The trip to the carpet shop didn’t go too well this morning so we won’t talk about that. To take my mind off it, I decided to go to my cluttered hideaway, aka the garage, and sort sort sort. I was in the mood for clearing stuff which is always a good thing when you’ve held onto many years’ worth of stuff for one reason or another.

I started off feeling really motivated to clear space and get rid of things. I pulled out box after box, opening each one and making a quick decision about whether is was a ‘to be sorted’ box or a ‘definitely don’t want’ box. I also managed to find hidden strength to move things and be ruthless with what I was throwing away.

I came across a box of plastic kitchen toys and brought it into the house to clean it all up so that I could either sell or donate it. Bizarrely, it was at that exact point in time that my youngest happened to be taking photos of childhood items for her GCSE project so that she could draw them in a later lesson. She ask me what else she could include and I showed her the box of kitchen toys.

I washed and dried them and she took a few bits for her project. She then helped me sort them all out and arrange them so they I could take photos for selling.

We then categorised them into colours for a bit of fun and I took a photo for Instagram. It’s all back in the box now and ready for selling.

I returned back to the garage and continued sorting boxes and moving things into categories until around 6pm. I found so many boxes of stuff I didn’t want and I was literally stashing them over the other side of the room ready to bag up for my charity shop run on 13 Oct.

How was I feeling after the clearing session?

Annoyed is a word I would use today. What was my reason for keeping some of this stuff that I clearly didn’t need? I came across things like coats, bags, kitchen crockery, kitchen appliances, toys, baby stuff, old cameras, old phones, a videos player and cassettes, toys, curtains, speakers and so on. I even found one big box containing my rucksack from my travelling days.

Embarrassed is another word to describe how I was feeling about the clutter today. This is because it’s taken me over 12 years to get round to going through some of these boxes. I’d completely forgotten I had a lot of this stuff.

Although a lot of what I was doing today was assessing and moving, I did manage to quite easily fill a couple of charity bags and half a black sack of rubbish. I also took out three empty boxes for recycling. I do love seeing an empty box when I’m clearing, as it gives me a sense of accomplishment.

I wore a mask whilst clearing, as getting to these old boxes was dusty work. I couldn’t wait to get in the shower after I’d finished.

My day didn’t stop there… the grocery shopping turned up, and then I made a mince beef and onion pie from scratch…

It was actually nice to eventually get to sit down and eat.

We just watched a good film called ‘Just Mercy’. It’s based on a real story apparently.

It’s been a long day but I’ve got loads done and I’m pleased with my progress. I think I’ll sleep well tonight.

Hope you’re all enjoying your weekend.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra