Househole Duties

Hello, my darlings!

Been ages since I posted, and I must say how I’ve missed it.

Briefly, my sweet mother had some health problems and I was back home to help out for a bit, and when returned here, there was mucho catching up to do.

Funny how it all snowballs, though. While I caught up around here with the life stuff I needed to do, the house turned into a hell hole…well figuratively speaking, anyway. It’s always been amazing to me to see that a little neglect goes a long way. Let’s start at the nexus of the house: the kitchen desk. Oh evil bane of my pretend Donna Reed existence. What is it about this rectangle of engineered quartz that attracts crap from every being in this house? Yes, “beings.” I have found shed cat claws and whiskers on this desk. As long as mail is being delivered to this house, this surface will be covered in little piles of paper.

Seriously?

I took this “clutter quiz” once and found that I am a “stacker.” No kidding. (insert eye roll here) My other issue is that I tend to collect paper stuff, like carry out menus and business cards. I can’t tell you how many “frequent buyer cards” I have that are partially filled–many from the same establishment, although I think none of them are valid any longer. So it should be simple to clean this, right? Right.

Not a very welcoming guest room, if you ask me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The guest room is another problem area. When you have no basement, and no attic, where do you put the out of season stuff like winter coats and extra blankets? I do give oodles of clothes and bed linens away, but I must tell you that sometimes I wish I hadn’t given certain things away so quickly. You know, old worn out sheets make pretty decent drop cloths for painting. And on my recent trek to Chicago to help my folks out, I had to borrow a warm coat from my mother. Not complaining; just saying, is all. So when faced with the guest room…well, what the heck do I do with this stuff? Where do I put the portable air conditioner? The garage, right? Sorry, the garage is where we keep Christmas decorations, 3 litter boxes, large packages from Costco, my huge pots for dyeing yarn, and the rest of all that stupid garage stuff.

I do not want my life filled with crap stuff. But I want to be able to keep some of it. Or at least not be forced to give it all up because I can’t fit it. What about family history? That’s what basements and attics are for, and because most of the houses here have no basements and only tiny attics (we have neither), people have to park in the streets–their garages are full up of their family’s legacy.

But I digress, as usual.

The guest room is currently the home for old bed linens (World Market just had an amazing sale, and I needed to pout our 10 year old bedspread out to pasture) while I slowly detach myself from them. The thing is, what if I donate it and a few weeks later decide that the new bedspread isn’t working? Then what? Do I Goodwill hop in search of my old stuff? That doesn’t work anyway–

Words escape me…

I think they scatter our donations far and wide. I accidentally donated 3 small plates to Goodwill during our epic renovation, and try as I might, I never found them. I hope they like their new home.

So that room needs a big ole cleaning.

I am skipping over the teenager’s room. Besides the fact I don’t want to invade her “privacy” or embarrass her, I decided that my numero uno New Year’s resolution was that I will not waste one more day of my already rapidly being spent life cleaning her room. So I will hold my nose and close that door.

But the room at the end of the hall, well that’s another story. If you have any sort of artistic pursuits, you understand “the office.” Actually, nowadays it’s more like “the cat bathroom.” Been trying for years to think of it as “the studio.” No such luck. Between the litter dust on nearly everything that’s exposed, all the chaos of stuff stacked everywhere, and having to share the room with other people, it’s my least favorite room in the house. If we had a basement, so much of this stuff would be there, all organized nicely on shelves. Shelves with doors. Ah yes, cabinets, even. I’d put in all the junk shoved in here: my sewing machine, my metal smithing and Precious Metal Clay (PMC) supplies, old paperwork, and old drawings.

Ah well, goin’ in. I just need a shovel, a bunch of garbage bags, and one of those psychologists from “Hoarders.” Wish me luck. LOL 😉

Do you have one of those rooms?

Ah, the wisdom of the sign makers at JoAnns Fabrics…
ironically, they are trying to sell you more crap to cram into your life.