The Hoarders Anonymous Thread Part Three...Still Sorting It Out ~ Together!

[Solo]

Are you are any of the following? Can you be described as a clutterbug? Are you a hoarder, in a mess, untidy, disorganised, lazy with housework that has lead to something that you now feel unable to deal with. If you are ill and not coping with the housework. If you are emotionally attached to items for whatever reason. If you cannot just ask someone in for a cuppa at a moments notice or dread the meter reader asking for access.

Are you nodding whilst reading any of these words? If you have a combination of any or all of these things or something completely different, please join us. No one here will judge you. We have something in common and we have a common goal. We share our ideas and we share our disappointments no matter how big and our celebrations no matter how small. We cheer one another along and drag the drowners from the depths of despair.

Join us; we don't bite :) Welcome to thread number 3.

Oops I meant to attach the plans!

I agree it is reassuring to keep up with the learning routine until it sinks in a bit. Perhaps time to think about it all a bit more tomorrow when you have had a better sleep? write a few random thoughts on a piece of paper then leave thoughts to percolate till tomorrow? That's what I often do with big arrangements, they are much too overwhelming to tackle in one bite, whereas dh likes to jump in and be "organised" - I can't do that, but I still get there in the end when I get my "headspace" (as udderer reminded me!) Maybe tomorrow give yourself a break on the home ed, and squeeze in a bit of thnking time but not today.

Fantastic house, I would love to have a downstairs loo

Also *Cag, you are living in a tiny space with three kids atm, you are actually doing a brilliant brilliant job managing to find room for the things you use everyday, let alone the luxuries of books and games. It is going to feel much better when you move and it will be easier definitely.

I dunno, finding room for things is really just “shoving them any old place and cursing when piles of things fall over” 😳😂

We definitely need a major declutter before/as we move. We’ve done well, considering everything, but have such an agonisingly long way to go.

is there a shed in the new house? You probably could just chuck everything in there which is excess to immediate requirements and then sort it later when you have more time and energy. You are dealing with a lot atm, it may not be possible to do anything other than just move wholesale in one big batch/lots of bin liners. You are asking a lot of yourself to make so many decisions all at once, when you have decluttered so much already.

I’m not sure, I expect they remove pretty much everything. We may get a shed or one of those lockable garden storage things (like a giant chest) anyway as we need to store all the sports club equipment.

I dunno. I am feeling more positive today (fresh air helped... incidentally I am TOTALLY SHIT at tennis 😳) and like we can actually achieve a fair bit more decluttering before we go... the best thing is, due to the timing, we will have a huge overlap. It’s unfortunate financially (though my mum has offered to help 💖) but it means we would be tenants here until July 27th. So a nice long time to move things in gradually.

When we moved here (ten years ago today in fact!) we just shoved everything in boxes one day and much of it was still the same several years later. Really want to avoid that as much as possible.

DH off tomorrow and hoping we can get stuff done. We didn’t achieve much in the half term, we just both felt crap and had no motivation or energy.

I have done precisely nothing not even kept the washing up at bay. I am so disorganised these days!

You are all doing well.

table covered in "stuff" here including some leeks that aren't going to get eaten or cooked..

I am eating Paprika crisps and waiting for ds1 to phone me back about his exam! Priorities.

lemonade and cucumber sandwiches to all

What did the leeks do to deserve this treatment Nettle? Could you not use them in a dish tonight? Or wash, chop, cook and freeze? says she who has thrown away many leeks over the years

I washed up yesterday. Had to. No choice. I did not wash up after tea though.

I’ve kept up with laundry quite well this even though it’s rained lots this week. I always feel extremely happy if a week passes and all school uniform was washed and ready to go each day. If I get overwhelmed then school uniforms can be my nemesis!

Last night even though I felt wiped out I cooked up some mince and froze it so it wasn’t wasted and then cooked dinner. I’m hoping to use the mince next week for a quick dinner. With some concentration I’ve managed to get grocery costs down in the last month.

I drove 1 hour 15 mins on Monday to view a house and loved it, and we’ve been waiting all week to get a mortgage in principal, the next job is to get a valuation. I’ve been picturing us moving in and what we’ll do with each room! It’s not at all certain if we’ll get this place though. I hate the long drive, there and back, but I always get a slight high when I manage it.

I hope everyone is keeping well, Caglio I hope your moving preparations are going well, any small step will help you.

Down I love picturing things in my mind as they should be, it is such an incentive. Must remember to do that today.

So exciting about the house, and very in admiration of all the driving, I am terrible at driving

Well I have my heart's desire, a messy house and no-one to stop me tidying it or interfering. However, two days alone with just the three kids, and my incentive is quite low. I slept all right last night though so there should be no reason for me not to spring into action except sheer laziness.

Priority is I think clear kitchen again
compost - put in garden bins
put the big bags in the LOFT aargh, still on landing
clear leaves in the garden to compost bin, they are drying up and horrid - the whole front garden is a complete tip

solo you will be glad to hear I managed to include leeks into
minced meat lasagne
beef casserole (except I burnt it)

I am dreadful at wasting food. Even worse ATM as I get overwhelmed so easily and end up not cooking (I find cooking super difficult and stressful, even though I’m not actually bad at it)

It’s been a rubbish week TBH, feeling totally stressed and freaked out and overwhelmed. However. Tomorrow at 10am we are viewing the house. We have started making a few lists in the Moving Notebook. I managed a tiny bit of decluttering today and also started rewashing and packing the baby clothes into new bags for the recipients.

So I am feeling a little more positive now. Roll on tomorrow, eeeeeek!

I've swept the front garden a bit
I've watered the back garden
I've washed the mouldering jeye cloths in the garden
I emptied the enormous pile of vegetable compost into the compost bin

so not much but a bit. Hope this week improves Cag not surprised you are feeling overwhelmed. In these situations I often try and "visualise" a time ahead when the present stress is over, or I try to focus on just small aspects of the "bad" time ahead and try and imagine how i will cope with them.

Cag I hope your viewing went well and that you are feeling more positive about it all now.

Nettle :) glad to hear it!

I had an unproductive weekend apart from laundry which is all washed. I did a load of shopping for other people mainly yesterday. I discovered though that a £22 credit note from M&S ran out by 6 days . Hacked off doesn't cover it.

Oh that’s so frustrating solo :( would they definitely not honour it, might be worth asking?

We viewed the place, it is pretty good overall. A few downsides (kitchen related mainly) so I was a bit sad about that but overall it will be so much better.

I’m still feeling pretty overwhelmed but trying to get productive, todays been pretty good as the Caglets have agreed to get rid of quite a few toys so we’ve chucked some, got some to donate/pass to family and have packed the rest in proper storage boxes until the move. I’ve also washed and packed more baby clothes today.

We’ve decided to get a deep clean when we get the keys as the HA don’t do that. Will be worth the cost to go into a nice clean house, fresh start and all that. I don’t feel anxious about it because none of our stuff will be there when it’s done.

Carpet cleaners will be hired too - normally they take all carpets up but they gave us the choice as they are only 2 years old and mostly ok, so we said we would give that a try and we can always replace later - at least we aren’t being forced to pay for new flooring now. Wood floor in the living room would be my first priority to save up for. Hallway is wood already which is great.

Also it really needs decoration so we are trying to figure out what to do when as obviously it’s easier to do it before we move everything in but it also takes time and money. I’m more worried about the time aspect TBH. So much to do.

I think it’s all the decisions that are overwhelming me. I have been reading lots of moving tips but so much of that assumes it’s simply a matter of picking up all your stuff and moving it somewhere else. But we have so much furniture to actually buy as well and trying to figure out storage solutions and all that is stressing me out! Exciting too but l don’t want to get it wrong!

Could you buy some very cheap hampers for storage initially (the big wicker ones) they look nice until you can work out about drawers. You can also get those wardrobes from Argos that are just cloth and a hanging rail and a zip, and very light. I think storage goes on being a work in progress for ages, needs change and whatever you think a good idea now will inevitably change in usefulness, so I suppose the mistake I made was thinking that such and such needed to be a very long term decision. Often charity shops have really cheap secondhand furniture which they will deliver and can be changed in two years without guilt (I'm thinking tables and chairs and wardrobes)

every sofa I have ever bought after weeks and months of delibaration has ended up being in some way the wrong size and3 years down the line (too grand, not grand enough that sort of thing, we have three sofas dotted around house now, one tiny, one slouchy, one "nice" I have just had to make my peace with the imperfection of that. Mostly we get them from ikea it has to be said.

I think in the old days your furniture lasted forever but now we live differently and have more possessions and less expensive furniture that cannot take up so much space.

You may be better off just moving and not redecorating in advance if there isn't the manpower or the cash. Something has to give and your health is important. Perhaps in a year? Our paint is so scuzzy - I don't really mind that much now, again I have to make peace with the situation and weigh up what is possible not what would ideally happen. Motherhood/finances create a lot of these impasses I find...[sigh]

Trip to dump yesterday to get rid of various things in the right places so that was good.
FIL is away so we popped in to check on his house and the amount of clutter is just shocking. I would love to have been able to spend an hour or two just clearing all the old newspapers and packaging to at least see the dining table.....

I can't see my dining table either...

Nope me neither. Sometimes we dig down to it for a bit but it never lasts.

Not achieved much here. Writing ideas down but it’s just so hard to know what we need. And really I keep thinking it’s all just distraction from the most important thing which is to declutter further ASAP.

We MUST NOT move with all this crap.

I think it’s correct about not decorating, the main thing I do want to do though is the kids’ rooms ideally. As they’ve never had a painted room and I’m worried we will never get round to it if we don’t do it now.

Going to visit Ikea soon for ideas but again I don’t want to distract myself. It’s just so hard to find the energy for anything ATM.

Best of luck with the move Cagliostro! I’m probably biased from my own experience, but I’d say replace flooring & paint before you move if at all possible. I was hoping to redecorate various rooms and replace our living room flooring after we moved in, but it is so tricky when you have a lot of stuff as it’s hard to temporarily rehome all the furniture etc.

DIY

That's to a fb group and there's often some really good stuff on there.

We’ve bought a house and we move in ten weeks. It’s extremely exciting and I’m feeling very lucky. I’m trying to be focused and tackle a job a day. So today I bought packing tape and a tape dispenser, marker pens and some giant storage bags (cheapo ones from the dollar store). I also dig out a second hand suitcase we were given years ago.

Tomorrow I want to go to the diy store up the road because they have used boxes that you seem to be able to take home for free. I just want to see if anything will suit our needs. Then I’ll clean up the suitcase and then fill it up with fabric from my sewing stash. Can you believe that I’ve filled one huge suitcase already with fabric and that didn’t visually make a dent in my fabric hoarding!! The suitcase is so heavy now! I’m better put a hand made label on it saying HEAVY. I looked at buying labels but they seemed too expensive, I’d rather just use some of the recycling and hand write labels.

I’m mentally gearing up to declutter some old clothes, I’m certainly too big to wear some of them and I’m sure I can let some things go.

I’ve been on eBay to buy butchers paper for packing and some a4 folders for the kids never ending artwork and school stuff. Our dinning room/area table is completely covered. Sometimes I seem to be able to throw stuff off the table into the bin, other times it’s easier to file it away in a folder.

I did a load of laundry today, so that was good.

Good vibes to everyone else.

Aah that’s exciting down!

I’m really trying to hold on to the positives ATM as I’m having another freak out.

Today though I have FINALLY finished packing up the neutral baby clothes for a friend - all washed folded in labelled bags according to size, hopefully friend (she’s a foster carer so is going to store them in case they have a baby placed with them) can pick them up soon. Ideally I will do the ‘girly’ stuff by Sunday as we are going to see pregnant niece then, and if we can carry the bags it would be ideal to get them out the house.

Got rid of a few home ed things that we are never going to finish, and put aside a couple of bits to use today. HE is going to be extremely eclectic for the next few weeks I think.

I feel in a constant state of panic. Never really sure what to do next, we have so much random crap everywhere!