Cleanup Time

So… It’s been a pretty solid 2 weeks of stay at home isolation, but after I started feeling better, I’ve been putting that time to good use. I’ve been on a clean up and clean out the house spree. This has been long overdue, as I’ve got some boxes of things that haven’t been opened in well over a year.

To some extent, all this stuff has been nagging at me since Martin moved out. However I got a big push after watching a documentary on Minimalism on Netflix - Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things. I suspect I’ll never get to their level of minimal, but I have a lot of stuff here that I don’t need, and that likely someone else could use. I will probably be moving again at some point in the not too distant future, and why cart all this extra stuff with me. In addition to being physically heavy, it’s a mental burden too as I look around and see clutter. It’s time to get this stuff taken care of and moved out of my life.

I was on a mission Saturday to get a lot of these extras out of my old office, which has more recently been called the junk room. The were numerous kitchen items stashed in the junk room, that were easy donation targets, and others that made it into the kitchen, but could go to make room for other more useful items. I’ve still got a few items left in there that still need a home, but it’s dramatically reduced. I’m pleased.

The next target was my closet. Inspired by the idea of the 333 Closet Challenge, I was set to significantly reduce my closet burden. I had so much stuff that was worn rarely, if at all. As just one example, I can not believe the number of socks that I had! Several of these that were past the point of wear have become kitty toys, stuffed to the brims with catnip. Others, many of which were clearly never worn were added to the donation pile.

There were some easy decisions in the closet, particularly around dress clothes that saw little use with my relatively casual work attire needs. Several fancier dress shirts & dresses were the first items marked for the donation pile. The biggest concession though was cutting my T-shirt supply in half. That was tough, but clearly necessary. It had totally gotten out of hand, and many went relatively unworn as the favorites stole the show.

I had a good pile of donations when done:

AND a much more empty closet. Each of these hangers once held a thing, plus there were additional items from the drawers!

Don’t get me wrong here… It’s not as if things are not coming in as others are going out. I’ve actually bought quite a lot of things over the last few months. But the goal here is to make sure the things I have are things that I want and use.

The kitties saw the addition of another new cat tree this weekend. The dining room now has a reserved cat space. Hopefully this will help promote eating at the table without cat noses involved.

I love these Frisco kitty trees from Chewy, as they are relatively light and portable, especially in comparison to the old traditional wood and carpet ones. They come in easy to assemble pieces! However I’ve also found them to be quite sturdy. This one I did end up anchoring to the wall, but the other one in my office has a wider base and isn’t quite as tall, so it didn’t really need it.

The hammock on this new one has become the number one kitty lounge spot, much to my surprise this is true regardless of where I might be. I’m a bit wounded by this, as the kitties have been pretty magnetically attracted to my location, but it is kinda nice to get a little space sometimes too. I’m already thinking about getting two more to have another for the living room window and one for the bedroom to maybe help free my legs at night. If it’s going to be just me and the cats here, they deserve a share of the space too.