What to do with the piles......

Right then. It is Friday and here I am, using the new write a post thingy which I didn't even realise was there as an option in the first place. What the heck is a jumpbreak?? No doubt I will discover that in the near future. I am talking to myself. Ignore me, please.
 
The painting is over for the week, you will be relieved to hear. I have been out to get some acceptable paint brushes, as my cheapy ones were met with scorn and derision, and much muttering. The new ones clearly say "no bristle loss" and I will be holding them to that claim, believe me. And peace and calm will descend on the house once again, when the painting resumes next week. B & B, you may well be seeing a chaotic house. Be warned.

The trouble with reorganising a house is that everything gets piled into the rest of the house while one room is done, and then I absolutely do NOT want to put any of the stuff back in the decorated room. So the dilemma is what to do with it all. I need another house. A storage unit. A shed. A useable attic. A skip. Something. Sigh.

It will be getting warmer over the weekend, which will be great, so I can get out into the garden without looking like an eskimo. I suspect there will be some allotment work too, as David is around to be the muscleman. One must utilise all available help, of course! And things need to be planted. And I can pretend that the house does not have unattractive leaning towers of stuff everywhere, waiting to be sorted.

So tell me, people, where do you store your vases? Candles? Or am I the only person with plenty of both? Vases take up so much space, but I love them.

This morning, I was thinking about how nice it would be to start everything over again. Toss out the old and get new things which actually fit in the space available.  And then I started adding back in the things I couldn't bear to part with. Mainly because of the memories attached, not so much the actual things, and before I knew it, I was back where I started. I am not 20 any longer. I come with a history and a great deal of baggage of the literal sort. We will not venture into the other kind of baggage at this point. I have boxes of things my children made for me. They are the first to say get rid of them, but I can't. They don't remember what I remember. Just because they were there does not mean their memories mirror mine - mine are of the adult variety, and I remember not only my children as babies, toddlers and little ones, but also how I felt about them, and life too, and who I was back then.

Sometimes, it is just those little things which trigger the memories which are back in a dusty corner of my mind. As you get older, the triggers are very useful indeed, seeing that I can't remember where I put my glasses at least 4 times a day, or what I am doing from one minute to the next.

So I can't get rid of them. Not yet. And then, there are things I may let go with no qualms at all, but they mean a great deal to my children who have yet to establish their own homes, and who would love to take some of them with them when they do. One day.

So the piles stay for now. My efforts to minimalise my life are failing dismally.Ostrich mode. That is what I need. Or blinkers.