23 October 2012

I went to the Goodwill yesterday.

I had to make the trek to town yesterday to cash my check and buy some half-and-half, because coffee without half-and-half is not as good. While I was in town, I mailed out those posters I had promised to mail to a friend 72 years ago, and I mailed out about 485 pounds of miscellaneous craft supplies to my girl Tia, who will surely create beautiful things from them.

I also made a stop at the Goodwill donation center and dropped off a serious trunkload of shit.

I will be so happy to get my funky ass to Dallas the first weekend of November and drop off all those clothes for consignment. Hopefully, it'll bring me some cash.

I'm still clicking that miniscule "unsubscribe" button that hides at the bottom of emails.

I've gotten one pile of books out of the floor into a drawer in the table the teevee sits on. Most of the shit that used to be in the drawer has been removed from the house. The few items that need to be kept have been put away in more appropriate places.

I can see the top of the dining table that functions as my desk. There is still a ton of shit sitting up there, but at least I can see how badly I need to dust. I'll get to that this week while Sunshine is working out of town.

Speaking of Sunshine, he has me watching "Hoarders". Maybe it makes him feel better about all of his stuffs and things he hoards in the name of hunting gear. It certainly makes me feel better about all the stuffs and things I have been hoarding.

For the record, I have discovered that I hoard: pens, coat hangers, sharpie markers, giant re-usuable shopping/tote bags, clothes that I don't wear, and expired vitamins/supplements.

I found the clasp that had broken off of my Cynthia Rowley bag and repaired the bag. I love that bag. Repairing that bag made me get honest about the Antonio Melani bag that I don't really love (trying to find something in that bag, with its myriad compartments and pockets and pouches is almost impossible and therefore I don't use the bag often enough), and the bag has been cleaned, put in its dust bag, and added to the pile of shit to be consigned. Speaking of dust bags, did I mention that I have apparently been hoarding dust bags?

Dust bags. Who the fuck hoards dust bags? I do.

This is a journey that I need to undertake. All of this shit overwhelms me. I can't see, I can't think. This shit has to go. I cannot live like this. I cannot stand being surrounded by all this shit that I don't know how it got here and I certainly don't want it.

I want a simpler, more peaceful life. Stuffs and things? Won't give me that.

I want to remove the extraneous. I want to sit in empty silence, and reflect on how good life is.

That's huge for somebody who spent most of her life in addiction, drama, chaos, and noise.

12 comments:

  1. I LOVE simple! I watched Hoarders a couple of times but I really couldn't get over the sadness I felt over the way some people live. So that's why I turned to Real Housewives of New Jersey, Beverly Hills and New York! haha

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    1. Lots of those folks on "Hoarders" aren't hoarding. They're definitely ill, but filth does not equal hoarding. It is very sad. Which is why the housewives franchise does so well. It's far more entertaining.

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  2. Good for you! I love owning our home but it has such little storage space that I've really had to get tough about de-cluttering it. Anything we haven't worn or used in the last 2 years? Gone.

    It's tough at times. I am a notorious builder of piles. Then I never want to deconstruct the archeology of the piles.

    This is important work and it's great that you're tackling it.

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    1. Oh, if I could just get Sunshine on board, we would have so much SPACE in our magic bus. He finds it to be so inconvenient to store anything anywhere that is not right in the living room.
      He has piles, and he has stacks, and he has items perched precariously on top of clothes rods and stools. I'm thinking I need to become an archeologist whilst he is away for a few days. I wonder if he'd even notice?

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  3. One thing about moving to a place with no basement, etc. is that stuff gets thrown out or given away when it SHOULD BE. When we still lived in CT, Hubby insisted on keeping so much extraneous CRAP in the basement that of course got thrown away when we moved here. Now that we have WAY less storage space, I make sure things get GONE...no ifs, ands or buts. Good luck in molding Sunshine!

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    1. I'm going to need some luck in molding Sunshine. He is a packrat or something. Ugh.

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  5. For the record, I also hoard flash drives. #ihoardweirdshit

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  6. I'm envious of all your progress! Also, a little embarrassed that I read the title and my first thought was, oooh, what did she get?

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    1. I almost changed the title for that exact reason, then decided "nah, I'll tease people a bit". I like going to the goodwill stores, there can be some seriously good pieces there for almost nothing, and it is environmentally friendly--no more petrochemical based fast fashion from those major international chains that use sweatshop labor in developing countries.
      This whole idea of 'minimalism' has me really looking at my impact on the environment, which is an interesting, unintended side effect.

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  7. Um, fashion icons hoard dust bags. Obvi. The rest of us schlubs don't even know what they are.

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    1. Dust bags=those nice bags that come with nice shoes, purses, and Hewlett-Packard printers, used for storing these items to keep the dust off them. Ridiculous, no?

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