I'm Not Martha

I live every day of my life under the cloud of a conundrum: I don't like to clean, but I loathe clutter and dirt.

Though I like our house, it has been making me insane for the past three-plus years. We moved into a lovely, late-1920's semi-detached from a very modern townhouse. You know, one of those apartments with open-plan kitchen/dining/living areas with storage in every conceivable place including a kitchen pantry and a coat closet at the front door, an alcove specially meant for the flat screen tv (whether you had one or not), walk-in closets in both bedrooms, built-in storage along the upstairs hall (wall and base cabinets), laundry room, fitted furniture in the bathrooms... Let's just say that we don't have that kind of storage here.

We had some rather large pieces of art on the walls and a huge mirror that stood in our hall. One of the pieces of art is being partially hidden by the tv and the mirror is still crated in the garage. I have boxes of things that travelled via container ship from the States over three years ago that remain unpacked. Mind you, there are only a few, but a few is a few too many!

Yesterday I woke up and had had enough, er, I mean, I woke up inspired and made a start.

In two days I emptied all the crap out of two 75 litre plastic boxes that have been stored in the garage for at least a year and either rehomed (in our home), recycled or binned the items. I sent the husband off to the charity shop with several bags to donate while I went to the tip and dumped all of the larger items that could be recycled and bags of trash that couldn't. I donated bags of dog treats, toys, leads and bedding to the Dog's Trust and packed and posted a package that I've been meaning to post for three weeks. I even took 23 books to the secondhand book stall at the weekly market and sold them to the proprietor. And if you knew how I feel about books, you'd know what a big deal this is!

The sad thing? I don't think I can see a difference.

It's time to get ruthless.