Jenny’s Thoughts…

Jenny offers her life experience re organizing life’s priorities as well hoarding here….

Well, the first thing–I write as I sit here, with five things that ought to be done in the next hour and energy for none of them–is to let go of standards. There is no more “What ought I to do?” Instead there’s “What can I do, with the resources I have?”

This is harder to do than it is to say. We ought to be able to make lists and follow them, dammit. We ought to be able to plan a week ahead. Or a day ahead. Or this afternoon. But sometimes that is just plain not possible. Sitting around beating ourselves up because we ought to have a handle on this just wastes more energy. The handle broke off, it’s gone.

The standards that count, now, are:

*Am I fulfilling the obligations that I CANNOT put down? Paying property tax, showing up at work looking decent, etc.?

*Am I taking care of myself as best I can, so I don’t slip any further? (This means IMMEDIATE needs. If you have X amount of worry-about-yourself energy, and you can spend it on teeth brushing OR on reading about antioxidants…brush your teeth.) (Housecleaning corollary: Your priorities are preventing environmental hazards and removing obstacles from furniture and floor space; let the rest of it go.)

*Am I allowing myself to accept help that I think I don’t deserve because it’s for people who are “really” badly off? One example: If you don’t need a shower chair, but you sure would like to sit down comfortably in the shower…get the shower chair. Another: If the church youth group is offering free lawn care for seniors and mowing the lawn is onerous although you can do it…take the help. Use the energy you save by sitting in the shower/having your lawn mowed to do other tasks.

I feel a bit better just now, so I’m going to do another load of laundry. More another time.

Just in case…

I have not posted at Hoarding Woes & You for awhile. But, please feel free to comment. If you don’t readily find me here, I am over at my other blog SwittersB & Exploring. Please feel free to reach out.  Thank you!!!

Hoarding Woes Update..

Hello all! I do hope you all had a pleasant holiday season and are facing a positive pathway in the new year!!! Hopefully not a hoarding pathway! But, if you are I wanted to let you know a few things.

I have noticed, of late, that I have daily additions of followers to Hoarding Woes & You. I am most thankful you have found your way here, if even for infrequent searching. I must let you know, I will only post here now on a rare event. Most of my/our activities in life (post hoarding cleanups) are over on SwittersB & Exploring. I welcome your visits over there where I share our passion for photography, fly fishing, travel and writing. It is what we are trying to do to rebuild our lives, our minds and hearts.

That said, the aftermath of the hoarding cleanups is still there. Unopened boxes, too much of our own stuff now having kept too much of my Mom and Aunt’s treasures. We are faced with what many are faced with after cleaning up a hoarding mess that they didn’t foresee…trapped with too much in the aftermath. And, too tired or distracted to address the problem. Hmm? That’s dangerous because one illness, one protracted crisis leaves us right where our hoarder so often was.

Illness, weakness, a crushed spirit saps resolve from our core. We procrastinate, we turn away from the stuff and just give up. Not that we are there, but we are besieged with physical ailments that bring us to a halt for days on end. Also, the good side of life intervenes with holidays, birthdays, celebrations, hobbies things that were sacrificed before and are now taken in like some healthy elixir. We are trying to make up for lost time and at the same time not quite finishing up what needs to be done.

So, I may or may not delve into this along the way. But, as I have said before, please if you are a new visitor take the time to go back to the beginning and study the past. Not so much about our journey but to gather understanding, patience, courage, strength for what you are facing and have not quite yet grasped the magnitude of it all.

Also, please write and ask questions if you wish. I will always be alert to Hoarding Woes & You…see I saw I had quite a few new followers lately. So, I want to help if I can or just be an ear for your journey. 

Again, best wishes for 2015!!!

 

A first Christmas in the ‘hoarding house’….

the project house, the ‘cottage’, the ‘hoarding house’, ‘Tillie’s’ (my beautiful Aunt’s name house). Our first Christmas in the house is miraculous. We are full of joy and bountiful thanks.

Joy abounds. Thanks beyond our wildest dreams comes forth. Small ‘but’ we are damaged and maybe forever beyond renewal. We are so banged up we cannot make an assessment that connects with the past abilities to assess and rebuild. We got blown way off course to a new world. The past markers do not seem to connect to the present reality.

We aged, we were physically damaged on top of existing ailments, and most importantly we suppressed our mental anguish while trying to complete the two hoarding house cleanups and now come out on the other end disconnected and grasping to create a new new. Life is busy. Pain and suffering have created immediacy and focus on ‘now’. We seem unable to go back to find the past and bring it forward to ‘heal’. 

I don’t write any of this to be dramatic or seeking even a response. It flows forth as it is. A trauma from hoarding woes. Not different from anyone suffering much more catastrophic damage and having to move on in a new realm.

We mounted an effort to respond to the hoards. We were situated in life with strengths and weaknesses. We moved forward to attack the hoards. But, we (our lives) were simultaneously besieged with additional assaults and challenges aside from the hoards. It all mounted together to wear us down into the present. We won the war…all the damn battles…but we are crippled.

And, there is life. We survive with scars, limps, pains, traumas, mental defects as victors..as survivors of what others created and we took on. Regrets?

Not sure…so numb and discombubliated as we are now. I/we cannot understand it all. Life in all its raw reality moves on. The clock ticks. Life passes by. It seems wasteful, pointless to go back now to dissect the why’s of hoarding and the damn damage it did to two beautiful women! Damn it!!! Damn!!!

Christmas was throughout their lives the most important time of year for my Mom and Aunt. They left home, in their teens, between Thanksgiving (no thanks) and Christmas. They each moved alone cross country to escape terrible abuse. They rejoined at Christmas time. Joy! Salvation! They both attached a HUGE significance to surviving their journeys and arriving together during Christmas just before WWII.

My admiration for strong women knows no bounds! I tear up thinking how damn strong they were, how sad they were.

Officially ‘Moved’ In….57 Years Later

Today, August 6, 2014 marks a momentous benchmark met. My wife and I have made the move into the Hoarding House-The Project House-Our Home. Much remains to be done at our home and, well our other home. But, it is in keeping with what we seem to have been doing the past few years: sorting, moving stuff about, getting ready for a garage sale, donating stuff and this time selling the home we raised our children in the majority of the time. Tonight I will lay my head at a new residence. New in so many ways if you have followed along. I have two photos for you. One you have seen several times before, the other not.

August 1957. Me at my Auntie’s Front Porch. She took the photo. In these days the home was always well maintained and the inside was a showpiece of California influences, in Portland.

Me, August 2014. 57 years later, I am standing at the same spot. This image was taken by my wife, my steadfast partner throughout this journey.

Somehow this event seems filled with many ironies and I just wanted to share that. Also, I wanted to once again remark that I do receive notice of any enquiries/comments left here at Hoarding Woes & You. Please feel free to ask questions etc. I encourage the new visitor to start at the beginning to get the full passage of time, if you currently are dealing with hoarding or know some one. Along the way, there are  pieces of advice and help. 

Update: Status Change

Well, I would have to say, save the heavy big stuff, we are 90% moved from our existing home into the project house…our new home to be. We delayed on getting the movers. We shouldn’t have. Some very heavy pieces make us hesitate to go to the well again with family/friends as they are just too banged up, especially in the lower backs. But, we will overcome this.

So, I have decided to not repetitively bore you with the tiddly stuff on the move. I will take a break here and hopefully, in the not too distant future, post images of the new home set up and put away. Until then, stay cool, thank you for all your love, support and advice. You can always find me over on SwittersB & Exploring, where I take a few moments to photograph and explore. Even this has been a narrow window as I mostly photograph at the homes or along the route between, rarely getting out to fly fish, hike or see nature. But, that is changing too fairly soon!!! Take care and I will be back for one last blast.

Glass

Just an update: day after day we have been moving loads to the project house. Small loads with ‘stuff’ culled out for sale and donation. After 20 years here and 12 years elsewhere we have our own accumulation of stuff, treasures, keepers and junk. We are slow going it. Why?

Truth be told, we are just worn out and have been. We re-up, re-energize, re-group, re-plan. It all works in varying degrees each time to get another couple days in. The Patio beckons. Putting the feet up beckons where the only thing nagging is “I should weed today, or should I go fishing?” Well, first I think I will have a cold beverage.

This morning, the long awaited for Reeded Glass kitchen cabinet doors were finally installed and they are fabulous! Truly a nice finishing touch to the after the debacle last Winter with the ‘Artist’. This time the craftsmanship is evident and many thank yous have been forthcoming to all involved.

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No gloom, just tired. The light is at the end of the tunnel (again…different goal) and we are not going to arrive in the light so tired and burned out we cannot enjoy the arrival, the completion, the end to one epic journey and the beginning of the rest of our lives and the new challenges ahead with elders, family, health…life.

Flying the Kite…Catching the Wind

“When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.” Rodney Dangerfield

Oh that tedious portion of ‘organizing’ and moving. The easy, consolidated parts first. Then the remnants, the oddball pieces, the residual stuff. What emerges in all this, thus far, is several massive hoarding cleanups has resulted in a minimalist mentality. With not a blink of the eye or second thoughts much is being left for the moving sale. It can’t, it won’t be going along. With all we have been through we are remorseless, harsh when it comes to keeping anything that might be used, could be used, etc. 

Giving Thanks

on the 4th of July. Today is giving thanks to my dear departed Auntie. She came into our lives with one heck of a mess, serious health issues and blessed us with stories, memories from long ago that helped paint a picture of my Mom’s life (my Mom didn’t like to recall the painful, harsh past very much). We give thanks because, in the end, my Auntie bestowed upon my family a most beautiful home. Yes, there have been several grinding years to empty the house, restore the house etc. But, thanks is given to that sweet girl whose birthday was on July 4th! She was very proud of that birth date.

In the end, family is a bedrock to be honored no matter the difficult journey at times.

My Aunt on her birthday at 94 (2011)

Colors and Progress

The woodworker came back this morning and tore out his beautifully constructed railing. As I earlier wrote, he will construct the new one and be entirely responsible for the staining of the railing and other moulding in the house. The previous painters did such a terrible job taping/prepping that their stain bled through everywhere that had already been painted, which will necessitate a lot of ‘cutting in’ repainting the edges throughout the kitchen and dining room.

The gardening or transplanting of flowers from our current home to the project house is progressing nicely. Almost every rose, clematis and fuchsia has made the change in good health. All the changes and tasks that need completion have been a good distraction since we tragically lost our  beloved Lab, Emma, which has really knocked the wind out of us. We muddle through, part way, with a task and come to a halt consumed in waves of grief. Then we regroup, push on and later repeat the distracted reminiscing re Emma.

Wood floors have been refinished and look beautiful. The momentum is shifting. The renovation is almost done. The feel is almost as it was years ago, when the home was beautifully furnished, the garden was a show place and pride was evident in the simplicity and elegance. We are way behind schedule, but the schedule was always fairly fluid.