Hoarding Revisited

In the course of the last few years I have been posting about my hoarding issues. I have not posted as well as I should, but, I should say, we still have a long way to go because we still hoard--to a lesser extent. We have one whole bedroom and an attic, garage and basement that are screaming for our attention. The biggest villain is Time. We don't have it.

How's the hoarding going, Mrs. Frog?

Dateline did a special last night about parenting. The point was to get parents to talk to their kids about cell phones and driving, stranger danger, and bullying. They interviewed a bunch of little kids about their parents and cell phones. The kids all declared cell phones were overly used and they felt their parents didn't want to spend time with them vs the cell phone. My children cannot say that about cell phones. I barely use mine. But,admittedly,  they can say it about the land line, facebook, television, and my obsession with keeping the clutter somewhat manageable.


Since we eliminated the land line, my phone usage is down. I cannot multi-task connected to a computer! So I don't. I have noticed my focus is still off. I have been raised with the multi-task gene. If you aren't doing 50 things at once, you are lazy. The problem is I have no focus. I cannot seem to finish things. I am a dreamer with all these ideas, but my follow-through--especially with my writing is limited.


My clean-up hoarding attitude came about because my now 9 year old came to me and said, "All I want for Christmas is a clean house". What parent wouldn't want to give that to her child? I immediately became obsessed with cleaning. K is happier...she goes around saying, "We can see the basement floor! We can!"


The upstairs bedrooms are finished. The education room is organized, living room is organized...the foyer and my master bedroom still need work. So does the kitchen. But to quote a very intelligent 9 year old, "We can see the basement floor!"

I'm still ALIVE!

The garage is clean and almost organized! It's a HUGE accomplishment if you realize my garage is at least 800 square feet of space. It's taken most of the summer, a few hours here and there, to get it done. In the end, it gives us a ton of free space, room for activities and hosting things at our house, and, it makes us feel less like hoarders! One more accomplishment I get to be proud of this summer.

I also managed to fit in mowing the yard. What a nice accomplishment it is to know your yard is neatly manicured. I need to weed more. But, isn't that life? There's always something. 

Tomorrow, is Monday. A HUGE SIGH! Monday means school. The girls are fussing about it. I have found it  extremely hard to school the girls when their friends aren't in school. Needless to say, it's not hard for them to finish up school early while their friends still have weeks to go. The girls prefer to do their own explorations , which I try my hardest to give them time to do. But, in the end, I do find it important for children to also learn in a structure.d environment. It's a balance.

Vacation Warriors

C managed to take 6 days off after finding out he was not selected for jury duty. H had a long boring Monday to find out. The 6 days off is supposed to make the house chores even more productive. We decided this year that since we want to move in the immediate future, we would spend the money we'd go one vacation on house projects. The biggest hurdle we have is we have to do the house projects to sell the house. While we desperately want to get out of debt, in the end, the house repairs win.

But, to avoid more debt, we've been doing this quite conservatively. I am so proud of him! He now tries to use every scrap of wood possible and not waste. Today, he saved us about $60! He also repaired the dryer my sister gave me when she replaced her old one. It cost $29 and 2 hours of time and viola--a new dryer. I am happy with it.

Today, we picked up our van ($600 we had to shell out for the rental and deductible thanks to the hail) and went shopping. We got enough groceries to last us at least a week and it only cost us $122! I went to a discount grocery store which has organic food. So, we aren't compromising on our we believe we should eat.

In addition, I weeded the front yard and divided up plants.  have been very conservative by doing this. Instead of buying new plants (although I am doing that quite a bit as well) I try to divide up the plants as much as possible and fill in the gaps that way. It's helping make the yard way more inviting. I a thoroughly enjoying it as well.

I am slightly behind on groceries, and on laundry. However, it is more due to the fact that I have been trying to catch up on so much other things. I am in need of doing two loads tonight to round out my chores. I definitely think changing my routine from a designated laundry day to doing a load a day is working so much better. We will have to see how it all works out once the children have evening activities. This is partly why I am trying to get us on a school and activity schedule. It is so hard though since I have had children come and go from my house all summer! We are not used to that as much but the children are adoring this new thing.

The Dreaded Forbidden Room

The forbidden room makes me cringe just thinking about it. It's supposed to be the master bedroom. It's supposed to be my bedroom...with my bed. Instead, it's the forbidden room. The place where things go to be "sorted"...it has a bed, dressers, and clutter. So, this week (now that I am caught up on laundry and dishes) I am attacking the forbidden room.

The good news is that in this picture you can see the bed. Now, it's covered. But that's because I am trying to contain the clutter. This week alone, within 24 hours, I managed to produce 3 garbage bags full of junk. I did it on Wednesday because Thursday was garbage day. This meant the stuff was not hanging out in my house.

The Battle of the toys

By accident, I am starting to wake up between 5-6am in the morning. First of all, you must understand I am not a morning person. I am not a pleasant person without sleep. But, I also noticed, I wasn't tired (I was going to be early) and getting some chores done! Having the chores out o the way, gave me more time to set the children up for their math lessons. They happily do the Singapore Math (M just loves her manipulatives!) and I sit down and do two pages with G (she loves the attention). Once that is taken care of, I send them off to play. And then the day weakens.

We have a 1600 square foot house. I trip over toys constantly. I had set up every room in the house with toys in baskets, with the concept, this is their house and they should be able to play in every room. Except I hate the toys in the kitchen. I hate them in the living room. And I am constantly tripping over them everywhere else. So, that theory has since evaporated. New plan.

I want to feel like my house is my house as well as the children's. So, my first step was setting up the "school supplies" in a cabinet in my basement. I also have the girl scout stuff down there. Everything related to school now is in the alcove (aka breakfast room in realtor terms) of my kitchen. This will be where the children can study and do school. My dining room is being reclaimed as a dining room!

I am weeding out toys and haven't come up with a good plan for that yet. My main problem is my children won't play outside unless we are thereto entertain them. So all year I am tripping over them and their toys. They won't go play in their room without the same thing. It's aggravating because I spend so much time with them and have a ton of other things I need to get done. If they do go and play, they want to exclude the "baby brother". I remember that same phase...or they will claim they are playing with him just to stay down. This is a battle I seriously need to figure out. Any ideas?

our life

The first thing I must realize as a hoarder is that THINGS do not make me happy. They don't. I hoard them, don't use them, and then they end up piling in my house. I avoid living in my own home because the things are there, projects are left unfinished and life just isn't pleasant living in our home.The second thing I must realize is I may not get any help from Chris because he hasn't made it to my point yet, but it's okay to throw his stuff away--for my sanity.

When I decided to quit being a hoarder, I had initially gone room by room and started to clean. I was counting bags. I had the goal of creating at least 5 bags a week. When I finished the goal, I quit for the day and moved on. It was actually not so hard to do. Eventually, it became not so much of a challenge to let go of things. I did so well with it, until it came to Chris quitting. Chris wanted to focus on finishing projects. The only problem he has is he doesn't finish things. For example, he worked on the closet. We went and bought everything we needed to finish the closet. HOWEVER, he stopped sort because of the blizzard. The other trouble is I set up the closet, organized it, because I KNEW he wouldn't finish it and I decided that it just needed to do. We fought for several days, and then the subject was dropped. This is our pattern.


I need to break our pattern.

Organization: The Education Room

I am pleased to report that my living room is still organized and clean. Now, we have moved onto the education room. Our first step: to find everything that belongs in the room and decide where it should go. Then, we will have to actually finish the room. But, I think the first step is truly the goal because we also need to finish the foyer and that room ought to come first--it's what greets everyone.


We went shopping. Probably not a good thing. But, we decided each girl needed a separate work area so the fighting would stop. The fact the girls have separate work areas also means they can be messy without having to move everything around. One of the biggest challenges we face with homeschooling in our dining area is the space. I like to eat together but we cannot do that all the time if the table is covered in books and whatnot. So, we move it into piles. The piles tip over and spread across the floor--causing way less organization than we would have had otherwise. Organizing one space for all the school supplies will truly improve our lives. I just will have to give up lots of books for a yard sale.

Organization: The Living Room

The first thing I must realize as a hoarder is that THINGS do not make me happy. They don't. I hoard them, don't use them, and then they end up piling up in my house. I avoid living in my own home because THINGS are there: unfinished projects, clutter of toys, shoes, books, and trash. THINGS make life unpleasant in our home. The second thing I must realize is I may not get any help from Chris. He hasn't reached my point of intolerance yet. And when he wishes to eliminate things, he wants to throw it away rather than sort it. The idea of throwing THINGS away that could be useful is horrendous to me.


When I decided to quit hoarding, I had initially gone room by room and started to clean. I was counting bags. I had the goal of creating at least 5 bags a week. When I finished the goal, I quit for the day and moved on. It was actually not so hard to do. Eventually, it became a habit instead of a challenge. I did so well with it, until it Chris quit. He wanted to focus on finishing projects. The only problem he has is he doesn't finish things. For example, he worked on the closet. We went and bought everything we needed to finish the closet. HOWEVER, he stopped short because of the blizzard. We fought for several days, and then the subject was dropped. This is our pattern.


I need to break our pattern.


Our living room is complete. Finished. It's the room I go into, shut the french doors and relax. I am obsessed with keeping it clean. This is how I did it:


1. I determined my style. This is incredibly important. Part of my problem in organizing the room was not knowing what style I liked. I had gone through several styles. In my "pretend life" I hired two interior decorators. Ultimately, I liked aspects of their design but it didn't work for my living area, budget or just when I put it together it didn't feel like me.


2. Everything in my living room has a function in the living room. I have books that fill the shelves--on lower shelves are the children's books and on the higher shelves are our things. We have four shelves of DVDs and only kept what fit on these shelves. We got rid of movies we could get from Netflix or Hulu. We kept a ton of the children's videos because we could take them on the car rides. We travel a lot. I am not into knickknacks. Never have been. So I basically have none.


3. I use tons of baskets. Baskets that match my furniture makes the room look organized and clean. I have all the games--video--in a basket to the side of the bookshelf. I have another basket full of blocks on the opposite side of the room. Under a table, I have a basket full of board books. Next to an armchair is a basket full of baby toys. These are what is allowed in the living room. The children are allowed to bring toys to complement the block play but that's it.


4. Set limits, be consistent and follow through. I sat the children down and spelled out the rules. I put one child in charge of the living room. It is her chore to keep it clean. She knows if a toy is in the living room improperly, then when I clean it at night it will go to the for sale or donation pile. I do give warnings and reminders and they know it. After awhile, I found I didn't need the reminder. The children made it into their habit. They know I am serious because they have lost toys before.

Before

After 

It's not a perfect world, especially since I can control what 4 little children do but not what a husband does. Often times, it's his things, computers and messes we are now picking up after. Unlike the children who grow upset and move on, he grows angry and retaliates like I am somehow INTERRUPTING his life and plans. These days are the rough ones. But, in the end, I always have my "safe place". Read the books, watch the shows, but know that ultimately you have to know what works for you. This is not a "one shoe fits all".

Am I truly doing this?

I stopped cleaning. Yes, I did. I stopped cleaning and now I am obsessing over anything but what I should do which is continue to focus on organizing my house. Chris is taking forever to do what should have taken a weekend to do...the closet. It's 11:00pm and he has yet to "mud" the walls he said he would do at 6:00pm. Chris, I believe is a bad influence. He truly does not want to change, so he does everything in his power to try to influence me not to change. It's like the venom of a poisonous snake. His inability to change seeps through me, slowly paralyzing me before he goes in for the kill. You can't fight or argue with him. If you do, you end up tired and exhausted but still dying.

The thing is he's a good man. He hates to micromanage. However, he tells me he NEEDS me to help him change. The only way I know what to do is micromanage. Occasionally, the victim gets away even if the venom is coursing through the veins.

Peace

I was at peace this morning, sitting in my living room. I have decided after all of my work with sorting and throwing away stuff, I needed a reward. My reward? To keep my living room clean. I'll like to add my foyer, too.


I have to tell you that I hate being home. I can never find anything so I try desperately to escape it. As a child, I remember spending a lot of time in and out of my friends' homes, but my children do not do that. We are constantly somewhere else. So, I want to find peace in my own home. And, thus, the clean living room and foyer.


After we shoved things in containers into the back room, I felt anxiety. I hated doing it. Then, we left the house. When we returned home, we walked into what appeared to be a clean home. It felt nice. It felt peaceful. I wanted to be in this home.


Many friends have suggested I just take all the stuff I have placed in containers and empty it into the garage. The problem with that would be that I'm afraid we'd never sort it. One friend said, "Then dump it, if it doesn't mean that much to you." there's a problem in that philosophy too. It's not that it doesn't mean anything to me (I know, excuse) but that I never seem to find time to get out to the garage. If it's not smacking me in the face, then I won't pay it mind. We have done that many times--shoving the stuff in containers and placing it out of sight. Ever heard of "Out of sight, out of mind"? That is how life works for me. I just have to juggle to much. But, if the stuff is something I trip over every day, even though I get high anxiety, I do eventually feel like I need to do something about it.


So, in the meantime, the stuff sits in containers in the back room where I will trip over it. But, my living room and foyer will be clean and welcome me home when I walk through my doors. Maybe my children will find peace in being home.

Break

We're taking a break. The party has ended, everyone has gone home, and we aren't in "need" of cleaning. So, we aren't. I am not sure if this is a good thing. We still have a long way to go...a really long way. But, I think Chris also needs to complete the closet project.


Rationally, I agree. If we have the closet, we have room to store games. Storage for games means sorting through the games that are piled in the back room. What doesn't fit in the closet, we can eliminate.


Is this still a backsliding?


Probably.


I think we need to organize the school supplies as well. My hope is that this weekend we will finish the closet, and then, get back to cleaning up the clutter. We've come a long way. But, this week we didn't have much to add to the 22 bags of trash we already have placed on the curbside. Just the normal every day kitchen and bathroom trash. I wonder if the garbage men thought we were done.

Backslide

He says he understands my frustration. He needs help. But, what about me? I grew up in a far worse environment than he did--not saying my environment was one you'd call a made for tv movie, but it was not always fun. It was painful at times. And, I wouldn't call his childhood all roses either, but he was loved a ton. And he had something constant in his life. His grandparents.

We're doing what we always do before visitors come over. Last night he went out and bought more plastic containers so he can pile everything up in the backroom. Our room is filled to the brim with containers. "At least we have a bed", he says. We've had a bed before. "At least the containers are organized", but they have been organized before. Having items in containers is not organization. At least not the way we do it.

It's frustrating. We had a screaming match. He actually punched in a wall. The children were frightened. This is what they don't show you on those television shows. Hoarding is an illness that swallows up the soul of an entire family. When you take it away, it hurts. When you fight it, it hurts. And you have to be strong to push past it. I just hope we are strong enough.

Finding Permanent Homes

I've sorted through several containers for awhile and now I can empty (for more stuff of course) and find a permanent home for these items. However, I have heard the advice about only keeping what I have room for. It's good solid advice. The problem? After sorting through this stuff, I still have too much "important to keep" stuff. More than my humble home has room to store. And since these items are important, I cannot possibly throw them out. This train of thought actually rings true in several other areas of my life as well.


Chris likes to tell the story about how I am a great writer. I was so great that a national magazine even asked me to revise my work and resubmit it. To most writers this would be awesome! However, what the editor asked me to do seemed impossible. The editor simply asked me to eliminate a character he felt was unnecessary. In my mind,this character could not be eliminated. So, I didn't do anything more with the story. A few years later, I took the story out and started to edit it. The character still remained necessary, but I tweaked it so she had less of a role--which I did think was needed.  But, then they shrunk the word size of what they would accept. Frustrated, I put it aside again. About a year ago, I decided to reread the story again. I once again edited it (this is a process with me). And guess what? As I started to edit, I realized that character--the one the editor had wanted to have removed 5 years earlier--was unnecessary. So, I deleted her. Now, if I had deleted her five years earlier, I would be $1000 richer.


The problem is simple: I like to keep things. I like complete control. I am Type A. Yes, I am. Type A doesn't mean obsessively clean. It's a mind-set of how much control you need. When I cannot be in control, I give up. I put things to the side to forget about, and blame it on anything else--Chris, the kids, my busy lifestyle. But honestly, it's because I cannot do it perfectly or the way I want.


The irony?


The more I keep, the less control I feel.


I will go back to the boxes and what doesn't have a home, will be sold on ebay. After all, simply living will help me feel more in control.

Chronic Disorganization

We only achieved 2 bags of trash yesterday. It was a little bit of a bummer. Today, it is already 4:00pm and we haven't even started...another bummer. Chris lost his momentum yesterday and broke down--he was terribly upset about our finances, his weight and the house. We watch Hoarders last night with the girls so they could see what we were trying to do. I think they understood. But, it's an emotional ride. It's a mental thing too. I don't thing it's incurable like Bipolar. I think that we have to get past the blockage that made us this way. On one episode it described a guy as "chronic disorganization" which is us. This can lead to hoarding. We are definitely hoarders. I can barely let go of certain things. I cannot focus--ADD tends to be associated with chronic disorganization. Trauma, like my parents' divorce, or in Chris's case, his parents refusing to accept me, can exacerbate this problem.

I ended up staying up until 2 am to fill a trash bag...Ended up filling one and 1/2...My Master Bedroom has a floor--imagine that! I don't think I will get it done by this weekend but if I can get all my stuff into one room, in containers, and every other room organized then I am WAY ahead...

Slow and Steady Won the Race

This weekend is completely devoted to sorting and tossing. We are completely in over our heads as we organize and toss our junk. We have boxes. Our total number of bags is 2. BUT, we have emptied several containers full of junk, sorted through it, trashed the trash and put away the piles. If we can complete that tonight then I think we are way ahead of the game. I set a goal of 4 trash bags a day, but maybe we just don't have 4 trash bags worth of stuff in our living room. Whenever we needed a boost, I'd go up to the Master Bedroom, deemed the "messy" room and bring down a container. It's how our second bag filled up. We have a ton of little items that needed sorted or trashed. It's just so hard. Once we get through this phase, then we need to actually sort the toys and other items into categories for resale. Basically, the girls aren't getting toys back that they don't remember. They have a good assortment of toys in their room and it works for them now. It is enough to make them happy. I am saving the Little People for Everett, although I question why. If we stay in this house we just don't have the room for them.

Chris, who has been fighting me on organizing--I believe because it really is an overwhelming task--gets depressed easily by the job at hand. It's a HUGE task but once we get it organized...once we don't have piles throughout the house and maybe only in the garage (and eventually nowhere) we will be able to breathe again. I think it will feel really good to get rid of this stuff. I think it isn't going fast enough for Chris. I know it is not going fast enough for me. But, slow and steady won the race, right?

About to Boil

Have you ever heard of the expression, "boil the frog"? My husband likes to say it often. And, I think it exactly expresses the life I have been living for the last 10 years, maybe longer.

I have to say I don't know how I managed to get to this place--married 10.5 years, 4 children and a housewife. In high school, I declared I never wanted to get married (although I was clearly boy-crazed), have children (never could see how a child fit into the Great American Novel scheme) or be set to the same rules as a boring housewife with a family. There's humor. God laughs when we make plans right?

Honestly, I like to pretend a lot. I like to pretend I am an organized person, a planner, and independent. In reality, being alone scares me. I had felt like I was alone most of my life. I had family, but never quite knew how I fit into my family. So, I started to collect things that reminded me that I was not alone.

I think hoarders don't intentionally go into life wanting to be disorganized. I say I don't think because that's not how I went into this life. It is a slow process. Someone asks you if you'd like something free--a key word for me. Free! I'll take anything free. I love free stuff. So I would put the free stuff in my car--forget about it. And then, as the car got dirty, we'd do a mad dash to clean it by tossing the items into a box or bag or whatever is first available, and make note we needed to put them away later. But, people would visit. So, we moved it to the "secret" place like a bedroom. Slowly the things started to build up as we found less and less time to organize the rooms.

Our house did not get disorganized for a lack of trying, either. I have about five organization books. Read them. I became obsessed with organization shows, too. I started hoarding knowledge on how to get out of clutter. There's irony in that too.

And, as we had more kids the obsession to keep anything they touched caught on, too. "They may want that for their children" became a saying in our house. We attached memories to the toys instead of to the memories. Eventually, we stopped noticing the toys as they piled up. They ended in plastic containers in the upstairs of how house, away from visitors. When it started to trickle downstairs, I had had enough.

When you boil a frog, you should place them in warm comfortable water. Slowly, you turn up the heat so they don't notice the water increasing in temperature and hop out. Hoarding works the same way. Except boiling the frog is a myth. A frog will most likely jump out of the water when it gets too hot. A hoarder should too.