I think I have a problem

 I believe the first step to getting organized is admitting I have a problem.  Take a tour with me of what is causing me to be very stressed lately.  In the past I said my home continually felt like living in a garage.  It still does.  I can't blame it on having other people's stuff anymore.  This is all mine. 

Start by standing in the doorway looking into the room toward my closet office.  See the small pathway through the room?  Doesn't that remind you of a hoarder's house?  Maybe not to the extreme you see on tv but certainly the start of becoming a hoarder.  They ALL (the people on the shows) say it started very gradually without notice until it was completely overwhelming.





On with the tour.  Just to the right of the door is my cardboard collection.  I plan to use this for making cardboard furniture.  There's also the window quilts I finished and installed a few days ago.  I took these photos a few weeks ago.

Just beyond the cardboard is more cardboard and my lamp shades waiting to be recovered and put to use whenever I manage to get this room made into a den/living room.  My winter coat is there waiting to be cleaned before extremely cold weather sets in.  There's some quilts I've finished but really haven't found a place to store yet.  There's some pillow cases that also need a storage home.  They  along with the sheets I made but haven't finished hemming are waiting for me to find them a permanent storage spot.  You can see two bags in the lower left corner.  Those have fabric upholstery samples in them and there's more samples behind the lamp shades.  The upholstery fabric is for art quilts.

Moving a little around the room you see a box of fat quarters, still new, waiting to be made into art quilts.  You can see the upholstery sample bags better in this picture.  Oops, more cardboard waiting to be used in furniture making.  Some scrap batting waiting to be pieced together for charity quilts or other crafting projects.  Underneath are some plastic storage boxes.  Empty and waiting to be put to use.

Ok, moving a little further.  Just to the left of that stuff you will find some groceries that need to be put away or taken to my daughter's house.  Some bolts of backing fabric.

While we're here, let's look behind us.  Toward the door.  More stuff that needs to find a storage home.  Scrap batting, finished rugs, finished quilts, upholstery fabrics, more cardboard, a box of finished quilts to go to the nursing home at Christmas, t-shirt fabrics to be made into bras and panties, a table that really should be in the kitchen for the phone to sit upon, and probably other stuff I can't remember.

Hmm.... this is the storage towers.  Fabrics and craft items of many types just waiting for me to get around to creating with them.  These are supposed to be inside a closet in another room.  (we'll visit there in a minute) 

Up on top you will find more cardboard, more fabrics, a bag of quilting stencils, and a box filled with glue sticks and bottles of school glue.  I use bunches and bunches of glue in my crafts. 

Ok, let's move to the door of another room.  This is the room I'm working on at present.  I'm trying to empty it enough to actually use it as a storage / guestroom.  Here you find the cardboard desk parts waiting to be finished and put into it's home. Part of my breakfast bar I'm making and another plastic drawer unit with some of Ladybug's outgrown clothes.

In the corner are the doors to some of the closets in the house.  These were taken down when the new floors were put in and never put back up. 

By the closet doors is another plastic drawer unit and some plastic boxes.  One box has quilt tops I've made and never finished the quilting.  Those were intended for xmas presents a few years ago.

Here you see some of my many books.  I've already gotten rid of lots and lots of books.  These are DIY type books I look through on a regular basis. 

Looking back toward the closet.... hmm.... it's empty.  There's another section of my cardboard breakfast bar and some organizer units under the window.

The doors that go on my own bedroom closets are here.  Geeze, I gotta find time to get those doors back up again.  Only a couple things on the closet shelf.  My fabric dyes and a box of family heirloom nick knacks.  There is even more stuff in my quilting studio, the kitchen, and my bedroom.  I guess it's a really good thing I don't have a garage, basement, or attic space.  Gosh, can you imagine how much stuff I could pack into those places?  Frightening.

I keep saying I want a den/living room and a storage/guest bedroom.  I keep making a vow to get rid of the excess and get organized.  Yet, I keep sabotaging all my efforts by keeping so much stuff.  Every time I get started organizing and purging, something happens to throw my scheduled tasks all out of whack.  Someone moves in, someone moves out.  Or some other type of emergency happens.  I throw up my hands in frustration and wind up not following through to organized completion.  I shouldn't have that problem anymore.  Hmm... just as sure as I say that, someone will want to move in.  Nope!  Nada!  Not until I get control of all this stuff first!  Final word...... NO! 

What I want to do through the coming months is once and for all..... get control of the excess STUFF in my life.    To once again regain some sort of order to my day and enjoy living again.  After all, enjoying life again was the main reason I semi-retired from professional machine quilting.  Life just isn't the same when I can't find what it is that makes me happy because it's buried underneath all the clutter.

To be continued.......