When I have tried to stop my hoarder from one of his crazy wild spending sprees it always ended up badly for me.
He would get extremely angry at me if I said anything to question his purchasing choices.

How would you react if someone popped your balloon?

But somewhere deep down inside him he must have heard my voice and my logical reasoning.
All on his own now he has begun to slow down and take the time to think things through before getting to the check out register.

He must have wanted to make the buy/not buy decisions all on his own.
Hates being told "no". Feels deprived when the big bad bully won't let him enjoy the high of the buy.

Before you get to the check out counter STOP and reel yourself in.
It is perfectly alright to fill your cart full of everything you can grab and then not follow through with actually buying it.

STOP and think it through.

Look at each item and ask yourself "WHY do I feel the need to own this???
"What do I already own that is just as good/useful/a joy to own as this new item???"

Then remember that you can always go back later and get it if you find that you really do need it.

Part of the hoarder's buying high is achieved from getting immediate gratification.
Force yourself to wait.
Take time to reevaluate each item.
Think about all that you already have sitting neglected at home.
Learn to distinguish between what you truly need from that what you only want.

(((hug)))

Dianne :)

(((hugs)))
Happy the shopping/buying spree was for others and all you got to bring home was a good feeling for helping/treating others. :D

Hi Roxie :)

There are several ways to tackle dust.
One thing I feel is important is to try to contain it to keep it from all going up in the air and settling on other stuff.

The vacuum with the attachments is great for sucking it up. Sucks up spiders too. ;)

A damp rag, one wrung out real well, is also a great dust grabber.
Often times you will need to rinse the rag out a couple of times before the job is finished.

I don't know how well those fancy "dusters" work since I have never used one.
I hear they are expensive and you have to buy replacement dust pads as they get dirty and can't be washed out.

Sometimes I use a bucket of water with some Murphy's oil soap and a soft rag to wash dust off.
Makes the house smell real pretty. :)

When looking at that dust and procrastinating about dusting remember what you are really allergic to is the dust mite's poop contained in all the dust.

Hope I answered your question, if I left something out let me know and I will try again. :)

Good morning :D

Been listening to some Andrew Mellen videos on youtube this morning while going through all my kitchen finding stuff to let go of before I do a major washing the dust off the entire area.
Summertime with the windows open 24/7, living in the desert, where the wind blows a lot, off a dirt (unpaved) road, things tend to get very dusty very quickly.
Now that the house is all closed up for the winter I can do a deep clean in here & things will stay clean for a long time. :D

I am having fun sorting out and reorganizing.
The key to keeping out clutter is to regularly reevaluate everything as to WHY do I have this?
Do I use it? Do I need it? Do I have another similar thing that I like better? Do I truly treasure it? Does having it add to my life or take away from it by my having to clean and store and take care of this thing?

Some things I have had and was happy to have them.
But times have changed and so have I.
The items no longer suit my lifestyle or tastes.
Once these items are removed from my life I find that I can then enjoy what I am keeping all the more.
This is when I can see that saying
Less Is More
come true in my life. ;D

I washed the bathroom floor, hand-washed a few dishes, and cleaned off the stove and counter top; then I took a break, finished off the last of a carton of ice cream, and checked my email.

Unfortunately one pending email involved a puzzle that I then spent a lot of time solving -- completely forgetting that I was going to run the dishwasher and wash the kitchen floor tonight. Fortunately, the dishwasher was already loaded -- I've just now started it running -- and the kitchen will probably be good enough without scrubbing, if I sweep any food bits off of the floor.

Looks like I'll need to go out tomorrow afternoon to take care of one more banking item; I have a credit card bill that's due on Monday, even though that's a holiday and the bank will be closed then. Then clean the living room and take a shower before guests arrive.

Thanks Roxie! I am trying to find some balance for sure and breaking up my chores is something I find very difficult. I ended up doing the three loads of laundry because I needed darks clean for work and my bedding should be washed separately. I also needed clean towels. So I washed three but I have a few more that I managed to leave for later.

When those were done I didn't want to put them away because then I want to take out all of my clothes so I know how to organize them "properly." It makes me want to cry to think of just folding them and putting them in the drawer. In the interest of breaking myself of this behavior I settled for refolding three drawers and putting the newly laundered clothes in those drawers with the stuff I refolded. I put away the towels and bedding. Bedding takes forever because I struggle with folding fitted sheets. I get so frustrated I have to calm myself down by counting and taking breaths. I did this hours ago but I'm still thinking about them in the closet.

As I was working on the laundry I found a few hair ties I put in my nightstand and that made me want to pull everything out of the nightstand drawers. Same went for when I needed a bandaid and had to go in the linen closet for one. I wanted to rip out everything in there. It's exhausting.

I think I'm extra edgy tonight because I have my first therapy appointment in the morning.

Today I picked up some groceries, returned the audiobook to the library, and deposited a check, before finally sitting down to a late breakfast. Party is tomorrow; I'll try to get the bathroom and kitchen adequately clean tonight, so that I can focus more on clearing the living room tomorrow.

Good morning everybody! :D

Hi Diane :)
WTG! on getting outside work done!. :D
Big (((HUGS))) for facing the end of life issues with your Father.

Hi Roxie :)
That is GREAT! news about the new doctor being able to take you on as a patient! :D
Whatever the test results are you can now get them under control. :)

Hi Dianne :)
Love reading how you are taking a stand and insisting that you get the services you deserve!
No more Mrs. Nice Guy. ;D

Hi Karl :)
WAY TO GO! for all you have accomplished! :D
Wonderful about getting that credit card paid off! :D

Hi Jess :)
Welcome to the message board! :D
WAY TO GO! making daily plans and getting stuff done. ;)

Hi to all you who read and haven't posted! :D

Well, been a busy two days for me.
Tuesday I was going to tidy up the kitchen but there weren't enough dishes to bother with washing...
So I make some chocolate butter cookies with the cookie press. :D
Then I washed dishes & wiped down the kitchen.
Wednesday I really needed to get the front lawn raked because all that heavy debris from the tree cutting down was smothering the grass.
Got the grass all raked clean and then just kept raking all around in my little yard/garden/oasis/sanctuary area.
Was so much fun being outside in the fresh air & sunshine with all five cats out there playing around. :D
Really over did..
Had cramps in my legs during the night. LOL :D
Today I have two loads of laundry hanging out on the line.
Weather report said it will be cloudy & windy today but no chance of rain.
Planning to sit, watch Netflix and do some sewing today.
When the wash is dry I will bring it in, fold it and put it away.

:D

Okay so by the time I got everything sorted and I stripped the bedding I realized I work at noon today instead of 4 and I don't have time to wash it before work. Tried not to panic. Made a phone call I've been putting off about schedule a service appointment for my car. Felt a little better.

Good morning everyone! Glad to see everyone taking steps to get things done.

We are putting in an offer on that house today, though I'm trying not to get attached. If we can't agree on a bit of a longshot price it's not going to happen. The seller is flipping the house and asking way more than it seems he put into, so we'll see what he's willing to take. This is still all new to us, as we've never owned before, but I'm proud of my husband and me for the research we've done.

I got up early to tackle that laundry. I think it's unhealthy to marathon clean like I always do so I'm going to do three loads and put them away before the other stuff is done. Then I'm going to make myself tell you guys if I don't actually do it. I'm much more of a planner than a doer if you know what I mean.

Tillie, glad it was computer and not your health.
Today I got more dishes done, started a pot of soup, still have to take meat off chicken I boiled.
Washed outside of bedroom windows then put plastic over them. Did vacuum living room and part of kitchen cleaned. Took more stuff off deck and put in shed, like a big umbrella and chaise pads. Washed some wool in hot water to shrink it for felting, turned out good. Supposed to be heavy winds tomorrow, so was good to get plastic on windows today. Hopefully will get more cleaning done tomorrow.

HI :D
Was offline because the little blinky light box was malfunctioning and he finally got it to work but now it's late and I am tired.
Looking forward to "seeing" you all tomorrow morning! :D

I have to be ready in a couple hours to go check out a house my husband and I might be interested in buying. We're in an apartment right now. I'm stuck, as usual, trying to decide what to do first. I wish I had done my laundry yesterday and that keeps nagging at me. I don't have time to do it all before we have to leave and I have a really hard time starting things like that without being able to finish. That's why I tend to not start.

My husband likes to do things spontaneously which is sometimes a trial for me. We don't have to leave until four but he said he may pop out of work around 2:30. That keeps nagging at me too, wondering when he'll show up and if he'll interrupt what I'm doing to leave early.

The thought of doing only one load of laundry makes my head hurt. I don't like to put clean laundry away without reorganizing all of my drawers and I "can't do" that without having all the laundry clean. But if I don't try to get some done today I probably won't do any and I'll feel really awful about that too. Sigh.

But okay, I'm going to make myself shower and get ready and run to the store for the flashlight I need. Maybe by then I'll know his plans and I can at the very least sort the laundry.

after rereading my last post, I realized a sentence had been lost. After the first part about the leaves, I said I put all the tools on the deck into the garage where they belong. When I read my post without the sentence it sounded like the leaves were in the garage, not so!!!

Dianne, so glad I signed on to read your posts. Life is one challenge after another it seems, sorry you are having so many challenges at once.
Today it was cold but didn't rain, so I went out and cleaned up all the fallen leaves, they get slimey on the rocks after it rains and snows, took a long time, not easy getting them up from gravel, and the wind didn't help! It was so fun being outside, stayed in all day yesterday.The garage where they should be for the winter. Then I brought firewood up onto the deck, supposed to rain/snow next few days and be cold so wanted wood up here. The deck collected stuff that I used and didn't put away. It is a long process getting used to putting things away since for 65 years, I have just left stuff where I used it, then could not find it when needed again.
I spoke on the phone for over an hour this morning with the nurse practitioner that treated my dad and missed the cancer until it was too late. It was a chance meeting a year ago at a wedding that she happened to sit next to me. She said she retired from the town my dad lived in, as we talked, I realized who she was, never met before. I did not tell her at the wedding about my dad. Last week, I finally asked a mutual friend to give her my phone number and say I would like some closure on dads death. She was so helpful and kind. It was so emotional reliving the events. I said I did not blame her at all, just wanted more information. I cried and was emotional the rest of the day, thus the leaf pickup, my therapy is being outside doing menial tasks. I am forgiving myself for not working inside, the phone call was my work for today. Tomorrow will be more productive inside, with rain outside, hooray. So happy we can share all the things going on in our life. Shopping did enter my mind after the phone call, I rationally told myself shopping would not heal the wounds of losing my dad, he would be proud of me for working in the yard instead, thus work in yard and deck.

Good Monday morning everybody :D

Hi Dianne :)
So wonderful reading about how your new bed is taking good care of you! :D
WAY TO GO!!!
Getting so much accomplished!!! :D

Hi Karl :)
It was a LOT of fun last night discussing the plans for your party. :D
Packing up....
have boxes ready
try to pack like things with like or room items together like bathroom, kitchen items.
If you have time or the inclination, write down what is in each box in a notebook and label the boxes.
At this point in time don't over think and complicate the process.
Just get the stuff into the boxes best you can.
Good luck! You CAN do this! :D


Monday morning,
Still not back to my old self but feeling a lot better than I was.
My spirits are good and I plan to enjoy the day and also get some things accomplished.
Nothing major yet.
We all tend to over do after we have been sick for too long and end up just exhausting ourselves and it then takes even longer to get back on our feet.
I will tidy up the bathroom, do cat stuff, sweep and vacuum the carpet.
The kitchen is good, been keeping it maintained.
So much I want to do, but it will have to wait.

Hope all your plans for today go smoothly for you. :)

Last night's chat session went GREAT!
The new chatroom worked like a charm and has a lot of fun features.
Hope to see more people join in there. :D

Bike reassembly and ride went OK. Monday's plan is now to ride in the opposite direction to deliver the overdue rent check.

For some reason, it took me an hour and a half to compose the text (most of which I already had from a template) announcing my pot luck dinner, games, and housecooling party. I added a note that I don't have a new place yet, and if anyone has a spare room they'd like to rent, I'd be open to discussing it. This might produce something better than I was finding on craigslist.

I thought I was going to get more packing done today, but somehow between the Sunday chat and the email -- OK, and a few Web comics too -- I seem to have run out of awake-time.

Good morning :)

I am trying to change the settings on my main clock.
It's one of those digital ones that gets the correct time from a satelite way out in space but I need to find the setting for turning "off" daylight savings time.
Wish I could find the buttons to change all the cat's clock settings too.

Yesterday was a really nice day.
Two different couples came by at different times to visit. :D

Also went to town to grocery shop.
Only two grocery stores in town any more. :(
We went to WallyWorld (walmart) because their prices are better than Safeway.
While leaving the store I noticed a shopping cart in the parking lot with a ladie's purse in the seat area.
I looked around and waited to see if she would come back.
After a while I picked up the purse and took it inside to customer service and told them where I'd found it.
The woman said that they would take care of getting it back to the owner.

It is overcast & rain cloudy here today.
Good day to find interesting indoor activities.

Hope to see you all in chat tonight.
I will log into both chat rooms so I don't miss anybody. ;)

Hi Karl :)

Hope you get your bike back together & it all goes smoothly for you. ;)

OK, we can try the new chatroom.
My screen doesn't allow me to see the whole page & I have to scroll up & down but if we can post enough so that the whole screen shows then it would be doable for me.
I found the buttons at the bottom of the page to change the color back ground and that makes it easier to read.

In the separate JAVA thread, I suggested that for this week's chat session, we try using the experimental new chat instead of the old one -- see if it works better, and keep a record of what does not. How does everyone feel about that?

In the input box for your nickname, the default is "Guest", and I think you'll have to backspace over that in order to enter your name, but you won't have to backspace over the text in every line you send.

If your screen is too small to display the entire chat window, you might have to scroll up and down at first, to see what people have said while you were typing; but once we've had about 35 lines of content -- or 18 if you select the large font -- the newest text will be at the bottom anyway, so I think that should work out well enough.

Saturday: Went to social event by bicycle. Someone offered me a ride home, but I had to disassemble part of the bike to fit it into his car.

After I got home, the host emailed me to let me know that I'd left several items behind; I'll have to go back and get them, but first I'll need to see if I can reassemble the bike. Bleagh. At least I'll be able to make the round trip by daylight (if I start out soon enough).

Hi Tillie,
Haha! I very rarely wear high heels. I don't really like wearing high heels that much. The only reason I wore them to the party was because they looked really good with my costume. :)

ATTENTION

this is a public service announcement

Remember to turn your clocks back one hour

Thank You :D

Good morning :D

Hi Roxie :)
WAY TO GO! for getting some stuff done.
Good luck getting a handle on the "just drop it where ever" clutter.
Try to get the most important/urgent winterizing done. Neglecting that can & will cost you more in the long run. ;)

Hi MayMay :)
Since I have never had any desire to wear high heals, I never have.
But I have had many a good laugh laughing at my sister every time she fell off her shoes. ;D

Hi Karl :)
Wonderful that you found a way to pay the one bill without the extra bank fees! :D
That's one of the terms of zero percent interest credit cards. One little late payment and they hit you very hard with high rates. :(
Happy you have the "Bank of Mom & Dad" to help you out. :)

Today the guy that is getting all the wood from the tree will be coming by this morning to start hauling it away.
Other than that I have no idea what the plans are for today.
I need to get some food.
Fridge is really empty right now.
Have my list all made out.
Fed the cats.
Need to freshen their water bowls & scoop their litter boxes.
Right now I will go get dressed & all that.

Busy day! :D

Thanks Tillie and Roxie,
The party was a blast! Matt, Cory, and Snuggles all looked hilarious in their costumes. The only bad thing is now I'm all battered and bruised from falling down more than 5 times at last night's party. I always have trouble walking in heels; and the boots that I wore last night, with my costume, had 6 inch heels on them. :D

Hi Dianne :)
Thank you (((hugs))) :)

Got a lot accomplished and am now taking a break & resting up before I continue.

A good restful night's sleep will really make a big difference in most every thing you do.
So happy you finally got the new beds! :D

Good luck getting the outside winterizing done before winter weather really sets in hard.

I plant something over my graves. Bushes, iris, daffodils, etc.
My main cemetery is getting too full and I will need to find another spot some day. :(
My neighbor has the same situation in her garden too.
So many fur babies that we all love and miss.

Just keep working at that decluttering and organizing and someday soon you will be able to find everything easily because everything will have a place and be right there. ;D

Break time is over, now back to the salt mines. haha

Good morning :)

Friday, November 1st. 2013

Weather is supposed to be pleasant today and tomorrow so I will do some winterizing.
Since it has already snowed and melted, I no longer need to water stuff in the yard again till Spring.
I will lay out the hoses, drain them & roll them up & store them away.
I will completely cover the outside faucets with insulation to try to keep them from freezing and breaking.
I will cover some windows with plastic. Hate having to do that because I like being able to see clearly out of them but they are old & leaky & let in a LOT of cold air.
I need to replace some insulation strips around the doors.
The strom door on the back door is not a good door at all.
My hoarder has about 3 other storm doors in the hoard. There is one out there that would fit and do a much better job at reducing the air flow.
I will keep trying to get him to swap out the doors.


My plans for today.....
hang out my laundry
clean the kitchen
try to get him to use up some of the food he has been storing in the freezer for over a year
do cat related tasks
weather proof around here

Getting depressed about not accomplishing much around here lately but with the horrid painful rash of shingles you also get fever and fatigue.
I should be happy with myself for at least keeping up with the daily maintenance. ;)

A whole new month, a fresh start for all our plans. :D

Hi MayMay
Hope you are having a lot of FUN! :D





Hi SusanL :)
Wonderful to hear from you! :D
Hoping all your paper piles are soon very small. ;)

Hi Cory :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN :D

Only 3 of us were in Sunday chat and another poster joined us later.

We decided that even with all the issues, the regular chat room was easier to use than the new one.

We are getting pretty good at back spacing to erase our previous post before writing a new post and when the site goes all crazy printing out a post multiple times, we just bear with it.

Yes, we really are crazy, but in a fun way. :D