![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderI'm just sort of venting.
We have too much stuff. We just do.
My husband has a garage full of stuff, some useful, some not.
I have a ton of stuff in various rooms of our house. Some useful, some not.
It's really tough to get rid of things for me. I grew up poor, and having it drilled into me that you didn't throw things away, you just used them or saved them or made sure someone could use it.
It had to be absolutely ruined in some way before it was okay to toss it. Ruined in a way that you couldn't fix it or save part of it (think clothing, where you could use the fabric for something), or just RUINED.
So, if I have a box of books from College that I somehow thought I would read again just for fun, I hate to toss them. They are out of date. A thrift store probably doesn't want them. It makes me sad.
Fabric that I don't even WANT to get rid of.
Clothes that I have a lot of, but I have basically my day to day clothes that I wear until they are rags, and fairly fancy things that I never get to wear, and then some nice clothes that I wear once in a while.
Right now 90% of it fits, and I have the desire to wear most of it.
Then there is just the horrendous mess in the basement because my husband has been using our basement as a workshop as we work on the house. There's boxes of that mixed mess you get...a box with bits and pieces from things, chunks of wire, tape, little tools that don't even have a place to go.
My husband has talked about "organizing" the basement by putting shelving into the utility room for his stuff...stuff that doesn't belong in the house at all, but in the garage shop.
I wonder if the stuff he's got in the basement right now could even fit in the garage shop again.
Here we are, going on six years of having this house, and it still feels like we're never going to really live in most of it, just huddled here on the main floor in our four main rooms and the bathroom that is very unappealing and feels like it will never be replaced.
I hate feeling this way.
I hate the power that "stuff" has over me.
I'm feeling like at this point, our stuff is actually keeping us from enjoying our home, and I wonder how it got this bad, and why it's so hard to just pass it along or throw it away.
I DO get rid of things. Slowly. Very slowly. I miss very little of it when it's gone.
I feel a little badly over spending money on things that never got used, or maybe just spent most of its life in a box somewhere, instead of being appreciated.
I don't really want to be a minimalist, but I sometimes wish I could have that level of cleanliness and space.
I like open spaces in a home. Not empty, but open.
I hate how parts of the house have become full with stored items that are nearly impossible to access.
That means those things might as well not exist, if you can't get to them or can't see them. You end up buying other things because you can't find what you're looking for.
It's frustrating, and it feels overwhelming to try to do something about it.
I truly hope my husband can get the basement finished soon, because I feel like then we can start confronting our book situation and make some decisions, and if we do that, we could free up a storage area.
We could also maybe finally get all the tools and wood out of the house, and back to the garage where they belong.
I spent a bit of time confronting a pile of "maybe get rid of" stuff, and found at least a few books that are probably just good to donate straight to the local "book swap" in the lobby of the post office.
I've got some new ads up in Marketplace, though I wonder what I will do if no one is interested.
I shouldn't feel badly about just donating things to a thrift store even if I paid money for it.
Well, that's my thoughts for today.
We have too much stuff. We just do.
My husband has a garage full of stuff, some useful, some not.
I have a ton of stuff in various rooms of our house. Some useful, some not.
It's really tough to get rid of things for me. I grew up poor, and having it drilled into me that you didn't throw things away, you just used them or saved them or made sure someone could use it.
It had to be absolutely ruined in some way before it was okay to toss it. Ruined in a way that you couldn't fix it or save part of it (think clothing, where you could use the fabric for something), or just RUINED.
So, if I have a box of books from College that I somehow thought I would read again just for fun, I hate to toss them. They are out of date. A thrift store probably doesn't want them. It makes me sad.
Fabric that I don't even WANT to get rid of.
Clothes that I have a lot of, but I have basically my day to day clothes that I wear until they are rags, and fairly fancy things that I never get to wear, and then some nice clothes that I wear once in a while.
Right now 90% of it fits, and I have the desire to wear most of it.
Then there is just the horrendous mess in the basement because my husband has been using our basement as a workshop as we work on the house. There's boxes of that mixed mess you get...a box with bits and pieces from things, chunks of wire, tape, little tools that don't even have a place to go.
My husband has talked about "organizing" the basement by putting shelving into the utility room for his stuff...stuff that doesn't belong in the house at all, but in the garage shop.
I wonder if the stuff he's got in the basement right now could even fit in the garage shop again.
Here we are, going on six years of having this house, and it still feels like we're never going to really live in most of it, just huddled here on the main floor in our four main rooms and the bathroom that is very unappealing and feels like it will never be replaced.
I hate feeling this way.
I hate the power that "stuff" has over me.
I'm feeling like at this point, our stuff is actually keeping us from enjoying our home, and I wonder how it got this bad, and why it's so hard to just pass it along or throw it away.
I DO get rid of things. Slowly. Very slowly. I miss very little of it when it's gone.
I feel a little badly over spending money on things that never got used, or maybe just spent most of its life in a box somewhere, instead of being appreciated.
I don't really want to be a minimalist, but I sometimes wish I could have that level of cleanliness and space.
I like open spaces in a home. Not empty, but open.
I hate how parts of the house have become full with stored items that are nearly impossible to access.
That means those things might as well not exist, if you can't get to them or can't see them. You end up buying other things because you can't find what you're looking for.
It's frustrating, and it feels overwhelming to try to do something about it.
I truly hope my husband can get the basement finished soon, because I feel like then we can start confronting our book situation and make some decisions, and if we do that, we could free up a storage area.
We could also maybe finally get all the tools and wood out of the house, and back to the garage where they belong.
I spent a bit of time confronting a pile of "maybe get rid of" stuff, and found at least a few books that are probably just good to donate straight to the local "book swap" in the lobby of the post office.
I've got some new ads up in Marketplace, though I wonder what I will do if no one is interested.
I shouldn't feel badly about just donating things to a thrift store even if I paid money for it.
Well, that's my thoughts for today.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-20 11:07 am (UTC)I'm from Russia, and I thought this was only the case here.))
It's really hard to force yourself to throw something away, just in case it turns out to be useful.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-20 08:12 pm (UTC)We didn't have a lot of money or extra anything when I was a kid, so "things" were really important, and you didn't waste them.
Well, I got good at finding things at thrift stores, and having a hard time passing up bargains, and then just buying things as I wanted them, but finding it very hard to let them go later.