De-cluttering

It happens every year but most years I ignore it or our lives are too busy and well yeah, cluttered to do anything about it but not this year! 5 bags of stuff to the charity shop, a run to the tip and two full bins.

You see what happens is that I make our annual trip to the States and have a fabulous time catching up with family and friends. In the background while all the fun stuff is happening my senses are working without me really initiating anything, and they are seeing bigger houses, more space, different ways of organising things and then that knowledge gets played thru every room in our house. The solution is always the same. Too much stuff. Things without homes? Clear out. Clear out big time.

As I said I can normally side step the urge to sort and it generally diminishes after a few jet lag driven days. Not this year. So I started as soon as I got home. 5 days later and I had moved mountains. I was exhausted and the house? It still looks as crazy and well........ lived in as before. I have had at least three strops with the family about all that work and nothing to show for it.

And I am realising that five days of clearing will only begin to undo five and a half years of gathering in this house. The same way that I am realising to de-clutter my life and find the things that are really important to me is going to take time to. There are things we do because we need to and that is fine. There are things we do because we like to and that is fine. It is the things we do that we feel we ought to. These regularly need a bit of sorting thru.