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I took T. to track. We had lunch at Paparazzi.
I made a stew for dinner, using the grilled chicken that has been in the fridge for a bit and a bunch of stuff from the veggie platter. That was good.
I walked with M.
T. had leftovers from the party, and some french fries. R. gave the rest of the sheet cake away to people picking up kids; we are maybe a quarter of the way through the doll cake.
I read _Making Space, Clutter Free: The Last Book on Decluttering You’ll Ever Need_ by Tracey McCubbin.
Well, it is readable! So there is that. I do not know that I would endorse that title. OTOH, who really ever needs even one book on decluttering. I read these things recreationally, but to say that anyone needs one of these things is to take on board a whole lot of questionable assumptions.
Anyway. The intro is as terrible as most decluttering books — I feel like I should create a Decluttering Book Intro Bingo card for all the bullshit included in these things. There are 300K things in an average American house!! Does that mean each M&M is counted separately? Grain of flour? I mean, it seems like a fractal sort of question. You are reading this book because you are in crisis! Actually, no, I am here because I need a little light, non-narrative, non-fiction reading, and I am hoping to pick up at least one new tip or trick.
The author is ... frenetic. I mean, no other adjective really springs to mind. She describes herself as obsessive compulsive compulsive delightful. It shows. The book itself purports to be a taxonomy of emotional issues that manifest in the form of clutter. That is hardly a new thing, and her taxonomy is about average.
Where she absolutely SHINES is in her description of how the problem is usually three steps back. So, client asks her in to help with the dining table. The random crap on the table leads to the front hall closet where it ought to be stored, which is crammed with stuff inherited from deceased parent. That ought to be in the closet, which is jammed with everything the kids have outgrown.
I mean, YES! A lot of books cover the ideas of excavating layers to understand where things went wrong. A lot of books have strategies to keep momentum going (photos last, type of thing, which this one agrees with). But there is always this tension between, do we do the closets first, or do we hit the hot spots first. And there is just no consensus. And I think identifying this particular connection (called in over persistently awful hot spots, which are unmanageable because of storage locations suffering from real problems) is unusually helpful.
This author is short, and resigned to step ladders, so she is a fan of tall shelves to make use of that space. HATE! Shit gets lost up there. She is fine with storing stuff under the bed. Also HATE! Underbed storage has to be dusted, interferes with effective vacuuming, etc. And yet, opposed to making use of attic / basement. This probably makes sense, but not to me.
I am sort of fascinated by the idea of trying to get the basement to empty. Not because I have to, but because I could. I mean, I cannot, because there are other people in this house besides me. But I could definitely carve it down a ways if I admitted that a lot of those sleeping bags are mine and are not going to be used any time soon if ever. And I have already identified several places to donate them to. I mean, that is just an example, but still.
I made a stew for dinner, using the grilled chicken that has been in the fridge for a bit and a bunch of stuff from the veggie platter. That was good.
I walked with M.
T. had leftovers from the party, and some french fries. R. gave the rest of the sheet cake away to people picking up kids; we are maybe a quarter of the way through the doll cake.
I read _Making Space, Clutter Free: The Last Book on Decluttering You’ll Ever Need_ by Tracey McCubbin.
Well, it is readable! So there is that. I do not know that I would endorse that title. OTOH, who really ever needs even one book on decluttering. I read these things recreationally, but to say that anyone needs one of these things is to take on board a whole lot of questionable assumptions.
Anyway. The intro is as terrible as most decluttering books — I feel like I should create a Decluttering Book Intro Bingo card for all the bullshit included in these things. There are 300K things in an average American house!! Does that mean each M&M is counted separately? Grain of flour? I mean, it seems like a fractal sort of question. You are reading this book because you are in crisis! Actually, no, I am here because I need a little light, non-narrative, non-fiction reading, and I am hoping to pick up at least one new tip or trick.
The author is ... frenetic. I mean, no other adjective really springs to mind. She describes herself as obsessive compulsive compulsive delightful. It shows. The book itself purports to be a taxonomy of emotional issues that manifest in the form of clutter. That is hardly a new thing, and her taxonomy is about average.
Where she absolutely SHINES is in her description of how the problem is usually three steps back. So, client asks her in to help with the dining table. The random crap on the table leads to the front hall closet where it ought to be stored, which is crammed with stuff inherited from deceased parent. That ought to be in the closet, which is jammed with everything the kids have outgrown.
I mean, YES! A lot of books cover the ideas of excavating layers to understand where things went wrong. A lot of books have strategies to keep momentum going (photos last, type of thing, which this one agrees with). But there is always this tension between, do we do the closets first, or do we hit the hot spots first. And there is just no consensus. And I think identifying this particular connection (called in over persistently awful hot spots, which are unmanageable because of storage locations suffering from real problems) is unusually helpful.
This author is short, and resigned to step ladders, so she is a fan of tall shelves to make use of that space. HATE! Shit gets lost up there. She is fine with storing stuff under the bed. Also HATE! Underbed storage has to be dusted, interferes with effective vacuuming, etc. And yet, opposed to making use of attic / basement. This probably makes sense, but not to me.
I am sort of fascinated by the idea of trying to get the basement to empty. Not because I have to, but because I could. I mean, I cannot, because there are other people in this house besides me. But I could definitely carve it down a ways if I admitted that a lot of those sleeping bags are mine and are not going to be used any time soon if ever. And I have already identified several places to donate them to. I mean, that is just an example, but still.