Well, its certainly been a hectic few days here for me...and I have to say, I am still tired and not quite fully recovered.
The move didn't go at all well... I arrived to a filthy house and made the fatal mistake of accepting it. I have since realised that it was my right to refuse the house in the state it was left in and the right thing to do would've been to call a lawyer.
...so rather than concentrating on unpacking and doing a light clean, I spent a lot of my time doing some heavy duty cleaning from 6am till 2-3am for the first 3 days and then unpacking from there.
Ah well - that's all behind me now. My house is now clean and the inside is unpacked and organised. (Just the garage to unpack and organise!)
...yep - after only 1 week, I have pretty much settled in. While I normally don't blow my own trumpet, I will admit in this instance to being a legend on getting all this done before Christmas. (insert tired and slightly delirious smilie here - hehe).
My living room in my new house
Someone once told me that moving house is right up there on the list of major stresses in life. And having done it recently, I think one of the causes of this stress is that its one of the few times in life when our stuff-overload blindness (SOB) is ripped off and we see how much stuff we actually have. To save you from clicking on the link, SOB is basically my ramblings on how we use stuff to project our identity but we don't actually see how much stuff we (or others) have.
In my experience, SOB has often left me a bit uneasy - but that uneasiness is nothing compared to what happens when that blindness lifts and we actually see how much stuff we have. (The feeling when this happens can best be described as "AAAAUUUUUGGGH!!")
Now, regular readers here will know that I had reached a point in my life when I was happy with the amount of stuff I had. I had decluttered a lot and I enjoyed the ease that comes with not having to look after so much stuff.
Having said that, in preparing for this move, I was still very surprised at how much stuff I had accumulated in the two years since I started my new life as a sole parent. So much so that I ended up having to declutter again. The declutter consisted of:
- 1 commercial van load of stuff given away
- 1 commercial van load of stuff I sold
- 2 full car loads of stuff sent to the op shop (charity shop)
Its kinda scary really.
So here I am now relaxing in my new (and smaller) house. I am, for now, excess-stuff free. But in the back of my mind, I am wondering....how long will it be before I am once again afflicted with my form of SOB and end up with excess stuff?
I hope you are all well!
14 comments:
Hi Eilleen,
Congratulations on surviving the move. I'm really sorry to hear that you had to face a house left in a bad state. I know that would make the whole move worse.
I totally agree that moving house opens a person's eyes to the amount of stuff they have accumulated. B & I are certainly going through that at the moment!
Oh well, one of these days we may yet reach your state of declutteredness! But I doubt it!
Happy Christmas.
Karin
You're amazing, Eilleen! What a mammoth effort to have the whole house sorted within a week, and with all that cleaning too! Your living room looks fantastic - very welcoming and calm.
SOB! I love that.
The hardest part of SOB is when you move because then the desk that worked so well in the last house has no place in the new place but it worked so well and we are going to move again and so it should work great in the next house so we can't get rid of it because it worked so well but it does not work well now. Or at least that is what Nancy and I have been going through. We actually sold said desk for $150 that we bought for $65.
Glad you moved in quickly even if was not without challenges. I am in shock that you are done in a week.
You are AMAZING!!!!!
Oh you don't know how your post has helped - I too have moved and just couldn't get over the shock of being left a very dirty house (that I'm still cleaning and had to delay moving into).
Was it a mistake when you said you cleaned to 2AM ?? Did you mean 2PM ?
I knew I could have refused settlement because of the state it was left in but really, that in itself is just as stressful to deal with...confrontation etc so, I know I need to let it go and your post certainly is an example of how to do that..
So thank you...your post will help me as I attempt to do a hard clean of a house that has not been cleaned for at least 5 years!
I have often said that what I need to do is move. If I were moving lots of stuff wouldn't go with me. Then I realized I don't have to move to declutter that way. From Jan to Early May I plan to go through every room with a heavy hand and ask myself the tough questions... I am going to take everything I declutter and list it on Ebay, what doesn't sell will go in a large garagee sale, what doesn't sell will be freecycled.
Thanks everyone for sharing this moment with me!
Karin - Happy Christmas to you too! Give me a yell if you need a hand.
Bel - Thank you, I'm pretty happy with my living room too. Given the state of the house when I arrived, its so satisfying to see the rooms being restored to a state of calm.
Ryan - yes, I had that dilemma too. I had to give up my craft space as my new place doesn't have the room. In the end, I have decided to trust the Universe to provide so I've given up most of the stuff and trust that a solution will present itself later.
Thanks Irene!
Gleaner - yep I do mean 2am. I cleaned 20-21 hours a day for 3 days. It was important to me that my children would come back from their dad's and into a new clean house. So I had a 3 day deadline to make that happen.
Thanks again everyone!
As someone new to decluttering, I'm finding that it's important to do regular 'maintenance' declutters of areas I've already got to the state I want.
Just a quick whip-around to see if things have changed: new items might have crept in, or maybe they should actually replace older ones instead of having both.
I know what you mean about clutter. I can't stand it either! We alway go through our stuff each year to donate/sell & and I'm always shocked at the amount we can get rid of! Congrats on your move!
I had to laugh reading about the overload of stuff. i feel a bit like that for the moment. As its getting to the end of the year, I usually always go through my things and clear out old stuff.
While I sympathise with cleaning out your new house, I have to admit a new place never feels properly clean, or mine until I 'christen' it clean it my way, using my home-made green cleaners in any case.
Congratulations on your move. I have moved as a single mother and it was a bigger job than I imagined. Your new place looks very nice.
Good grief- what a mammoth cleaning effort! How awful to be left a dirty house, but truly I have found I can't really 'bond' with a new house until I've cleaned other peoples yuk out anyway, then it feels like home :-)
Your lounge rooms looks so beautiful, well done. Enjoy your clean, clutter-free Christmas!!!
What a horrible mess someone left you with but I am awed by your new place. It looks super.
As for having too much stuff. It seems so very easy to do. I've started a major decluttering project but currently seem to have more stuff than ever. Decluttering is a discipline which requires constant vigilance about not bringing things in to the home in the first place. That is a discipline with which I have problems despite trying to be conscious of what I'm doing. My project continues.
Congratulations - I love your SOB definition...
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