  i weeded the entire yard, decluttered and deep cleaned my 1964 airsteam travel trailer, decluttered/organized the shed. the fam and i had little dinners and lunches on the deck, we played all of our favorite board games, watched 10 years of family home movies. then as the summer heat kicked in and bad news in the world and in my personal life kept piling on I reduced my self down to only activities that required breathing.  I was still able to handle doing that.

 over the past year i haven't taken on very many projects involving decluttering or cleaning even though i know deep deep in my frazzled brain i know it is the treatment for what ails me.

 i have been rolling it around in my head to start a side blog.  one where i can speak in my first language which happens to be profanity.  not alot of editing, probably no pictures, free form essay type stuff.  writing in a journal over the past 3 decades has served me fairly well as an alterative to having to make trips to a physiatrist's couch.  not saying i am going to be divulging my inner most secrets, i just have some side stuff that I have got to get out of my brain and it's shit that may be of interest to the random person that happens to find their way here.  15 years ago i happened to stumble across an article in a parenting magazine  that was something of an epiphany for me.  at the time i had been a stay at home new mom for my son for 2 years.  i didn't have any other friends that had children.  i value expertise over opinion so i read lots the books and subscribed to several magazines on the subject of child rearing.  i mean, you don't want to fuck up being a parent, this isn't like taking care of a cat.  two years and my anxiety was at max, even writing in my journal didn't help.  I remember one entry i wrote while my son took a rare nap.  I spoke about how when he is asleep the stress subsides but once he wakes up i'm back "on"...trying my best to fulfill the most important job one will ever have.  it was alot of pressure.  it didn't help that i was co-parenting with someone who was a dick over these kind of issues.  so one day i got another of my many parenting magazines in the mail.  the articles are usually factual, what to expect at certain ages or what foods are best to make your kid smarter than you.  but this month they happen to have an article written by a mom focusing on emotions and parenting.  it said it was normal to feel overwhelmed, and have massive anxiety being a parent, especially a new parent and a stay at home mom.  This is normal?!  I'm not a horrible person?!  I'm not loosing my mind?!  I know all of this sounds like a "well, duh!" but I had been living in a bubble, a cage even, for 2 years.  all of the parenting was on me and when I felt overwhelmed i was shamed and ashamed.

so that is why i am starting this side blog.  when you find out that you are not alone and even normal it can be life and mind changing.  i also really love to read about clutter and our thought process over it.  I am planning on doing some declutter/organizing book reviews and also bring in my personal experiences which I hope either help or entertain.