Housekeeping

It’s getting pretty deep around here–meaning that our many belongings are gathering forces in various piles and preparing to take over the house, or at least the space we would prefer to use to walk it. I meant to deal with it this afternoon, but my lovely friend Mimi invited me over to drink Sangria and watch the kids play in the sprinkler instead, and–well, at least when we’re not some, what already IS clean stays clean!

But this weekend I really have to get to it. Winter is surely not fully over, but the need for ski coats and full on snow boots (as opposed to bogs, which double as rainboots) is over, and mittens and hats are on the way out. Ski boots–those can go (I at least did the skis)…but all of that would be easy. The trouble is just the piles. In our house, they tend to be baskets–as in, this basket of things I took out of my car when I cleaned it, or the basket of stuff I cleared out of the living room when we had people over. we just–there’s just too much stuff. You read about the “hammer problem” in which a hammer is so hard to find that people just go buy a new hammer, and on the one hand I have that, and on the other I fear it so much that I sometimes have trouble getting rid of stuff. I can be ruthless with clothes and shoes, it’s STUFF that’s hard for me. Old cd cases, one of a set of walkie talkies, a broken remote control helicopter that might someday work again…I have two problems, and one is a fear that we might need it, and will thus immediately replace it, and the other is guilt about throwing it away. Couldn’t I have just one guilt amnesty in which I get to ruthlessly get rid of everything and try to do better next time?


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