Making progress

I've talked about this many times.  I say things like:  My house is fast becoming a hoarder house.  I feel as if I'm living in a garage rather than a house.  If I had company where would they sit?  If a grandchild or great grandchild wanted to spend a few days with me where would they sleep?  The craft stuff has taken up all the space of my life so that it becomes a cocoon around me. 

I've also shown several times how desperately I want all the STUFF gone so there is room for what really matters in life.  Time after time, I've cleaned it all up, gotten rid of some, and more or less organized packed it tightly enough the house looked somewhat presentable.

When I announced my retirement from full time machine quilting career in order to have more time with family and friends (to have a simpler life); I once again went on a mission to clear out the STUFF that is preventing me from being happy.  I haven't forgotten it, I've just been a little side tracked lately. 

During the thunderstorms (and flooding issues) we've had for the last few weeks; I've actually done quite a bit of clearing out STUFF.  I stay away from electrical things during a storm which means no internet and no quilting.  I used the down time for sorting and purging.  Here is one room as it was before.  I took the photos when the sun was shining because there's no light in there.  Its a catch all room for groceries that were not yet put away.

It was a dropping spot for the cardboard brought to me by a friend who gets really good cardboard boxes for making cardboard furniture.  I needed to cut it into storable size.  Hmm... enlarge the photo to see the detail I added on the cardboard cabinet base.  It's upside down because Ladybug used it to play grocery store with me.  She thought it made a great cash register.  What an imagination she has.

There is some recently canned orange jam that I couldn't fit into the kitchen cabinets and some bags of clothing scraps left over from the last two memory quilts.

More clothing scraps and more food.  There is my dehydrating machine that really should be stored in the kitchen..... but where to put it?

I kept telling myself all that food should really be put away.  Well.... what am I waiting for?  My next life?  Anita, put it away already!

So that's exactly what I did.  While the thunder storms were raging, I cleaned and sorted and put stuff away.  Cleaning kept my mind off the dangers but I also had the radio on to hear an alert if it came.  The room is once again cleared out and ready for me to start painting. 

The cardboard cabinet is waiting for me to finish it.  I'm undecided whether to make it into a bookshelf or put drawers in it.  Then again, I may change it completely.  But.... I promised myself I would not start working on any craft item until the house is visitor friendly.  A nice reward for all my hard work will be to sit and craft without feeling closed in by stuff or feeling guilty about quilting that should be finished.

After taking this photo, the rest of the food was moved to the kitchen.  The dehydrator is moved to the closet for now.  I'll put it in the kitchen when I get to that area of organizing and purging.... again.

The doors you see in this room were stored here many, many months ago when the new floors were installed.  They are the doors to all the closets of my house.  The floor guys never came back to install them.  I plan to paint the doors before I call the floor company.   I'm sure they are responsible to put the doors back up but after all this time there might be a charge involved.

It may not seem like a lot done but it was for me. 

I'm really an organized person by nature.  I actually like having a minimalist house.  I love everything having it's own place and everything being in it's place.  What happened?  Well, a major part of the problems was that I got busy running my machine quilting business.  Too busy to be normal.  I let the customers decide what my day involved.... which was always according to their deadlines.  Don't get me wrong, I appreciated having the customers.  They meant no harm asking me to complete work for deadlines.  I could have said no but I was afraid of letting go of the money earned. 

Gradually, over time, there was more and more quilting and less and less of life.  This was my fault.  As I said before, I could have said no.  There are several other things that contributed to my house being overwhelmed with STUFF.  All that is water over the bridge now.  The flood of work has passed as any flood eventually ends.  My life is on a more relaxed path.  I may post about some of the other contributing factors as I continue my journey. 

We are expecting more storms in this area later this evening.  The major weather system that has caused many tornadoes out west is now headed for our area.  I'm going to get off the internet and see how much work I can get finished before this evening.  I have my emergency stuff ready.