CLEARNESS IS SLOWLY STARTING TO APPEAR! My cluttered home is steadily decluttering. It's taking a LOT longer than I would like. I think it will take another 10 days to get things totally clear but the rate I'm going it's going very well.I can't sleep and I'm exhausted. As I said I'm not doing anywhere like as much clearing as I'd like... but it IS being done. I'm so glad.
Everyone have a look at my cat video below; it's fantastic. I like the way he keeps patting the cat and that seems to palcate the poor purrer as it's wrapped in paper with a bow put on its head ...
Illustration: a 1940s housewife would go nuts in my house
11 comments:
Oh my goodness do I understand.
I've cleared out a few houses in my lifetime.
I used to covet this website called flylady.com shes this organizer who tells you how to clean a house in zones. I thought, THAT'S BRILLIANT, as I read it! I couldn't seem to perfect the actual doing it.
My idea of cleaning the kitchen many times was more of a (you'll see from a blog I wrote yesterday) pile all the dirty dishes into the oven and get to it later, than actually doing them, drying them and putting them away neatly. That and pushing all the laundry under the bed. And when I cleaned it started with the general tidying up and organizing and turned into this manic going through boxes of crap or piles of crap and realizing I needed so much more than just a tidying up, I needed an overhaul.
I was once so insane in my alcoholic mania that I used 3 kinds of cleaner in my (TINY) bathroom. Ammonia and bleach DO NOT mix. I was so sick.
And all the while my head was filled with that stuff, the news, tragedies, oh and the too too terrible relationship and family messes ... you know the kind where I was lamenting the lost husband, stupid, uncaring, not real friends... those parents... those neighbors, so many of those jackasses in the world, all the while i wanted desperately to find some kind of hope, some kind of normalcy... hence, the decision to clean my house. If I could just get through that, maybe...
Well maybe this isn't familiar for you. I dunno.
I drank port, wine, sometimes shots of rum .... then I decided that of an evening Grand Marnier and/or some brandy was the ticket to "stop the jangle enough"
I couldn't slow down without it. I had even tried a plethora of anti-depressants and anti anxiety medicines (from the doctor) to help me.
Well you may not really relate to all this.
I'm sure glad I ran across another house cleaner today though. :)
Keep going Gleds, you'll get there eventually. :)
Loved the cat video.
Glad that you are getting out the clutter. Maybe that is the good start that you need to move forward in a positive direction.
Have you read Dry by Augusten Burroughs?
Just do a little each day and you'll soon have your home the way you want it to be - it can be a bit overwhelming if you try to get it all done in a day or two. Sorry to read you've had a couple of bad days - I hope you are telling your medical people how you are having these thoughts about being messed up/lost. You need their professional help Gleds, it's too hard for a person to try to do it on their own.
Jess: Oprah did a feature on clutterclearance and clearance once saying Set yourself a time limit: half an hour, an hour, two hours and do all you can as a family in that time then stop. That would be especially good for familie where it's torturous for the kids. It works for me and I just do not have energy or direction enough to clean up all day. If I did I'd do it, but I honestly cannot anymore, which annoys me but it's true.
My poison was heroin; alcohol came in initially as Dutch courage for begging (panhandling as they call it in America) but also to intensify the waning heroin buzz. Which right from the start was waning!
But yep I know exactly how you feel. Alcohol does induce a kind of mania, I used to see it in my friends. They'd get a sudden idea and obsessively plan around it and I v quickly learned it was never going to happen!
Overhauling is what I have to do. Chucking out the way you do when you have to move and haven't room for superfluosity, y'know...
Thanks for the comment how did you find my blog?...
Akelamalu: Resolute. It took a while. It wasn't until I could actually see a difference (like the floor) that I got any momentum and it's STILL going far too slow but it is going. Also I cleaned as well as cleared. That horrible sink, the cooker, the surfaces. Lovely and clear.
Syd: slowly slowly too slowly but I am moving (slowly)
Ms Moon: no, is it good? I take it it's by a reformed drinker..? I'll google it in a sec
Bimbimbie: You know what part of it is? Knowing I'm not doing stuff that I "have to do" and yet just NOT being able to engage properly. Even now. I feel like a blue in the face parent yelling at a brik wall child. The child just will not listen, but that child is also me!
For a long time I've found it very difficult to do anything outside a very small daily routine. I cannot explain why. The government doctor understood and just scribbled something on the form. But I hate being like this I really hate it. That's why I think there's something wrong with me. It's not so much to do with feeling something bad or not feeling something, it's my life being an utter mess and me just not being able to sort it even when I want to. Fair dos I'm doing something now but I know another person could do it five or ten times quicker. When downstairs complained at me I said "I was ill" well I was. I HATE using that excuse but I had to because it's true. It's not just drugs. I know lots of people on heroin and/or crack and most were never in the mess I got into.
Being able to describe it reallly does not equal doing something about it. I told the dr this last time, just because I can string more than 6 words together fairly nicely doesn't mean everything's OK. That one fools people so much. but I'd rather pretend to be well than do an I'm sick act. I think it's unhealthy to play sick, even when you are, y'know it puts you in a role you might not want to give up. I want to actually earn a living. don'tknow how the hell I will but I want to!
I'm not so distrustful of telling the shrink. He seems to actually listen. (Wow!) :-)
I think you would like the book very, very much. Also one of his others- Running With Scissors. But Dry is the one I think you could most relate to.
I knew there was something I'd said I'd do but failed to do: it was looking up Austen Burroughs. OK I just found him on Wikipedia. His teeth are really white. I wish I had proper teeth. I think most of my teeth are hollow. Rotten from the inside out. Now this Austen guy has written a lot of memoirs. They're comedy memoirs I take it? Can alcoholism ever be comedy?... well I just gotta read it. Do you know we don't even have a proper bookshop here anywhere so I think I'm going to go into town and just stump money down for it, just get it. Thanks for that recommendation :-)
Well done m'deario!
Still clearning... on Thursday night!
... is that meant to say "cleaning", "clearing" ... or "dreaming"... I'm not too sure... and does it matter..??!?
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