Dejunking and the domestic environment.

Now that Mairi is at school full time, I have six...read it again, SIX hours a day four days a week without her. Plus Friday mornings. Freedom......You might think that I`m having a grand time with all this spare time? Weeelll...sort of. As I`ve said before, the major building repairs start in October. So I`m trying to get ahead of myself with tidying up the house, and getting rid of any unneccesary junk.

Of which we have a lot. A LOT. We`ve been here for eight years, and most of these have been troubled times, what with Robbie`s illness and death, and the aftermath. Keeping a neat, tidy and clutter free house has not been much of a priority....I`m not one of these strange people that gain solace from scrubbing things. I prefer to go to the allotment. So over the past years the junk has rather taken over.

I`m not talking about the hobby stuff...no, that`s not junk, though goodness knows there`s enough of that too! But you know how it is...you buy something new, but do you get rid of the old one? Not if you`re me. You put it in a cupboard because "It might come in handy if the old one breaks". Well and good, but once you`ve done this three or four times, you forget that you had the original one in the first place, don`t you? And if the current one does break (none of them have ever broken, btw,)then would you use the old one? Well perhaps...for as long as it took to go out and buy a new one.

This makes me sound like the consumer slut from hell, doesn`t it? With cupboards bursting with barely used appliances etc? Nothing so interesting sadly. But things like worn out linen, cooking utensils, elderly pots and pans...they all seem to breed in my cupboards. It doesn`t help that when my late sister in law died I ended up with all her vastly superior kitchen equipment....but didn`t throw my own out.

And multiply that for the whole house, and every possible type of item you can think of.

I have a problem, don`t I..........?????????

Anyway, a combination of the upcoming building works and time to do something about it has focussed my attention on this problem. I don`t want to be moving all this junk out of the way of the workies...and then move it all back into the cupboards again, do I? So...I`m dejunking. Charity shops, recycling, the dump, unwilling friends and Ebay. The target I set myself was at least one 80 litre binbag a day. This is easy, btw...some days I`m managing three or four. So over the course of the last month, I figure I`ve cleared out.....60 bags?

SO WHY IS IT THE HOUSE LOOKS NO DIFFERENT?????????????????