We Have a New Rule in Our House.....

Beginning this weekend, we have a new rule in our house:

• If you bring any ONE thing into this house (new, old, refurbished, free, damaged, pristine, borrowed, stolen, inherited, whatever), you have to get rid of TWO other things.

We have made two trips to goodwill and one to the trash dump, and we haven't even made a dent. How in the world did we accumulate this much junk?

I guess Hubby has a better excuse than I do, since he has lived in this house for going on 38 years. I've only been here for going on 14 years, and it seems that I have a lot more junk than he does.

I've already warned him that I'm on a roll, and the basement is next. I won't insist that he get rid of his prized possession, a '69 Ford pickup truck that lives in the basement because he bought it brand new and had it semi-restored a few years ago. But everything else is fair game.

Except my bicycle. And the tandem. And my kayak.

If we'd had the energy and the time or organize a yard sale, I'll bet we could have made $1000. And we aren't even finished yet. But if goodwill can benefit from our stuff, I don't mind donating it.

I'm just tired of hauling it downstairs.

Someone is Always Worse (Off) Than You Are.....

I've been beating myself up (when I'm being honest and not trying to blame it on Hubby) all week because of all the C-R-A-P I have to go through so we can get these renovations done. I am far from a packrat, but I do tend to hang onto things "just in case" I ever need them. I had a junk room in the "computer room," which is also where all my clothes are stored because for some reason in the late 60's and early 70's home builders APPARENTLY DIDN'T THINK PEOPLE NEEDED CLOSET SPACE. Then when Sweet Girl moved out and took her bedroom furniture, her old room became a convenient place to store things. Or just shove them in the room and shut the door so we didn't have to look at them. I've known for weeks....months that I needed to declutter my house.

I read an article online tonight, though, that makes me feel better. Apparently a 67-year-old woman went missing in Las Vegas, and they've been searching for her for 4 months. Four months, people. Several times police had searched the home where she lived with her husband, even using dogs from the same unit that helped locate bodies after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Posters were put up, rewards offered, leads investigated, the desert searched.

Then her husband found her.

Dead.

In their home.

When he noticed her feet sticking out of a floor-to-ceiling pile of junk.

Four months, people.

They don't know how long she's been dead, but I'm relatively certain she didn't just lie down under all that junk to take a nap.

Seems she was one of those hoarders, evidently a pathological one. Investigators had a hard time investigating the scene because of the horrific odors and the piles of junk.

Suddenly I feel better about myself.

You can read the whole story here.

My Brain is Mush.....

Tonight is one of those nights when I can't seem to string together two coherent thoughts. Sometimes during the school year I have the excuse of what I call "brain overload," when I'm so busy that I can't corral my thoughts.

Tonight is NOT one of those nights.

I haven't done a single useful thing all day. Well, let me rephrase that. I haven't exactly been a whirling dervish of activity today. We had breakfast out, went by the golf outlet in town (I bought a 100% silk blouse for $5), and then Hubby got ready to go play golf. By the time he was out of the house and I could settle in to watch Wimbledon, I got a news flash on my cell phone that Serena had won. So much for watching.

I washed the sheets on our bed, and that is the only productive thing I can point to today. And really, how much time does that take? Five minutes to strip the bed and take the sheets down to the laundry room in the basement, two minutes to switch them from the washer to the dryer, two minutes to go back and get them, five minutes to remake the bed.

That's all I can document from my whole day.

I have read, floated in the pool, played a bajillion games of Mario, watched a baseball game, read some more, read some blogs, talked to my Sweet Girl, and eaten chips, dip, and pizza.

Maybe I'll be more productive tomorrow. I may even sound slightly more intelligent. But don't count on it. It's summer, after all.

And the freaks relatives from Hubby's side of the family are coming over tomorrow for a torture session pool party.

Feeling Risky.....

Let me preface this blog post with the statement that some things shouldn't be shared even with faithful friends and blog readers. People should have enough self-respect not to tell some things about oneself.

I know that.

But tonight I'm feeling particularly risky. Not to be confused with frisky.

Don't you hate it when you do one thing, but accomplishing it requires that you do something else, and that thing requires that you do yet another thing?

That's why I don't get much housecleaning done. It reproduces itself exponentially.

Today I could not summon my usual litany of excuses not to go to the grocery store, because I was already out and I had to go right past the grocery store to get home. So I stopped to get that onerous chore done, because I knew once I got home I wouldn't want to go out again to shop for groceries. I hate grocery shopping.

Because they had a good sale on cereal, I bought three boxes of it. And when I got home, there wasn't room in the cabinet for all three boxes.

So I started cleaning out the cabinet over the stove, which is where we keep the cereal. I knew there were some items up there that predated my existence in this house.

Did I mention recently that Hubby has lived in this house since 1973? That explains the harvest gold tile in the hall bathroom. We got rid of the avocado green shag carpeting in two bedrooms when I moved in twelve years ago.

But it can't explain some of the things I found in the cabinet today. Please don't judge me based on the fact that I don't regularly clean out cabinets that I can't reach. I just shove things in at the front and hope they don't fall out on my head next time I open the door.

I cannot explain the presence of not one but two unopened bottles of Karo Light Corn Syrup in the cabinet. Even before Hubby was diagnosed with diabetes, we didn't eat pancakes much. And when we did, we certainly didn't put this on them. He says his most recent ex-wife sometimes made pecan pies, and that might be why one bottle is in there. I would suspect that it's the cloudy one that dates back to her days here. Did I mention I've lived here for 12 years? I may have bought the other bottle in the throes of some temporary insanity that made me think I might make candy or something. But I really don't remember.

These cute little guys were tucked back in the corner behind the vegetable oil and some margarita salt. I can't imagine either of Hubby's former wives using these; perhaps they were a gift. I just know that I had never laid eyes on them before. Until today, when I looked at them briefly just before dropping them in the trash can.

This one is really embarrassing. Hubby almost exclusively drinks beer these days, so I was puzzled about the packets of whiskey sour mix. He said he and ex-wife #1 sometimes drank whiskey sours.

They divorced when my step-daughter was a teenager.

She just turned 40.

Oh.

My.

Lord.

I also found a box of instant oatmeal that I DO remember buying. The box said "Weight-Loss Formula" on it, and I remember thinking that was a great concept. Just eat this oatmeal and you'll lose weight. It didn't work, and I don't particularly like instant oatmeal (although I love the old-fashioned kind), so it got relegated to the back of the cabinet. Not only did it say "Weight-Loss Formula" on it, it also said "Best by February 2006." Sigh.

This one, however, takes the cake.

The only thing I will offer in my own defense is that there are inherent dangers when you get married and your spouse already has an established household. You can't go in and dump EVERYTHING in the trash right off the bat, because you don't really know what was his, what was hers, and what was theirs. So you have to kind of ease into it, throw things a little at a time so as not to ruffle any feathers. I've merely been polite and considerate of Hubby's feelings by allowing these things to stay in the kitchen cabinets for the past 12 years.

No wonder he pales every time I mention a new house. Our basement is like the kitchen cabinets on major steroids.

I think there should be a law requiring citizens to move every five years or so, just so they have to go through cabinets and basements and get rid of junk.

Particularly following divorces.