14 July 17 -- Happy Bastille Day, or how I became a puffer fish.

Moving along, at a tortoise's pace, with the house. Every small thing is a victory, I guess. Recently I've been watching this Irish chick, Laura Hutchinson, on You Tube. Her channel is called How to Get Your Shit Together.  She's gotten a little theatrical lately, but I love her stuff, she's Irish and sweary and that's right up my alley. She's a big proponent of the KonMari method of "tidying," which really should be "decluttering," as tidying is dusting and hoovering and the day-to-day routines that keep your place tidy once you've found all the furniture and floors...

Apparently I'm late coming to the table on this, the book has been around for a couple of years and there are a kabillion and one videos on YT about how everyone's "KonMaried" their digs. But...if you're like me and haven't seen it yet it's called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. Even if you didn't know she's Japanese, you'd figure it out soon enough by reading. Among other things, she tells you to greet your house each time you come in and thank your belongings for their service...as you're shoving them out the door. 

I got the paperback version because it was the cheapest, I'm glad I did. I made notes in it, made it mine...and lent it to my daughter. But it comes in all formats from audio to hardcover. I haven't really started "doing" it yet, but the basic advice is sound. 1. take one category at a time (e.g. clothes); 2. take them all out and put them in one place; 3. handle each and every item; 4. decide if the item "sparks joy"; 5. if it does, keep it, if not, thank it for its service and discard 6. find a permanent place for things you keep.*

"Sparks joy" is open to interpretation, of course. For instance, your toothbrush or dishcloths are not going to "spark" any fuckin' joy...but you need them. Discard, or as Kondo keeps saying "throw away," is of course a multi-layered thing. Garage sales, charity shops, freecycle, Craigslist, etc....the last thing you want to do is actually bin it, and only if other options are not apropos for the item,. I have several options here: a creative reuse shop run by the city where they resell craft and art supplies to support the city arts program in schools; the Habitat for Humanity Restore, which takes all kinds of things; Freecycle; the hazardous materials depot for those cans of paint and bug killer you no longer need; and of course the good old stand-by: Goodwill. I don't use Salvation Army because of personal philosophies. 

This past weekend I took boxes of shit I'd decluttered to all those places--nothing freecycled or garage-saled, however.  It felt sooooo good, too.

I've been working on a project, making a china cabinet I got from a friend work for me and here's how massively stupid things had gotten. I found myself working on top of the washer and dryer and a little dresser because EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TABLE had shit two feet deep on it. I stopped and literally said out loud, "What the actual fuck? just clear off the tables already, what is WRONG with you???"   You don't know how tempted I was to just take my arm and literally sweep everything off on the floor. But then I'd just have a pile o'shit on the floor. Not helping.

I got stalled mid clear-off because I had to go clean mum's kitchen...that's a whole other thing, there...

I actually started this post because I woke up feeling just a tad nauseated and resolved to eat very little and as cleanly as possible today. I had waaaay too much sugary crap yesterday (omfg that cherry pie was delish); I'm not even going to test, I just don't want to see the number. I have also stopped taking both of my acid reflux meds, famotidine and pantoprozole. The famotidine was making me gain/keep enough weight as it was, adding the pantoprozole made me feel like a puffer fish, like overnight. 

So, today's program: tea and fruit, no fucking gerd meds (going with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a cup of cold water before bed--sounds counter-intuitive, but it works), and clearing those tables!

Cheers!

*ETA for the time being, I will have to treat each table, then each room as a "category."  More on this later.