I haven’t been posting much lately. I definitely haven’t been posting regularly. And it’s all related to getting organized. Really.
One of the most urgent things I need to organize right now is my mother’s house – it has to be emptied and cleaned so we can sell it, and emptying it has turned out to be an enormous job. My parents always said they were organized, and the “public” parts of their house were a bit messy but not bad…but, it turns out, the other half of the house was a very different story. Clear out what you could see in one room, and you discovered yet another mess behind the first one.
So my husband and I spent a lot of the past summer working on that house, and when we weren’t at my mother’s, I was sorting through her paperwork I brought home with me. By September, I could barely use my left hand, and I was so exhausted I needed a couple of naps to get through the day.
It’s a good thing, in a way, that we had to cut way back on time spent at my mother’s house once school started; I desperately needed time to heal, and my husband wasn’t exactly bursting with energy either as he started teaching again. We’re slowly recovering – but every weekly trip to do more sorting and tossing leaves me drained again.
Aside from being too tired to post regularly, at this point I’m too tired to do more than the minimum for my own house. Even so, as soon as I finish my mom’s place, I need to start throwing out a lot of what we have here. That’s not “I need to” as in “I feel required to live up to social standards” – that’s “I need to” as in “Having a mess grates on my nerves (it never used to), and I desperately want to strip away as much as I can.”
I don’t think I’ll ever be a minimalist, but I’m starting to see the appeal.
A Number of Things 
I need to be a bit more minimalistic, Sharon, so I’m taking this as encouragement. Hope the sale goes well.
janet
I’m about at the point of feeling that any sale that takes it off my hands will be something to celebrate! It wouldn’t be bad if the house weren’t a hundred miles from here…oh well. This too shall pass.
And thank you for finding encouragement in this post – the point I was trying to make (probably not very clearly) was “Don’t let things get out of control – you’ll be sorry when it all needs to be straightened out. Or your children will.”
Take care Sharon.
Thanks, Gilly – I’m doing my best.
Take the time that you need, as along with letting your mother’s house go you are also accepting her absence and no matter how much you know she needed peace you also miss her and that is ok x
Thanks, Beverley, that’s good advice. Unfortunately, insurance companies don’t see things the same way – I’ve already been warned that some time or other, when they feel like it, if I still own the house but don’t live there they’re going to pull the plug on the homeowners’ insurance policy. So there’s that to deal with.
Unfortunately it is the same in this country. You cannot insure a house you do not live in.
I can sort of see their point, but it does mean I need to get the house on the market as soon as possible. It’s not easy when getting there and back is a five hour round trip and when my parents spent fifty-some years cramming the house full of stuff. We’ll just have to keep plugging away at it.