Although, as I type it, I’m realizing that if I feel as though I have to formally declare it – I’ve got a problem.
But it’s not my fault. Not entirely.
I blame the kids. Of course. And Marc. The kids, because they believe that everything, absolutely everything, that they may have touched, played with, thought about, however briefly, needs to be kept. And Marc, because he truly doesn’t care. There are items he cares about – woe to the person who touches his books or moves his CLEAN laundry onto his dresser and disrupts his stuff, but for the most part, he doesn’t care about the state of the house, how many toys the kids have, or it what condition it’s kept.
And I’m not all that tense about it either. Therein lies the problem. Between the kids collecting everything, Marc not caring, and me being me – scattered, doing a thousand things at once and putting organizing toys at the bottom of the list entitled – Stuff I Wish I Had The Time and Inclination to Care About – all of this means that periodically, I look around, see my house through other’s eyes, and realize that yeah, I’m a damn hoarder. I didn’t mean it, I don’t want to be, but yeah – there’s no good reason why I have all this stuff.
This morning, Marc had to work at the crack of dawn. Earlier, because the sun wasn’t actually up by the time I got back from dropping him off. And I chilled for a bit. I sipped my coffee, did a little writing work, and then I got down to business. First up was my bookcase. I have a giant four shelf bookcase in the living room, and it ends up being the receptacle for anything literary/arts and crafts/library book related. I had weeded thru the books several weeks ago, so I didn’t have to get rid of anything, just put it all into order. All the Dr. Suess books (and related, beginning easy reader books), all the Biscuit books (and related, same size starting reader books), all the Little Golden books, found a few library books that had slipped in there somehow, and then all the PJ Library books. I even sorted out the PJ books I want to keep and the ones that I’ll swap at the party on December 8. I got rid of papers that had already been colored on (why do I save them in the first place??) and stacked all the coloring/educational books neatly. I threw away broken crayons and dried out markers, and neatly stacked books I own, books I borrowed, books to return, and books still to read.
Then I moved on to the dining room. I’m still not done, because honestly, there’s just a ton of crap, and I’m tired. I emptied out one basket of toys nobody touches, and repurposed the basket to hold little cardboard blocks, and put them next to the big cardboard blocks. I folded up the little chair and table set, and put that away. I put baby dolls in a basket, and stuffed animals in another. I put wooden blocks in a bucket and big duplo blocks in another.
And then… I dumped out the shoe basket, started sorting shoes we want to keep, shoes to get rid of, shoes that are summer and should be put away, and shoes that need to stay in the dining room. Inspiration struck, and I cleaned off the desk (recycling SO much paper) and then moved the entire desk over against the wall. I broke down the shelves from Sam’s room, and brought them into the dining room/play room. Now I just have to FINISH the whole project – I’ve got remnants of each project scattered all over the place.
I’m not a hoarder. I promise.
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