Thinking about "Stuff"
Mar. 2nd, 2019 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chasmodaiToday is Saturday, March 2, 2019
It's about 69 degrees Fahrenheit, and it rained this morning.
Today we are cleaning and decluttering, which is something we like to do for a couple of hours most Saturdays. We eat a nice breakfast or go out for coffee, set a timer for 2 hours, put on some music, and do the white tornado. The house is never completely clean, but it's better than it would be if we did nothing.
As we clean, things we no longer need go into a pile for the local charity. I wait until we have enough things to justify the trip, and then I go and drop them off.
Even with all the decluttering we do, the house is still cluttered. And that's the way I like it. I know that not everyone likes clutter, and some people hate it, but this is my house, and in my house I live by my rules.
Recently I walked through one of the big warehouse stores, and realized that at some point in my adult life, I have purchased just about every item in that store at least once. Things like an ironing board, a teakettle, a hot water bottle, and some crutches. I really don't like buying something twice. If a can opener breaks, fine, I'll buy a new one, but it irritates me to have to buy a new thing because I was overzealous during a cleaning spree and threw the old thing out.
One of the reasons there is so much clutter in my home is that there are four of us living here, and we all have a lot of interests. When you have hobbies and activities, often that leads to having things for doing the activities.
We've seen Marie Kondo's show about tidying up, and it does offer a helpful perspective. I find that I bristle when someone calls the clutter, "garbage," or "junk." These are items that we brought in our home at some point for some reason. These items may no longer have value for us, but they might be used by someone else, or they might be re-purposed.
It's about 69 degrees Fahrenheit, and it rained this morning.
Today we are cleaning and decluttering, which is something we like to do for a couple of hours most Saturdays. We eat a nice breakfast or go out for coffee, set a timer for 2 hours, put on some music, and do the white tornado. The house is never completely clean, but it's better than it would be if we did nothing.
As we clean, things we no longer need go into a pile for the local charity. I wait until we have enough things to justify the trip, and then I go and drop them off.
Even with all the decluttering we do, the house is still cluttered. And that's the way I like it. I know that not everyone likes clutter, and some people hate it, but this is my house, and in my house I live by my rules.
Recently I walked through one of the big warehouse stores, and realized that at some point in my adult life, I have purchased just about every item in that store at least once. Things like an ironing board, a teakettle, a hot water bottle, and some crutches. I really don't like buying something twice. If a can opener breaks, fine, I'll buy a new one, but it irritates me to have to buy a new thing because I was overzealous during a cleaning spree and threw the old thing out.
One of the reasons there is so much clutter in my home is that there are four of us living here, and we all have a lot of interests. When you have hobbies and activities, often that leads to having things for doing the activities.
We've seen Marie Kondo's show about tidying up, and it does offer a helpful perspective. I find that I bristle when someone calls the clutter, "garbage," or "junk." These are items that we brought in our home at some point for some reason. These items may no longer have value for us, but they might be used by someone else, or they might be re-purposed.
