Room for the life
Nov. 28th, 2010 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4A couple of weeks ago ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
addedentry's mum and sister visited, and kindly used their car to take a load of wood and nasty disassembled broken furniture to the tip for us. Last week we gave our spare bookcase (still flatpacked, we miscalculated) to i_ludicrous, and also managed to lend him a big plastic space-consuming baby-entertaining device (their baby is already out and entertainable, whereas we won't be needing bouncy-chair-things for a good while yet) which addedentry's sister gave us.
On Friday we got rid of a big wooden standard lamp (which came with the house), a big black fake-leather armchair (ditto), and a small formerly-white wooden chair (many years ago I'd tried to strip the paint off with some thought of getting it back to a 'natural' wood look, but got fed up halfway through, so it just looked 'distressed', & not in a trendy shabby-chic way) -- the nice chaps from Emmaus came and took them all away.
Today we earmarked another stack of books for going to the Great Library in the Sky (mostly waifs and strays from Oxfam, & many too tatty for anything except recycling), and rehomed my old iron withjinty, who was also going to take my old toaster to a fix-it shop she knows but -- ahem -- fortunately thought to ask us first "You've tried changing the fuse, haven't you?" No, I hadn't, because, er, a small parasite is stealing my brain? OK, maybe I am just an idiot. Anyway, one swift fuse-change later, the toaster sprung into glowing life with a reassuring smell of burning toast-crumbs; so hopefully it'll be good for another 40 years now, which means we can rehome the spare not-quite-working toaster.
Of course, there's still a big heap of things in the "stuff to get rid of" pile, miscellaneous things that I don't want to throw away (or rather recycle) because they are still useable and potentially useful, but they're not good enough to sell (or to expect charity shops to sell) and they're too small and faffy to freecycle (and freecycle is a pain in the neck anyway if you're not at home all the time). I don't get the impression that normal people (you know, people who aren't from the internet) have "stuff to get rid of" piles around their house. Maybe they're wise enough not to acquire stuff they don't need in the first place. Or maybe when they stop wanting to keep it they just chuck it all in landfill and forget about it.
I gather I'm supposed to be 'nesting' at the moment, and to me that concept always seems to imply bringing things into the house, getting nice furniture and stuff; whereas actually I'm constantly trying to get rid of things. Of course, it's all making more space to live in, and I'll be much happier with the clutter out of the way, so it's certainly making our 'nest' nicer; but sometimes it does feel as though I'm just always whittling away and trying to reduce myself to nothing. I know I am not my possessions, but sometimes it still feels like going round turning all the lights out until I can softly and suddenly vanish away. You know?
addedentry's mum and sister visited, and kindly used their car to take a load of wood and nasty disassembled broken furniture to the tip for us. Last week we gave our spare bookcase (still flatpacked, we miscalculated) to i_ludicrous, and also managed to lend him a big plastic space-consuming baby-entertaining device (their baby is already out and entertainable, whereas we won't be needing bouncy-chair-things for a good while yet) which addedentry's sister gave us.On Friday we got rid of a big wooden standard lamp (which came with the house), a big black fake-leather armchair (ditto), and a small formerly-white wooden chair (many years ago I'd tried to strip the paint off with some thought of getting it back to a 'natural' wood look, but got fed up halfway through, so it just looked 'distressed', & not in a trendy shabby-chic way) -- the nice chaps from Emmaus came and took them all away.
Today we earmarked another stack of books for going to the Great Library in the Sky (mostly waifs and strays from Oxfam, & many too tatty for anything except recycling), and rehomed my old iron with
jinty, who was also going to take my old toaster to a fix-it shop she knows but -- ahem -- fortunately thought to ask us first "You've tried changing the fuse, haven't you?" No, I hadn't, because, er, a small parasite is stealing my brain? OK, maybe I am just an idiot. Anyway, one swift fuse-change later, the toaster sprung into glowing life with a reassuring smell of burning toast-crumbs; so hopefully it'll be good for another 40 years now, which means we can rehome the spare not-quite-working toaster.Of course, there's still a big heap of things in the "stuff to get rid of" pile, miscellaneous things that I don't want to throw away (or rather recycle) because they are still useable and potentially useful, but they're not good enough to sell (or to expect charity shops to sell) and they're too small and faffy to freecycle (and freecycle is a pain in the neck anyway if you're not at home all the time). I don't get the impression that normal people (you know, people who aren't from the internet) have "stuff to get rid of" piles around their house. Maybe they're wise enough not to acquire stuff they don't need in the first place. Or maybe when they stop wanting to keep it they just chuck it all in landfill and forget about it.
I gather I'm supposed to be 'nesting' at the moment, and to me that concept always seems to imply bringing things into the house, getting nice furniture and stuff; whereas actually I'm constantly trying to get rid of things. Of course, it's all making more space to live in, and I'll be much happier with the clutter out of the way, so it's certainly making our 'nest' nicer; but sometimes it does feel as though I'm just always whittling away and trying to reduce myself to nothing. I know I am not my possessions, but sometimes it still feels like going round turning all the lights out until I can softly and suddenly vanish away. You know?
