Drowning in "STUFF"....the disease of the present time

I live in Australia, the so called "Lucky Country".  Yes, we are lucky in so many ways compared to many countries in the world, yet so many of us struggle with our day to day lives, just etching out a living along the path of life, forgetting to take a step back and appreciate the little things in life.

I'm guilty of this too.  Some days I feel like I forget to breathe, forget that there is a whole world out there full of beauty and simple pleasures.

My Hubby is going through a rough patch with work right now.  Trying to deal with a boss who likes to play God and is a constant lyer.  My hubby has been lied to so many times from this Bossman it is just ridiculous.  Unless you get something in writing from the guy you honestly don't have a leg to stand on as he will change his mind in the space of 10 minutes or even less and then say that he never said whatever it is that he did in fact say.  He is cunning and manipulative, the sort of person that I cannot stand.  The sort of person who just uses everyone to better himself and then lays the blame on everyone else when things don't go right, even though it was he himself who stuffed up!!

I have done a lot of thinking over the last couple of days.  Taking a long hard look at our lives, our home and our future.  I know I have talked about my clutter before but it is now that I am feeling it.  As I sit here and look around the room I am in (my kitchen/dine/computer nook) I see way too much clutter.  Sure alot of it can be easily cleaned up but lately it feel like I clean and when I turn around again the clutter has just grown up out of the cupboards to poke its tongue out at me again as if to tease me that I can't get rid of it.

On the weekend we went through the bedrooms of the youngest four kids.  This is something we do every year at this time in the lead up to Christmas.  We tossed alot of broken bits and damaged toys and general rubbish.  Then we also went through their clothes and handed down and boxed up the stuff that is suitable for selling online.  The problem with this is that I already have boxes and boxes of stuff waiting to be sold online.  Now after the weekend cull, I have another 4 boxes and 2 large bags of stuff to list and hopefully sell.  Part of me says that I should just get rid of it to the Op Shop and that way it is just gone.  But then I think that we paid good money for this stuff and I should at least try to recoup some of it especially since it is stuff that has only been lightly used.

That therein lies the problem of this Century.  The problem of so many of us who live in the "Lucky Country".  WE ARE DROWNING IN STUFF!!!  Stuff that doesn't get appreciated or used to its full capacity before being tossed aside.  Why do we keep buying our kids those much longed for toys that they then play with for five minutes and then shove under their beds and don't look at again until you do the big clean out and they say "I don't want that any more".

This year for Christmas I have enforced the "I'm not buying anything for the kids that won't definitely get used".  They will all receive Xbox and/or Wii games as they are items that definitely get used and they also get shared around amongst all the kids.  These things are worth the outlay because they get used by the whole family.  But I will not be buying Bakugan balls, Hannah Montana toys, remote control ants or any of those type of things.  The kids will get their much needed lamps for their rooms, a couple will get a new quilt cover as they have now outgrown their present ones.  They will get clothing and generally things that will be used continually.  They won't miss out, in any way, but they will receive things that they will appreciate the gifts they do get as they will be using them daily.

I will be listing continually until I get to the bottom of our mountain of boxes.  Once our house is really decluttered we will be able to breathe again, and never again will things come into our lives and our home that will not be appreciated by the whole family.

I'm pretty sure if everyone in Australia took a long hard look at their homes, the majority of us would all be in the same boat.  We are a country of consumers, of materialistic people who need to change for our own good and the good of the planet.  Lets all declutter our lives, give the frugal life a go and spend time with our children out in the fresh air planting veggies and fruit and teach them life skills that will enable them to leave home when the time is right, knowing how to be more self sufficient.

Lets all take that first step towards self sustainability.  It doesn't matter where you start as long as you start!!


So where ever you are in the world, lets all purge our lives of clutter and chaos and maybe then we can all begin to breathe easier and smile a little more......IT'S A BEAUTIFUL WORLD OUT THERE YOU KNOW AND WE ALL DESERVE TO ENJOY IT!!!!

Decluttering the linen cupboard..........oh boy oh boy!!!!

Yesterday afternoon when the kids got home from school, I did my usual restocking of the lunchboxes for their recess and wrapped their mini lamingtons up for their special treat for their lunchbox.

Then I really felt that I should be tackling my linen cupboard which I have been putting off for the last week. So off I went. I sat on the floor and worked my way up shelf by shelf. I really should have taken a "before" photo but I totally forgot. You would have been horrified I tell you lol. Due to the sheer volume of things in there and with kids and of course Hubby rifling through there looking for towels and sheets etc, it had become a horror cupboard. I basically hadn't gotten rid of anything since my Hubby and I got together over 4 years ago. So it was more or less two houses worth of sheets and towels squeezed into one cupboard. Now due to having 3 bedwetters in the house, I do go through a few more sheets than most, but sheesh, I had enough sheets to just about cater for a whole class at school lol.

Anyway after about an hour, I had gone through the whole cupboard......don't know why I kept putting it off, it really didn't take that long!!!

Here is my cupboard now it is tidy.....yes I know it still has alot of sheets and towels but don't forget we do have 9 people living here, plus the friends that come and sleep over etc.....

This photo is the bottom three shelves......we have beach towels and "grown up towels" (simply because half of them are white and kids and white towels just don't go.......and the answer is no I certainly did not buy those lol, they were a gift from someone that really should have known better but oh well :-) ), then we have Hubby and my sheets and pillowcases and another couple of our towels, then on the top shelf of this picture we have pillow cases and the dog towels for bathing the dogs.


This photo shows the top two shelves with hand towels, face washers, bath mats and the kids towels, and on top shelf is the kids sheets, fitted and flat and a mattress protector. It still looks cluttered but believe me it is a huge improvement to what it was.....now it is just a matter of getting everyone to keep it looking like that lol.

Ok and here is what came out of there and is staying out of there. Unfortunately I didn't have the joy of either sending some of it to an Op Shop or throwing them out. We will be painting the house this year so I kept all the old sheets to use as splatter cloths and all the towels have been ripped up for use as rags/cleaning cloths. Unfortunately I had to find a new home, so they have ended up squeezed in another cupboard for the moment, but it is my rule for these things that they will be recycled after they have been used for painting, they will not be remaining in the house lol!!! Here is a photo of the pile of stuff that came out of that more innocent little cupboard, you can just imagine what it looked like lol!!!


Today I may get around to doing the stuff that is lurking on top of the linen cupboard, there is a huge duffle bag filled with, quilt covers and I think possibly more towels.......I must stay strong and ruthless lol and dispose of the linen....I truly do think it has been breeding!!!!

Laundry half done.....decluttering is cleansing to the mind!!

I kept standing at the laundry door just gazing at it. I couldn't bring myself to start. The linen cupboard was just too much to deal with, so what does any girl do when faced with a linen cupboard that may well erupt at any moment????...........she starts at the other end of the laundry lol, thats what!!!! Here are my before and after....I couldn't believe how much stuff I got rid of, not that the photos make it look that much but the garbage bag and the amount that was in there that actually needed to be somewhere else was amazing!

This is my storage cupboard for lack of a better word,,,,it has only recently moved into the laundry as although I didn't really need the cupboard as such, it does make a great spot for the dog and cat food supplies and just general stockpiling. So for the moment until I get the rest of the house decluttered, it will stay. My long term goal is for it to live in the shed though, so we shall see how we go with that!

Before decluttering:


After decluttering: - yes that washing you see is clean and just about to be put away and the sheet that is sitting on the cupboard is used as a birdcage cover at night for my son's little cockatiel

Inside the storage cupboard - BEFORE : I had forgotten I even had biscuits sitting in there lol, the kids feed the animals, so I just give the animal food straight to the kids to put in the cupboard after I buy it so I hadn't even looked in here for about 2 months!

Inside the storage cupboard AFTER:
(looks like I can go shopping again lol....just kidding!) The bottom shelf still looks a little messy because of that extra long roll of alfoil. At least I will use it up now because it just looks messy and is ruining my work!!!

Inside my cupboard which hangs on my laundry wall....aka the cleaning cupboard, this one wasn't pleasant! BEFORE:
AFTER:
I am getting rid of all my chemical cleaners, so I now have them sitting in the container to use up what is left of them, so this container will slowly empty out. I am using more of the TriNature stuff (top left) and also just good old bicarb and vinegar. It still looks a little chaotic but at least now I can actually see what is in there.

My challenge for next week is the darn linen cupboard. I just have to do it. I know we have lots of beds in this house but I swear some of the single bed sheets in there haven't seen the light of day in the last 4 years lol. I don't really think I need that many. It is just part of the joy of having a second marriage I guess, you accumulate doubles of everything!!

Clutter is a burden....

I found this wonderful page online and thought I would share it with you.

http://www.livingonadime.com/articles/basics-of-tossing

I am a self confessed hoarder. I hoard sentimental type stuff and my other half hoards anything that "might come in handy" lol so together that covers a huge amount of STUFF!!!!

This page had me going "yeah, oh yeah, I get that".......ok off to continue my decluttering.......I'm up to the laundry, which houses the linen cupboard,,,,,,think I should start praying for a miracle in this one lol...wish me luck...

One shelf a day keeps the clutter away.....

Well today I decided that I really must start my decluttering. I have spent the first 4 days of my kids being back at school to restock the pantry and getting floors cleaned, dust bunnies evicted etc etc.

Today my mission was to attack the top of the bathroom vanity cabinet and the window ledge in there. I couldn't believe it when I came out of there with arms overflowing of rubbish lol. It only took me about 5 minutes but just from those two tiny surfaces I evicted from my home:

- 2 cans of hairspray (these haven't been touched since we got married over 2 years ago!!)
- a container of bubblebath with a miniscule amount in the bottom (my kids have all been shower converts for about a year now)
- a half full bottle of headlice solution which had solidified in the bottle lol
- 4 tubs of kids drawing soap stuff that has been in the house for about 4 years and the kids didn't like the smell
and
- an Avon eyeliner/shadow duo thing that I bought and never used as I didn't like the colour.

Can you believe that I had that amount of crap just sitting there taking up space when we didn't even use the stuff??????? I'm embarrassed to even admit to it but this blog in the end will be my sense of achievement. Being able to see all the clutter that leaves my house written down in black and white will be cleansing I think.

The worst part is that I have moved these items time and time again to clean the ledge/shelf for the last couple of years lol. I must be mad!!!!!!

I should actually take photos of before and after, that would probably be easier than writing it all down,,,hmmm may do that on tomorrow's task......the bathroom vanity inside......oh geez I hate to think!!!!

Its amazing how your views change as you get older.....

Sitting here today, I am looking at the calendar and it has suddenly dawned on me that the kids only have 15 days of school holidays left. I can't believe it, it seems like only yesterday that a couple of the school mums and I were counting down the days till school holidays began with looks of horror on our faces lol.

Today I wish that I still had weeks ahead of me before the beginning of the school year. I am dreading the school routine kicking back in. Back to the early mornings and before school rush. Making lunches and recesses, and the hassle that becomes with 2 kids who hate sandwiches. Making sure everyone gets the fruit that they like lol. The after school mayhem when they are hot, tired and cranky and you are guaranteed to be yelling before you even complete the 5 minute drive home. The joy of having tearful children as they are sent to their rooms to calm down for 5 minutes for hitting their brother or saying words they shouldn't. The homework help that is required by the high school kids and the battle to get the younger kids to do theirs. The list goes on!

I am also dreading the younger two starting back at school because last year was anything but enjoyable, dropping off crying children and spending way too much time with the principle as we try to devise a way for kids to settle better.

AAAAGGHHHHHHHHH I don't want holidays to end!!!!!

I really do wonder if home schooling the younger two at least would be more beneficial to them. I don't know if the stress that goes with schooling for them is worth it......but then again they don't like to mix with kids so I know that if I was to do that, then I would have that battle to contend with anyway. Parenting some days is just so hard lol.

I remember just a year or so ago when school holidays just gave me the horrors. When I used to count down the days with joy while the kids would count down with horror. Now I join them.

Maybe I am just getting older. I look at things with so many regrets at times,,,regrets and guilt. Should I have done more with them when they were little, is that why they struggle with their learning. Should we have played more games, did more colouring etc etc. Should I have had a bigger age gap so that each child could have been given more one on one time with me.

I don't know the answers. I so wish I could have a "do over" of the last 16 years and just start from scratch. How I would have done things differently and not taken one second of their lives for granted. I would have let the small things slide, do they really matter. Does having a tidy house really matter?

Today I sit here in a house that is very lived in. It is by no means perfect, it is over cluttered, not to the point of being a total mess but just not up to the standard that alot of other mums I know would really approve of. We have too much stuff, something I hope to fix this year in a series of major decluttering and redecorating.

This year is the year for me to get fitter, lose weight and to get my house turned into a home. To make it a place we love to come home to, instead of a place where I constantly feel stressed and feel pressured to be cleaning up. I want to be able to relax and enjoy my family in this home not be rushing my times with them so I can get the coffee table wiped down or the floors swept. Right now all the cleaning feel like it takes forever because there is too much stuff. I want to be able to wipe a surface down without having to move things all the time.

This has turned into yet another ramble. I haven't posted in a while lol, so you have all my whinging to enjoy at the same time!!

Ok I am off to clean the kitchen benches and then there might be time to squeeze in a board game with at least one of the kids....(as you can probably guess they all like vastly different games as well lol)

Pssst,,,BTW do you like the new look? I signed up to the blog frog and of course it refused to fit into my old layout so I changed. Still not 100% its the one I want but it does make me feel kinda holiday like, or at least of where I dream of being sort of....you know the view, beautiful beach with no housework for miles around lol.

Drowning in a house of clutter - Oh boy do I have clutter lol

Well here I was thinking that my house was pretty cluttered and was planning ways to declutter without the kids getting too upset about my thoughts on a few of their bits and bobs lol, I shouldn't have ever thought my house was cluttered before, really I shouldn't have.......NOW it is cluttered.

After moving my mum into a nursing home a couple of weeks ago, my brothers and I have gone through her house, well most of it at least and thrown out the junk stuff and boxed up alot, marked a bit for a garage sale and gone through her clothes working out what she will need and won't need. Of course all this sorting leaves me with a dilemma. I am a really sentimental person and as I am also the youngest child in the family by a 13 year age gap, I have memories attached to so many of mum's things. You should have seen the pile of stuff that I had to bring home courtesy of my nostalgic mind!!!!

My sisterinlaw wanted to toss the clothes that mum won't need, I said no we will give them to the Salvos,,,,,well now I have rethought and decided that I will list them on Oztion to make mum a little extra money (where I will find the time to do this when I have a carport oozing with decluttered items from my own home to list on Oztion I have no idea!).

So here I am with a loungeroom that now houses a huge box of ornaments, 3 boxes of clothing/handbags to list on Oztion, a suitcase and two washing baskets with mum's clothing that needs to be stored and rotated to the nursing home, a suitcase full of photo albums with a stack of photos still to be gone through, and other bits and pieces. I also scored a sleeping bag, blankets and two quilts...these things can be used straight away on the kids beds etc so that bit isn't quite so bad.

Oh boy though my house is just screaming out wanting to be set free and I am just dreaming of the day that I can actually properly clean the place. It takes me so long to clean as I have to move so much stuff. I have told me Hubby that this weekend, the toolshed and carport is being gone through from top to bottom. We are tossing the crap we no longer use/need and going through all the boxes I have sitting there waiting to listed on Oztion to make sure that I'm not holding onto it for nothing.

My new mission is to only keep the things we use and/or love to bits, everything else can go......now to put this plan into action!

Wish me luck!!!!!

OOOOOHHHHH yeah I forgot to mention, I am so happy, we are getting a solar electricity grid on our roof in November (sooo far away, but the best this poor inundated company can do lol). After getting a quote of $9500 a few months ago from another company, we are getting it done for the princely sum of $550 (plus the cost of a new meter box which is approx $430, but we would have needed that regardless of who we went through. I am so happy that we will be doing our bit for the environment and also helping ourselves out a little with the cost of our power. We are only getting 6 panels but it is a start at least.

Don't know why I didn't do this months ago......

On the weekend DH and I didn't have his kids and my kids were going to their Dad's for the weekend, so we decided it was high time to clean out the carport and our bedroom. With an autistic child in the house, our room gets used as a "keep safe" room when he is around and things don't always seem to leave it lol. DH's son is 8 and is autistic, he has the knack of destroying most things he gets his hands on and so our room becomes the dumping ground every Friday before we take charge of him for the weekend. On the following Monday things should get put back but unfortunately we try to think of somewhere safer to keep the said items but can't so we kind of just leave it sitting in our room, the result was a room bulging at the seams and very little walking space left.

We started in the carport and pulled everything moveable out and swept it thoroughly. We had 3 old kids bikes, some old weights, a trolley cart, plastic outdoor chairs, a trundle bed and a few other bits and pieces. I stuck a sign of $20 on the chairs and $20 on the bed and just put the rest out with a free sign.....well I have never seen things disappear so fast! I kid you not within ten minutes the 3 bikes were gone, as were the assorted toys we put out. We followed that up with the trolley and the weights and within 5 minutes they were gone alone with the chairs,,,,Sold for $20 and the bed which sold for $15,,,not bad for things I would have given away lol. I have no idea why I just didn't put these things out as we decided we didn't need them lol. Last year we got rid of another trundle bed and a cubbyhouse in the same way. It is amazing what the word FREE does isn't it? If I had put a dollar value on them they would have sat there for quite a while no doubt. But this was mainly about decluttering our house so that was achieved at least.

Then in the afternoon we made a start on our room, everything got pulled out and sooooo much stuff was tossed out, I mean it was just trash stuff, not even charitable. I ended up with 2 bags for charity but the rest was binned. I have no idea why it had been kept for so long. I am a very sentimental person but honestly as I was going through my stuff that I had saved since my childhood, I found christmas cards that were dated 1979,,,,,,who keeps christmas cards for 30 years?????? Lol the funniest thing was that I didn't even know the people the card was from!!! I even had 5 postcards that had been addressed to my sisterinlaw,...now she has never lived with me and I have absolutely no idea where on earth i would have got these from!!!!

Anyway because I like to digital scrapbook, I have put all of my photo albums (about 13 in total) on the floor in the loungeroom along with all the kids keepsake boxes. These used to be stored on top of our wardrobes. I decided that if they sit in the loungeroom they will annoy me to bits (which they are!!) and I will force myself to scan all the things I wanted to scan onto the computer and then I can store everything away properly and it will all be categorised etc etc etc. I think I will scan the kids artwork and throw away the originals, keeping only a couple of things and maybe just scan the school newsletters etc instead of keeping all the ones that have their names featured in them. At the end of the day are my boys really going to thank me for giving them a box full of paper which they then have to read through to find their names in it??? I think it will be much easier to just give them a disc that has it all on there and they can just keep it and go through it if and when they want to. At least they have the option then. Sometimes I hate the fact that I am so darn sentimental. I keep way too much stuff. I so badly want to get into my scrapbooking and get all the photos looking nice. To me the photos being nicely presented will probably be more important than an old school newsletter or a piece of artwork they did in Year 1.

So this is me this week, I now have a carport that looks presentable and clean, a bedroom I can actually move in and vacuum with ease and a loungeroom that now looks like a storage room lol....oh well you can't win them all. I just have to bite the bullet and start scanning and naming....wish me luck!

School holidays are upon me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have precisely 1 hour and 9 minutes until the troops get out of school. I'm feeling more than a little apprehensive because they have been extra argumentative with one another lately. One only has to breathe and it can start an argument. Can I make it through 16 days lol??????

I love the relaxing part of school holidays.....the not having to be up and out the door by 8.15 and the fact that I don't have to organise school recess and lunch each day but man!!!! The arguing and the "I'm bored" is enough to drive me batty. I am still trying to think up things to do with them that doesn't cost the earth and preferably are totally free, but I'm not having much luck. Looks like bike rides and a few trips to the park may be on the agenda, and maybe a trip to the museum and/or the beach now the weather is warming up.

This weekend is going to be a busy one, which hopefully 4 pairs of smaller hands will help with. We want to dismantle the cubby house and put it out the front with a "Free to good home" sign attached. Hopefully someone can get some joy from it. The kids haven't looked at it in about a year now so it is just taking up space in the backyard here. I want to get into the garden and plant some plants that have been loitering around in pots for way too long. Hopefully we get stuck into the older two boy's bedroom as well. We want to swap beds around and thoroughly go through it and get rid of the junk that seems to have accumulated within their walls. I just hope we can actually get all of this achieved over the next two days and also find some time to relax and enjoy each other's company.

Hmmmmm will need to psych myself up I think!!!!

Better late than never!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe that I created this blog all those months ago and have only just begun to use it......lets hope I can keep it up now lol.

The weather here today is sooooo gloomy, although we do need the rain so that is nice at least. I hung out a load of washing and no sooner had I walked back inside than it started raining, quite heavily even!

DH and I moved stuff around on the weekend and I am so pleased with the result. In our not overly large lounge room we had a Bowflex gym machine, a cross trainer as well as an Ab King Pro. It really did look more like a gymnasium than a lounge lol. We couldn't even open our front door as their was a lounge chair in front of it!!!

Well the gym equipment has been moved out into the family room and I have a loungeroom back and it is sooooooo nice!!!! Look at how lounge like it looks lol......




I would so love not to have the blankets over the chairs but we have one cat loves to sleep on the top of the lounge and also on the chair that is covered in the pink and green blanket and he sheds so much fur it is unbelievable. I took the blankets off the lounge for a bit over winter and every second day I had to "shave" the top of the lounge to remove his fur. I am looking forward to getting new carpet in here and also to painting the walls. But hey just having space in there is a major achievement so I am happy for the moment.