A Cluttered Column - October 28, 2017
About once a year I get a maniacal look in my eye and I start to pace even more than usual. Yes, I want to declutter! It usually hits in Spring, but this year it hit in the Fall.
Now if you know me, you’ll know that I get things wrong. You might think I’m self-sabotaging, but that would involve conspiring and I don’t have the brains or energy for that.
What did I do wrong this time? Well, I started off my annual declutter by tackling a Rubbermaid container full of newspaper clippings from my 32 years in Sudbury. I wanted to sort through them and put the meaningful ones in binders. Talk about actually making more clutter! Our dining room table quickly became a firetrap – covered with newspaper and, yes, this is where I keep our one candle. It might have been easier just to light the candle and wait for nature to take its course, but I do share this building with at least sixty other seniors.
Six binders, countless page protectors and cardstock, and four glue sticks later – everything was in binders and was returned to the Rubbermaid container. Kind of ridiculous, I know. No one will ever read them, but I feel the universe has been bent toward my will when I complete a big and tedious project.
Now it was time for the real decluttering to begin – of our apartment, storage closet, storage room, and van. (Yes, the van. You cannot imagine how much junk we can accumulate in it. Normally, stuff we mean to drop off somewhere, but never do.)
Monday, I wanted Laur to clean the fridge while I worked on emptying out the living room and dusting off pictures. It doesn’t seem like a fair deal for Laur, but the living room contained two disorganized boxes. One is the “box of very important things” – these are things I don’t know what to do with. And the second is the box of financial statements and receipts which by October was starting to “overfloweth.”
Laur caught a break. Our fridge died on Sunday night. No sense cleaning a dead fridge – though when I heard it was going off to be recycled I did have a moment of guilt. A year’s worth of spilled soya milk, orange juice, and swamp water from veggies and fruit going off … Ah well. Laur wasn’t concerned and it was his job to clean it. (Our new fridge arrived on Wednesday – very clean and organized I must say.)
Laur got reassigned to cleaning the stove, toaster, and coffee maker. You would think that someone who cooks as infrequently as I do would not make much of a mess. But when I do cook, I cook sloppily. I neglect to cover those sizzling oven fries; the bean soup boils over, etc. A special trip to the store had to be made for the oven cleaner – which tells you how often we clean our stove.
Laur wouldn’t let me take a picture of the pile of seeds and crumbs that came out of the toast. We are talking over a cup of grunge. But when you think about it, four slices of “hearty” bread every day times six months… What a mess. And the coffee maker? I’m always sneaking out part of a cup before the coffee has run through…
Day two was interrupted by getting blood work done at the local lab. Our wait was close to two hours – and we were fasting. By the time we got home and ate breakfast, it was too late to head to GoodLife for our morning exercise and we were so discombobulated, we wouldn’t have known what to do there anyway. We old people don’t like changes in our routine.
So, I suggested to Laur, “Let’s just burn through the apartment today and try to get all of it done.” My goal was four bags to the Salvation Army, four bags to recycling, and four bags to the dump. For once, I met and exceeded my goal. But it wasn’t without some opposition from my other half.
I am a minimalist. If it was just me living here, I’d have hardly more that a spoon, a bowl, a cup, a toothbrush, a washcloth, a towel, a sleeping bag on a yoga mat, and toilet paper. Laur, on the other hand, lives in a headspace and living-space that says, “You never know when you might need this…” Besides, throwing out thin underwear and mismatched socks would mean a trip to W*lm*rt – and neither of us can standing shopping.
Still, Laur managed to part with a few pieces of clothing, one of his eight coats, some batteries that had corroded, a case for carrying a suit, three of his six bottles of windshield wiper fluid, and his bulk package of door-key defroster. He was not willing to give up any of his remaining thousand books, his boxes and boxes and boxes of old essays, papers given at conferences, Scrivener Press documents, and things that the kids had made that adorned his old office at Laurentian University. And he certainly wasn’t prepared to clean off his desk. He tells me he knows where everything is, until he can’t find it. Like the secret code to his Canada pension stuff. (I had it, neatly filed away with our 2016 tax returns.)
We weren’t able to get through all of our apartment on Tuesday. The kitchen still awaits us. Laurence has a collection of plastic tubs and lids that eventually takes up an entire cupboard and it has to be beaten back annually.
I have a ridiculous amount of dried beans and lentils. I’m into canned beans these days and even if my hubs got inspired to start making beans from scratch, how many meals of kidney beans can one stand? We only have a small fridge freezer.
We have so many cups and mugs that we cannot shut the cupboard doors. Yes, I am always breaking things, but I am a mug-a-holic. If it is large and has a cat or a train on it, it’s coming home with me. (After paying, of course.) And I swear that the cupboard under the sink is a Tardis. It holds more containers of various cleaners than is needed to wipe off all the graffiti in downtown St. Catharines.
(A Tardis is a spaceship from Dr. Who. On the outside, it’s a telephone booth. On the inside, it’s an entire world of its own.)
The next challenge will be stopping my clean and de-clutter “bender.” You see, there is always more that can be done. What will save me this year is that it’s time to do our annual Christmas letter. Ne worry pas – I will not be regaling you with stories of superhuman achievements. For me, that my “framily” (family and friends) make it through another year is a cause of celebration. (And sadly, there is usually a loss.)
The writing part for me is a snap. But getting framily to forward their favourite picture of themselves – there’s the rub. My annual threat is that if you don’t send me a picture, I’ll use one of mine.
If you think my cooking and cleaning is awful (and it is), you should see my photography!
Now if you know me, you’ll know that I get things wrong. You might think I’m self-sabotaging, but that would involve conspiring and I don’t have the brains or energy for that.
What did I do wrong this time? Well, I started off my annual declutter by tackling a Rubbermaid container full of newspaper clippings from my 32 years in Sudbury. I wanted to sort through them and put the meaningful ones in binders. Talk about actually making more clutter! Our dining room table quickly became a firetrap – covered with newspaper and, yes, this is where I keep our one candle. It might have been easier just to light the candle and wait for nature to take its course, but I do share this building with at least sixty other seniors.
Six binders, countless page protectors and cardstock, and four glue sticks later – everything was in binders and was returned to the Rubbermaid container. Kind of ridiculous, I know. No one will ever read them, but I feel the universe has been bent toward my will when I complete a big and tedious project.
Now it was time for the real decluttering to begin – of our apartment, storage closet, storage room, and van. (Yes, the van. You cannot imagine how much junk we can accumulate in it. Normally, stuff we mean to drop off somewhere, but never do.)
Monday, I wanted Laur to clean the fridge while I worked on emptying out the living room and dusting off pictures. It doesn’t seem like a fair deal for Laur, but the living room contained two disorganized boxes. One is the “box of very important things” – these are things I don’t know what to do with. And the second is the box of financial statements and receipts which by October was starting to “overfloweth.”
Laur caught a break. Our fridge died on Sunday night. No sense cleaning a dead fridge – though when I heard it was going off to be recycled I did have a moment of guilt. A year’s worth of spilled soya milk, orange juice, and swamp water from veggies and fruit going off … Ah well. Laur wasn’t concerned and it was his job to clean it. (Our new fridge arrived on Wednesday – very clean and organized I must say.)
Laur got reassigned to cleaning the stove, toaster, and coffee maker. You would think that someone who cooks as infrequently as I do would not make much of a mess. But when I do cook, I cook sloppily. I neglect to cover those sizzling oven fries; the bean soup boils over, etc. A special trip to the store had to be made for the oven cleaner – which tells you how often we clean our stove.
Laur wouldn’t let me take a picture of the pile of seeds and crumbs that came out of the toast. We are talking over a cup of grunge. But when you think about it, four slices of “hearty” bread every day times six months… What a mess. And the coffee maker? I’m always sneaking out part of a cup before the coffee has run through…
Day two was interrupted by getting blood work done at the local lab. Our wait was close to two hours – and we were fasting. By the time we got home and ate breakfast, it was too late to head to GoodLife for our morning exercise and we were so discombobulated, we wouldn’t have known what to do there anyway. We old people don’t like changes in our routine.
So, I suggested to Laur, “Let’s just burn through the apartment today and try to get all of it done.” My goal was four bags to the Salvation Army, four bags to recycling, and four bags to the dump. For once, I met and exceeded my goal. But it wasn’t without some opposition from my other half.
I am a minimalist. If it was just me living here, I’d have hardly more that a spoon, a bowl, a cup, a toothbrush, a washcloth, a towel, a sleeping bag on a yoga mat, and toilet paper. Laur, on the other hand, lives in a headspace and living-space that says, “You never know when you might need this…” Besides, throwing out thin underwear and mismatched socks would mean a trip to W*lm*rt – and neither of us can standing shopping.
Still, Laur managed to part with a few pieces of clothing, one of his eight coats, some batteries that had corroded, a case for carrying a suit, three of his six bottles of windshield wiper fluid, and his bulk package of door-key defroster. He was not willing to give up any of his remaining thousand books, his boxes and boxes and boxes of old essays, papers given at conferences, Scrivener Press documents, and things that the kids had made that adorned his old office at Laurentian University. And he certainly wasn’t prepared to clean off his desk. He tells me he knows where everything is, until he can’t find it. Like the secret code to his Canada pension stuff. (I had it, neatly filed away with our 2016 tax returns.)
We weren’t able to get through all of our apartment on Tuesday. The kitchen still awaits us. Laurence has a collection of plastic tubs and lids that eventually takes up an entire cupboard and it has to be beaten back annually.
I have a ridiculous amount of dried beans and lentils. I’m into canned beans these days and even if my hubs got inspired to start making beans from scratch, how many meals of kidney beans can one stand? We only have a small fridge freezer.
We have so many cups and mugs that we cannot shut the cupboard doors. Yes, I am always breaking things, but I am a mug-a-holic. If it is large and has a cat or a train on it, it’s coming home with me. (After paying, of course.) And I swear that the cupboard under the sink is a Tardis. It holds more containers of various cleaners than is needed to wipe off all the graffiti in downtown St. Catharines.
(A Tardis is a spaceship from Dr. Who. On the outside, it’s a telephone booth. On the inside, it’s an entire world of its own.)
The next challenge will be stopping my clean and de-clutter “bender.” You see, there is always more that can be done. What will save me this year is that it’s time to do our annual Christmas letter. Ne worry pas – I will not be regaling you with stories of superhuman achievements. For me, that my “framily” (family and friends) make it through another year is a cause of celebration. (And sadly, there is usually a loss.)
The writing part for me is a snap. But getting framily to forward their favourite picture of themselves – there’s the rub. My annual threat is that if you don’t send me a picture, I’ll use one of mine.
If you think my cooking and cleaning is awful (and it is), you should see my photography!