Today’s boxes from the study were largely full of CDs. Piles and piles of them. And I don’t think I’ve found them all yet.
As the move has caused me to switch, by and large, to a de-hoarding state of mind, I’ve got a feeling I will be getting rid of a lot of the music CDs. We’ll see how much space I’ve got for them when I finally put up the CD shelves (which is a long way down the line). In the meantime, at least the extra space on the DVD shelves is getting some use!
I finally made a start on the study today…
…and immediately ran into some technical problems.
So I had my wee workstation all set up in the living room, with the scanner and shredder ready to start scanning and shredding all the mountains of paper in the study that I want to keep digitally but not physically. Except they weren’t. The scanner/printer we have is apparently set up to scan to Geth’s laptop rather than mine (and I don’t want to be reliant on Geth’s laptop for this project, first because it creates extra work to keep moving all the files, secondly because Geth needs it on days when he’s working from home, and thirdly because Geth never cleans his laptop and so it is super gross and I don’t like touching it). The shredder, meanwhile, won’t work because it’s jammed from the last time we had to shred a lot of stuff (which I’m pretty sure was when we were still living in Southampton, shortly before we moved to Newcastle, so late 2014?).
I have possibly sort of fixed the first issue, because I found some memory cards in the first of the study boxes that I went through today, so I can just switch the scanner to scan to a memory card rather than a laptop. As for the second issue, Geth has promised to attempt some drunken maintenance with an old unused plastic card (which was how we fixed it the last time this happened) when he gets back from his work dinner tonight.
Hopefully that will all work, or else emptying the study is going to be trickier than I’d foreseen.
Well, after a couple of months that were taken up with work and holidays, I finally have time over the next few weeks to get on with the house again.
The main project is the study, which is still just a pile of boxes, but there’s a few other things to do as well – mainly putting up bookcases and Tetris-ing things around. I’m mainly working this week, but at the weekend I will have time to get started on the bookcases – meaning we’ll have access to our books for the first time since January. Exciting! I’ve almost forgotten what we actually have.
I’m glad I’ll finally be able to get into that study next week as well – I’m looking forward to having a whole extra room. Eventually.
One of the shelving projects that Dad and I (mostly Dad) did over the weekend was for my shoes. Even though I got rid of a lot of shoes, I still need a good amount of storage for my remaining 59 62 pairs, especially as I’ve been on a bit of a shoe binge lately (though I think I’m satiated for now). Some of my pairs are ‘legacy shoes’ (i.e. old pairs I’ll never wear again but am keeping in storage boxes or on display for sentimental reasons), and there are a couple of pairs for gardening that I’m keeping in the cupboard off the kitchen, and my dancing shoes live in my gym bag, and my running shoes tend to stay in the Skubb hanger I bought for the hallway…but that still leaves a good 48 pairs that needed a place to live in the dressing room. Which they now have:
As you can see, there’s plenty space for more, which is probably a good thing knowing me.
It’s very nice having all my shoes to hand. Of course, since I put them all up, it’s been pouring with rain and I’ve not been out (save for a very wet run this morning) so I’ve been living in my slippers indoors. It will be good to get some use out of them once the weather clears up, though!
Time to get back to home improvement!
Geth and I have had a nice Easter break visiting the in-laws in Lancashire. We’re now back home and ready for another visit from my parents, who will be arriving tomorrow to help with putting up shelves and taking the messy remains of my bloody wardrobe cull to the dump/charity shop. Exciting!
I’ve been buying a lot of stuff the last few weeks. At first it was all house stuff, but lately it’s been mostly treats for me. New clothes for my almost-at-target figure! New makeup for my new makeup storage unit! New shoes (quite a lot of new shoes) for…uh, they’re not for anything in particular, I just love shoes.
I mentioned before that I always feel a bit guilty if I go on a spending spree, but I’ve found it difficult to resist these last few weeks. It’s mainly because I’ve been carrying out a ruthless cull of my entire wardrobe and so the state of this particular collection is always on my mind at the moment. Post-cull, the gaps in my wardrobe are far more apparent, and there are a few areas (underwear, jeans, skirts) where I genuinely do need to buy new things.
I’m not delusional enough to think that’s the case with the shoes, obviously. But I did get rid of an awful lot in the cull, and shoes are pretty, and shoe shopping makes me feel better at the end of a difficult day. I’m very aware that I’ll need to replace this habit with something less expensive soon. Seeing as I can’t go back to binge-drinking now that I’m (sort of) healthy and slim, I imagine it’ll be baths, especially as the bath in our new house is so awesome. I just have to hope I don’t develop a ‘luxury bathing products’ obsession instead, although in fairness it would be cheaper than shoes. We’ll see what happens over the next few weeks.
Remember when I organised all my bracelets into colour groupings in the hope that I’d wear them more often?
Yeah, so that turned out to be a bit of a waste of time, given that I threw 90% of them out today.
When I was packing up the old house, I knew that I’d end up chucking quite a lot of stuff out to make things neater, but I didn’t expect that I’d end up being so ruthless with my clothes and accessories. The thing is, I’m just sick of the hoard. The hoard is everywhere, I’m currently spending my entire time sorting through it and tripping over piles of it and moving boxes of it about so that I can access more boxes of it, and it’s causing me a lot of anxiety and stress, especially on ‘sorting days’ like today when my hoarding nature means that I have to go through every single thing and devote mental energy to agonising for a few minutes about whether I should keep it.
And with jewellery and hair accessories it literally is EVERY SINGLE THING I’ve ever owned in my life, because you don’t outgrow necklaces and scrunchies the way you do clothes, so my collection genuinely dates back to when my parents first decided they needed to tie my hair back in 1987:
Yes, I still have those green tartan ribbons. Of course I do. They’re not being chucked out (they’re in an inaccessible part of the hoard right now, so I couldn’t even if I wanted to), because if it dates from the ’80s, it obviously stays. (What, you thought I’d been cured of ALL of my issues?)
Thankfully, I’m coming to the end of the ‘sorting days’ as far as my wardrobe is concerned, but next month, there will be the study. Oh dear god, the study. Boxes and boxes and boxes full of old correspondence, and schoolwork, and the first fumbling childhood steps in my lifelong fiction-writing habit, and the most painfully private diaries and poetry – all of which will need to be carefully scanned and then frantically shredded (and ideally burnt, but I’m not sure the atmosphere could cope). Mounds of receipts and paperwork and keepsakes, which will need to be sorted and filed. Piles of old broken electronics, and the manuals for the old broken electronics, and the twisted and tangled mess of connector cables for the old broken electronics. Artwork and other wall decorations that I don’t like any more but have been dragging with me through approximately five house moves. Cassette singles I bought in the early ’90s, which I won’t throw out, but will instead stare at wistfully for ages, marvelling at their glorious age and endurance, remembering a different century, wasting time when I’m supposed to be getting on with the hoard.
I know I’ll get to the end of it sometime. It just feels like such a mountain to climb. A literal mountain of stuff.
But I’m going to climb it, because there’s no other way through for me.
After a couple of days of dribs and drabs of small deliveries of house stuff, the big Ikea order arrived today! Most of it (I’ve already assembled the replacement lamp) is still sitting in the middle of the living room, as there’s no space to assemble the units or put them in their eventual places yet. And just when I thought I’d reclaimed that bit of living room floor. Oh well.
I also finally finished the wardrobe cull. It’s amazing how much stuff I realised I just didn’t like or want to wear, and in total I’ve probably got rid of about 75% of my clothes. To be fair, I am now spending a lot of time online, fantasy shopping for replacements, but I’m trying to be good and only (mostly) buying things I actually need.
Now that the Ikea order is here, one thing I can do is start putting stuff into its proper storage boxes. Hopefully I’ll have a properly functioning dressing room, at least, by the end of the week!
I spent today getting on with my wardrobe cull. I got rid of a lot of dresses, underwear, scarves and hats, and a lot more shoes – I’ve now got the previous total down to 59 pairs. That’s a pretty big drop, and it means my new shoe shelves will look really neat and uncluttered.
Well, at least until I replace all the thrown-out pairs with new ones!
No, I’m kidding. Like with everything else in the house, I’ll be instituting a one-in one-out rule once my shelves are full, in order to avoid things getting back into the chaotic hoarding state that has made this house move so stressful. Neither Geth nor I have ever been in the habit of throwing things away, but that has to change from now on, for my own sanity.
I’m quite looking forward to seeing what it’s like to live without mounds of stuff everywhere!
Well, I didn’t want to start doing the mega wardrobe cull until I’d hit my Slimming World target, but after weeks of chaos upstairs with having to clamber over stuff and not being able to find anything, I admitted defeat and started putting stuff in binbags and donation bags today.
I’ve come a long way with my hoarding problem over the years, but I still find it hard to let go of stuff, especially clothes. I think it’s partly because I was so broke for so many years post-graduation – during that time, even a £5 Primark top was a hard-earned purchase, and it feels almost disrespectful to my struggling younger self just to toss the item away, even if it’s old and full of holes.
I’ve been trying to mitigate this by using the digital hoarding method – taking a photo of each piece so that I still ‘have’ it. I’ll probably never look at these photos again, but knowing they’re there makes getting rid of the physical stuff a lot easier.
I threw out a lot of shoes today. My previous total of 91 pairs first went up to 95 pairs, because I found four pairs that I thought I’d previously thrown out but it turned out I hadn’t. I’ve now got it down to 77 pairs, and I reckon I’ll be able to get it down further when I finish the cull job tomorrow. It’s especially tough to get rid of shoes, because I love shoes, but I’m trying just to keep thinking about the lovely neat shoe shelves I’ll be able to have up in the dressing room (not to mention, I must confess, the shiny new pairs I’ll be able to buy).
The biggest motivation for all this de-hoarding is the fact that I can’t wait for the house to look nice and uncluttered, so that I can finally relax and properly feel like this is home.