I ‘ve been through a tough time recently which has taken me away from home and family. Now I’m back I’m reconnecting with my life … by having a really good sort-out throughout the house.
There’s nothing quite as therapeutic as a good clear out. Last year I had a purge on the freezer, producing some interesting meals and some amusing dinner conversations. Now I’ve concocted recipes to use up random ingredients from my baking cupboard and pickle drawer, and worked my way through the tinned foods – you’d be surprised how many meals you can add kidney beans to.
In the bathroom, I’ve used up all the old soaps, dusty cosmetics and mini shower gels collected from hotel rooms over the years – we all take them thinking they’ll come in handy, but they never do!
I have to admit, the other reason for this mind set is that for the first time in our married life hubby and I have ordered some proper grown up bedroom furniture. We’ve always managed with left overs and hand me downs in heavy wood or mismatched pine with Winnie the Pooh Stickers still in evidence. But now winging its way from a popular furniture retailer is a new bed with storage underneath and a suite of wardrobes and dressers to make our bedroom ‘designer’ for the first time ever.
So now’s the time to empty out the wardrobes and have a good sift through the shapeless black T-shirt collection which has increased in my absence, and the surprisingly large selection of navy and white striped tops that seem to suddenly dominate my seasonal offerings. Boot leg jeans that I haven’t worn in years need to go, as well as summer dresses that I always love the idea of but look like a dog’s dinner in! I’m working on the basis that if I haven’t worn it in the last six months then I really don’t need it. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule but generally I’m trying to stick to it and get things gone!
So all the cupboards, dressers, shelves and cabinets are being systematically emptied and sorted. The poor fellow who puts one of those charity bags through the door has no idea what he’s letting himself in for.
My Achilles heel is going to be the garage. Along with the stuff that we haven’t unpacked since we moved almost four years ago I now have a lot of boxes from my parents’ home which, whilst I don’t really want or need most of it, I’m not sure now is the time to get rid. So that will all have to be squirrelled into corners and shuffled into other spaces.
We also have four bikes – three of which are broken including one with no saddle – and to get to anything I’ve got to wrestle with them first. For now I’m just thinking of the satisfaction I’ll get once it’s completed and everything has its place. Maybe I could even get the old bedroom furniture into the garage and make use of it there – now there’s a thought!