8. Because Tea

Ya’ll. So tired. I contemplated going to bed, but the nightly tea ritual. So I’m not in bed yet. But soon.

In truth, I am trying to garner up the energy to tackle that closet one more time. I made a plan at work that I think will help me both weed out more things I don’t use and better organize what is left. But I pretty much have to take everything out and put it on the bed. And I’m tired, in case I didn’t mention it. I’m going to want my bed long before I would be through with the project. Unless this is magic tea.

I just want to reach in there and get dressed for the day quickly and efficiently. I mean, I know what I wear to work, right? Always a solid shirt and a print skirt. Occasionally a dress. Why don’t I already have that stuff on one side, with the shoes I wear to work underneath? Why do I paw through my dress shirts every. damn. work. day. to get to my solid knits? Yeah, I don’t know either. But I do know when I went in there to start the process, I eliminated three more things off the bat. And half a dozen more are iffy.

So, I’m excited to do that. But I am not going to bury my bed at 7pm, when bedtime is 8. Nope. Gonna finish this tea, wash my face, and slip between the sheets. Maybe tomorrow morning.

7. This Year’s Mission

Jan7

For years, plenty of them, my younger girls have been asking when I was going to make their scrapbooks. And my older kids have been asking when was I going to finish their scrapbooks. I finally have an answer: 2016.

This pile (plus two more bins tucked into a closet) is roughly 30 years worth of memorabilia, minus the 5-6 years in the middle which I’ve completed. Oh, and I quit developing pictures when digital got big, so there will be more.

Here’s the rub: I haven’t had a dedicated scrapping space since I left Topeka in 2000. I made one today. I’m not sure the children will be entirely happy with me, because I claimed the dining room table to make this happen. And I have to be able to leave things on it. Scrapping isn’t something I can do in 10 minutes and clean up and take back out for 10 minutes again later. I need the pictures, the papers, the books, the mats, the tape runner, the page protectors, the pens, the, the, the literally at my fingertips.

So. We’ll be eating our meals Japanese style, seated on the floor around a coffee table in front of the glass wall to the balcony for the duration. Not a great solution, but a solution. I want to get these stories down before I get dementia. My memory is sketchy enough as it is.

In other news, I cleaned the living room today. I have a guest coming this weekend. I’ve promised to spend next Tuesday with my daughter. I can tackle the bathrooms and kitchen next Thursday. Then Marscon the next weekend. That means I can start scrapping on the 18th (if I’m off for the holiday and I am pretty sure I am) or the 19th. The first thing I have to do is look at all this stuff and see what I actually have. It’s been moved and removed so many times that all I have now is a great big jumbled up mess of memories.

5. Quit Lying

Jan5

This morning, I did some digital purging. Then I started on my clothes again. Another ten percent gone, and the closet is still full. And then I did the bookshelves again, another five percent of those gone. Plus a slew of unread magazines. I now have empty shelf space. How crazy is that?

I’m embarrassed to admit that if it weren’t for the pile of crap in the living room corner waiting to be hauled off to Goodwill/The Bookthing, you’d never know I’d been purging. You certainly wouldn’t be able to tell by looking in my closet or at the shelves. Clearly there is more to do. But. Progress has been made.

You know I have said for years that I want to live in a tiny cabin one day. And that I am frustrated by the amount of stuff in my house; that I don’t want my things to come between me and life; that I’m tired of being owned by possessions. So if you are wondering what this is: this is making my actions line up with my stated priorities. It’s time to either do that, or quit lying to myself about what I want.