I've been on a de-cluttering kick for awhile. It's slow going as we have a lot of stuff accumulated and my other half isn't into getting rid of stuff. In fact, he's into getting stuff - hence, all the stuff we have! He's one of those who sees some broken item somewhere, thinks he might be able to repair it and perhaps sell or use it so he throws it in the back of his truck and brings it home.
More often than not, he rarely touches it after that, although he might move it once or twice. It generally is just in the way though causing me to mutter under my breath and even lose my temper now and then.
Our front porch was littered with this stuff until recently when I went on a cleaning binge. Now it's fairly clean but in the three weeks since we cleaned it off, he's managed to put on it a broken ice maker, a broken freezer, several pieces of plywood and I don't know what else.
Lord knows I love him and I even love his ingenuity and creativity! But..I don't love the accumulation of stuff. I'm slowly trying to weed through it all but it's taking years. Literally.
Discardia is a site I read. I imagine most of you know about it but for those who don't, check it out. It's pretty interesting reading and I've gotten some different perspectives on some things there.
Cleaning out the house..and the mind
January 13th, 2007 at 08:33 pm
January 14th, 2007 at 05:13 pm 1168794819
I haven't been able to get a car in the garage for over 10 years!
It is ridiculous. Whenever he wants a part, or a tool, he can't find it, and goes out and buys a new one. You have my sympathy, or should I say empathy!
January 18th, 2007 at 01:16 pm 1169126172
January 1st, 2008 at 12:46 pm 1199191604
I'm a little like that, so I'll check out that Discardia site. In fact, I was just looking at an old Automobile magazine that I squirreled away against my wife's strict no magazine saving edict, and it was great to review articles I had read earlier, but I realize that no lasting good can come from that so I need to change my ways. On the plus side, the car I'm "fixing" has only been in the garage for 3 years now, so I figure I'm ahead of the game!
January 1st, 2008 at 02:06 pm 1199196395
Our situation has changed since I posted that entry almost a year ago. Now we don't have nearly the junk we did.
We don't even have a house now! So we're basically starting over. The good thing about that is that we're starting
over with very little junk and he agrees that we need to keep it down to a dull roar.
Keep in mind, Ralph - simple is better. Simple is better!