storage

Chip Away At It

Sorry for the late blog post today, but Andrew and I have been on the go since early this morning!

We started tidying/organizing our Small Animal Room (which needs to be renamed, because Chewbacca, our Degu, passed away last week). It is essentially our storage space. We have a stand with built Lego on it. There is a filing cabinet with unbuilt Lego kits in/on it. There are a ton of shelves in there for a variety of stuff!

It contains day to day products like paper towel, toilet paper, kleenex, and ziploc bags. We tend to buy some of those items in bulk when on sale to save a bit of money in the long run. The down side to the money saving? The extra space it requires til it is used!

The room also holds various papers (cards, Andrew’s college stuff, adoption paperwork for pets, etc). We have collected other papers into the room to go through at a later date. There is a lot of space and other rooms that require attention before finer things get a look through.

We have rolling stands that now contain pet items like excess toys, shirts, sweaters, jackets, leashes, and some treats. Raven, our beagle, has quite the nose on her, and finds that stuff to rip through if it is left out. (Our two cats also like to help her, and Jasper, our shih tzu, sits back and waits for the rewards!)

Anyways, it is a catch all space. Thankfully some of that space will be cleared once items are relocated to the garage or donation centers (Humane Society and Talize are where we go usually). Andrew has Magic cards, kinder egg toys, naughty magazines (from his ‘younger’ days), and some other things that we will be looking to sell, donate, or give to friends/family in time. Mind you, that involves getting him to put the effort in which is much like yanking teeth!

After it is done, I plan on tackling our linen closet and bedroom next. Front hall and office will follow, and we’ll see where it goes from there. Our basement, mostly, is a contained, organized area that does not require the level of attention the rest of our house needs. At least there is that, right?

I am hoping decluttering will help my mind focus on writing, (I did manage to get a word count of 1,000 in the past two days), but it will take time. We have been watching Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix, and it helps motivate Andrew to tackle this stuff with me. It is helpful, but there are a few things I disagree with when it comes to her methods (I’ll leave that alone though).

Sadly, I don’t think I will touch my book over the weekend much, but here’s a prayer that I’ll get some much needed housework done!

 

Advertisement

I Found Something Else

Today has been one of those days. Low energy, but restless.I decided to help my husband, Andrew, look for his old phone while he’s at work, and it has been a roller coaster ride for my emotions.

Our house is a bit of a storage zone. Every room has nooks and crannies that I have managed to make useful, but it’s becoming less and less effective. While we have done a huge purge of stuff, we still have a ton of ‘crap’ one of us or both of us refuse to part with.We collect Lego (Star Wars, Marvel Superheroes, Batman, etc), Star Wars items, and movies/TV shows. We are also huge fans of fireworks, and they take up a decent chunk of the garage. As individuals, he collects pig related stuff, and I have my Cherished Teddies collection.

Add in necessities, and you can imagine the warzone our house is when we need to find something.

Andrew has gone through the workshop, the garage, the small animal room, the office, our bedroom, front hall closet, kitchen, and laundry room to find his old phone. He has done this multiple times. I tinker here and there trying to help, but he gets so obsessively frantic, it puts me on edge. I can NEVER find something when I am on edge, so today, I decided to do it while he is out of the house.

I started with the workshop where I found two of his old, old phones, but not the most recently old phone (if that makes sense). I dug through some of the boxes in the office, and ripped through my trunks in our bedroom’s closet and some of his drawers. No luck.

Well, this is where the roller coaster starts for me.

After failing to find it, I decided to go through our many totes of Lego kits, Christmas village stuff, wedding stuff, and my Hallowe’en town stuff. (Side note: Hallowe’en is my FAVOURITE holiday, and the biggest reason I want to learn how to sew). Anyways, as I am rifling through these totes, I find wedding stuff.

To note in the wedding stuff I found

-the reading “These Hands” from our ceremony

-my maid of honour’s speech

-a motivational, loving book from my mom

Dumb ass that I am, I read “These Hands”, and it resonated with the life I wished for more than anything. Hands that loved and cared for me. Hands to hold me in the dark times. Hands that would hold our children. Hands that would help mine in keeping our family one.

I want children more than anything, a family with Andrew, but we just aren’t there in our lives. It sucks, because he will be 33 years old towards the end of this year, and I am going to be 27 in twelve days. It feels so old, and yet I know it isn’t. I know I have more time than not, but it feels like it is slipping away faster than I could have imagined. I know it will happen when it is meant to, but damned if I wish it would happen now.

Reading that bit of our vows though made me realize that a marriage, a life together, is very much like art. You have to work for it. Sometimes, there are mistakes that you can correct, and other times, you just push past it. Sometimes, what you think you are making is nothing like it, and you go with it to find something amazing, or you correct your path. I am very lucky to have Andrew in my life, willing to fight for our marriage, and help me make it all it can be. I wish I had of stopped reading the stuff I found after this, but I didn’t.

Dumb ass that I am, I read the speech, and it is beautiful. But it is over two years old, and it made me realize how much has changed between my maid of honour (my future sister-in-law now) and myself. She said we had become closer, had become friends in the speech, but that isn’t the truth anymore. I can’t tell you when it happened, but it happened.

One thing you need to know about me… I don’t really have friends. I have my parents, and I have my husband, and that is it. I don’t let people in as easily as I once did, because of the many betrayals I faced at the hands of so called friends. It killed me inside to read this beautiful speech, and realize the lie it had seemingly become. I don’t know how to change things with her, and I would if I did. I would love to have friends to do things with, but I have been shattered by past experiences, and am hesitant to let it happen again.

Thus, I bawled my eyes out in big, wailing cries. Once it was a small enough feeling to be bottled, I did, and continued on with the task at hand. That’s when I came across the book from my mom.

Dumb ass that I am, I read the book since it wasn’t long, and it was amazing. It is exactly what I needed to hear, and yet… it devastated me. It was about showing your true self to the world, how you’re beautiful no matter what, and amazing regardless of nay sayers. It is how I wish things were, for sure, but the constant feedback I have been given through life is that I am ‘too much’ of everything. I need to tone myself down, swear less, lose weight, lie…. All to have friends, and be liked. That never made sense to me. Shouldn’t people like you as you are?

Anyway, I took those notes and applied them to myself. I struggle with some, (like my volume and weight), but overall, when around my siblings or my in-laws or in public, I try to be that likable person who people want in their life. I don’t know if it is remotely working, (I do have two nephews who adore Andrew and me), but I don’t have friends asking me to hang out. I don’t have family, (outside of my mom and two nephews), asking to spend time with me.

I know that part of it is on me. I need to put myself out there, conquer my insecurities, and find people who like me for me. Join a sport, or club, or something. But it is amazingly, soul cripplingly tough for me. I see someone ugly in every way in the mirror. I dissect every interaction I have with other humans, and find myself lacking. I  had a New Year’s resolution to change that, but I am going to be honest, I have no idea where to start.

Sorry to ramble, but I felt the need to put it down on ‘paper’, to better reflect on it all. Maybe it is a sign that I don’t need to change, just push for my dreams, and fight for the things I want from life. Maybe it is a sign I desperately do need to change in some ways, to feel better and live better. Maybe it is a bit of both. Hopefully I figure it out sometime in the very near future.

In the meantime, any tips or tricks to help me out, or tales to relate to, would be amazing.

Thanks for reading this randomness!