MOMMY'S LITTLE HELPER

NoNoNoNoNo! Not what you think. NOT AT ALL! I am not on drugs as the popular Rolling Stones song might make you think. I am referring to my brand new timer.
I finally broke down and got my new one out as the last one is not reliable since it's near drowning incident.
It's crisp, sharp "beepbeepbeep" at the end of my 10 min intervals is quite invigorating. As I haven't dropped it yet (this will happen rather sooner than later) the magnet on the back of the clip is still intact. It got assigned a home which is the top left corner of the fridge.

As you can see for yourself I am quite the early bird starting housework right around dawn. Okay. So I simply haven't switched it to daylight saving yet. As it is Monday there is plenty of stuff to clean up and plenty opportunity to use my timer today. I have already completed five 10 magic minute units and am happy with my progress.

Now here is the bad part. As my old timer still shows the time of day and the count up and timer functions still work (except for the alarm not being very reliable) I can not yet part with it. I am still hoping to fix that beep somehow. Be patient with me. 

Surface of the day: Yet another basket out of the mountain of miscellaneous next to my bed.

5 a day: See for yourself. The laundry basket, black bucket and mattress are a neighbor's. The rest is mine. The wooden stuff has been picked up already, so a nightstand, 3 drawers from a dresser/cabinet have been picked up by the recycling company first thing in the morning. 2 old broken lamps and a suitcase have been picked up by "treasure hunters" last night already. The 2 revolting carpets are left overs from the previous owner. They were used to "insulate" the attic. We ended up throwing them out of the attic window. That was quite the cloud of dust!

THE PERSON BEHIND THE HOARDER

Remember how I once told you that hoarders are people, too? Now that you have grown to love hoarder me it is time to fall in love with the rest of my sparkling personality! 

On TV, hoarders often come across to me as people who don't have a grip on life. Who never do anything fun. Who have no hobbies, merely obsessions. They don't leave the house and people never come to visit them. I might be a hoarder and often act like one (reprogramming me is not done), but I see myself as a fun personality. I love a good party, I love cooking and having people over.

So here. Meet the real Katja, who is so much more fun than Hoarding-Katja. Yesterday we had friends over. 8 adults and 4 kids. We officially opened the barbecue and water fight season. It was delicious and so much fun! 

James loves tomatoes and Mozzarella and as I

love James, it is an absolute must have side

 dish when ever we fire up the grill!

For the vegetarians. (Slightly blurred.)

For me....gg

NICOLE, THIS ONE IS FOR YOU!

Remember this one Nicole? 

For the life of me I can't remember what you used to have in there. I think you collected pennies in it, but I might be mistaken. I know what you are thinking.

"THROW IT AWAY!"
"Why on earth does she still have it?" 
"And how on earth did she get possession of it in the first place?"

Hahaha! I am a hoarder. I have my ways of adding things to my collection. I would love to oblige you and get rid of it, but unfortunately our candy is stashed in it and we prefer not to part with it.

Surface of the day: basket full of laundry, I know you are wondering why on earth I would count that? Well. Because it was hidden under another basket of miscellaneous and when I decided to tackle it I assumed it was miscellaneous and I  deserve credit just for being willing to deal with it. HA!

5 a day: more pieces of board games and puzzles that have been thrown out.

100

6 months and 100 posts later the big question is, has my situation improved?

I can honestly answer yes.

I have worked on every single room since then. The mountains in the attic are a little bit lower, so are the ones from the basement. I have gotten rid of things that I have kept for years. I have parted with things I never thought I would let go. I am able to make decisions faster and stick with them and my anxiety levels don't rise as fast.

I have days, truly believing I can get a grip on my life. At the moment they might be few and far between, but just 6 months ago I seriously doubted that could ever happen. 

Yes, I have changed.
Yes, my life has improved.
Yes, I'll stick with it!

Surface of the day: a laundry basket full of miscellaneous

5 a day: donated various pieces of accessories of the most commonly used electrical pump to me midwife. Dropped it off at her office as she wasn't in, talked to her on the phone later. "I thought it was Christmas," were her words. I love it when people have use for the things I need to get rid of!

FAST FOOD TOYS

Yes. I know. People sell those on eBay. But trust me. The ones we have lying around aren't worth anything. They are out of their wrapper, scratched up and neglected. In today's efforts to relief the feeling of suffocation I am experiencing with my hoard I threw away every single toy we got by buying fast food/cereal/chocolate. 

Why on earth is that so hard for me? I came up with a few reasons:

• They do not belong to me, so I feel I don't get to decide whether they stay or go.
• They aren't broken so technically they are still of use.
• The kids are so excited when they get them. Which makes me feel they actually like the stuff.
• 
  

Here is what I tell myself to make it easier:

• I haven't seen anyone play with this particular toy in the last few weeks.
• I've stepped on it and hurt myself more than once.
• You can't really play with this in the first place.
• The noise it makes is driving me nuts.
• Nobody missed the other 137 similar items I threw out in the last few weeks.

5 in favor of throwing them out against 3 in favor to keep the stuff. This said I am happy to announce that today'S throwing away quota is not only reached but exceeded by far. I better take the trash out before certain little people upon their return from school start picking the stuff back out!

Surface of the day: 3 shelves of a tall kitchen cupboard
5 a day: see post

BREAKING RULES

When you break a rule there is usually some kind of punishment. Today I broke the "no appointments on Monday" rule. An appointment at 8:45 am. Seriously? I must be nuts. Another one at 4:30 pm. I am positively crazy. But then on the other hand. If you ruin your day, you might as well do it completely.

What was my punishment? Raised anxiety levels starting Friday. Frantic laundry processing on Saturday. Unfortunately the weekend was stressful enough as it was, and brought enough work with a birthday party for one of the kids. (At least this time I managed to not be 6 months late!) Further punishment. A stressful morning. A confused me, not really getting the hang of the day until 1 pm by which it was more or less too late. 2 emotional eating attacks. I gave in to the first and fought of the second.

Lesson learned:

• When getting doctor's appointments for self or family don't be happy with a date and time ask which day of the week it is. 
• I am coping with stress a lot better than just 6 months ago.
• It pays off to plan ahead.

Thanks to my laundry processing on Saturday and a detailed list of the most important things for today (and the rest of the week) I got everything done that needed to be done and still feel tough enough to do some ironing! HA!

Surface of the day: dresser top in the playroom. Got it cleared an wiped it down. Seem to have a distinct memory of cheating by piling most of it onto the next dresser....

5 a day: kids art, chewed up puzzle piece (not to self throw away puzzle when you come across it)

THE INK STAIN

Yesterday I finally decided to try to save a hat I didn't like much. It is red and it was stained with ink and every time I came across it I tossed it back into a drawer. Yesterday I washed it. And guess what. The stain didn't wash out. On the contrary. It stained four other items that were in the wash with it. I am slightly annoyed with myself. Seriously. I tried to safe a kid's hat that I didn't like much and that was not worth saving and in the process stained a perfectly good winter jacket,  a piece of ballet stuff, a t-shirt and a little sweater.

Writing about it I am even more annoyed.  I just threw those 4 items into the wash, The hat went into the trash. Keep your fingers crossed for me please.

Here is the culprit:

HOARDER'S PLIGHT

My biggest issue is things that are "still useful". Useful for me, for you, for anyone. To illustrate just how far I will go let me show you the following picture.

Do you know what that is? No? Well. Neither do I. Okay. I think I know what this is. If I am not mistaken those things are used to tack foam boards to your house to insulate it. 8,5 years ago when we bought the house we found those in a cardboard box, inside a paper towel dispenser. Don't ask me how many times I wanted to throw them away but decided they might still be of use. Unfortunately the picture isn't 8.5 years old. More like 8,5 weeks. 

You can't tell by the picture but when the picture was taken they were in the recycling bin already. hahaha. Already! HAHAHA!!! After 8,5 years. And it took all my guts to toss them. I took 2 attempts and when I finally had them in and took this picture to document my glorious victory, the thought crossed my mind that I should save the little screws you can see sealed up in the little plastic bag. I reached down and picked them out. It was hard because the bin was almost empty. Then I just let out a frustrated and annoyed:"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I threw them back in. Seriously. Nobody needed this for 8.5 years. Who would need it now? No one. My point exactly. I hope I got rid of the towel dispenser, too. I better go check my garage!

THIS WEEK'S EFFORTS

I am proud to say that this week's efforts have paid off. The downstairs was clean on time and still is clean. (Although I can already see it deteriorating.) The upstairs was only halfway done, but I shut the door to the playroom and locked my bedroom. Silly, I know, but I did feel a strong need for privacy.

The girls's room ended up being the surface of the day and the 5 a day ended up being random pieces of "art", a ball with almost no air in it and a McD.'s toy. None of them was hard to part with.I felt a pang of guilt with the plastic princess, as it wasn't mine, but ever since we had it she's been lying around on the floor and she simply isn't of any use to play with as she is bolted to a piece of plastic. I guess you could display her on a shelf. But that's the end of her usefulness.

My drop zone had 6 or 7 baskets full of stuff and 2 piles of clothing that were supposed to create a brand new abominable pile next to my bed. The boys's room was a terrible mess. Instead of just doing what I am good at and hiding the baskets in my room I challenged my son Matt. Object of the game was to clean up 17 things. He in his room, I from the upstairs landing. We ended up playing 5 rounds. Amount of things to clean up varied from 17-47. We picked a new number each round to keep things interesting. He ended up beating me 4:1 (First round went to me) but the true victory was that I ended up with just 3 baskets in my room. One of them has mostly stuff to be ironed in it. Yes.

I still have 3 baskets there but I have gotten far in the last 6 months. I am starting to deal with my problem differently. I am happy with my progress. Very happy!

JACK & JILL

Jack and Jill are a young married student couple who are doing a study abroad in my area. They both do well with the language and love it here. Being students, money is tight. But they don't care and simply make do with what they have. Weeks ago a few of us were chatting and Jill mentioned that her clothes are all stacked on the floor. I offered hangers. She said hangers would be cool but she didn't know how many she needed, as she would first need to have a rack to actually hang them up. For weeks I kept forgetting about asking her about it. Last week when I was up in the attic I "stumbled" across our old wardrobe and thought about Jill and the hangers. And then it hit me. I would dump the wardrobe on Jill! It took me a couple more hours to finally contact her. And wouldn't you know it. She wanted it. She had even started looking around on ebay to buy a used one.

Best part about her wanting it was that she was willing to take it the same night. I packed up the wardrobe and my husband's power tools. The 3 of us had a blast. Don't ask me how many times I had to call my husband for advice on how to go about this best. As the wardrobe had been taken apart and moved too many times to count, it wasn't in the best shape. We kept joking how much she was allowed to tell about the story. When the thing was finally up (we ended up bolting it together with a couple of extra screws) the official version of the evening that was allowed to go public was:"Katja is so cool! Katja knows how to use power tools!"

Jill kept thanking me for the wardrobe, I kept telling her I was in her debt for taking it. I finally came out of the closet, told her that I was a hoarder. That I had a hard time parting with things.That I was able to let go happily when someone else had use for it. Jack and Jill just smiled at each other and one of them (can't remember which) looked at the other and said:"Your Mom." With the other nodding in agreement. Before I knew what I was saying I blurted:"I will post about you on my hoarder blog, but NO I will not give you my blog address." Jill said she would google my name and "hoarder" and  "blog". I just laughed and asked her if she really thought I would use my real name. Well. Little does she know her name is Jill now! We'll see if she can find me! hahaha

IT AIN'T MONDAY

I was a little confused today. It felt like Monday all morning long. Maybe because I didn't get any of the Monday chores done yesterday and did them today, or maybe because my friend Jane came to hang out and she usually hangs here on Saturdays or Sundays.

Well, as I was saying I was confused quite a bit and thought it didn't matter until it hit me around lunch time. If it's not Monday it must be TAXI TUESDAY! Talk about ruining my day.

I have somebody over tomorrow night for a short visit. So the downstairs should be presentable. I will have a baby sitter over on Thursday, so the upstairs should be presentable. I used to work well under pressure, now I just get annoyed.

Wish me luck. Or better, persistence. I have 2 days to clean up this mess. I will need it!

DECLUTTER HIGH

2 days after my anxiety attack I grabed my camera, climbed into the attic, got the evil inserts out, took a picture and stuffed them in the trash.

I had to do it quickly and in one swift motion, but I did it. My hands were barely shaking and my main emotion was embarrassment. I felt embarrassed because I couldn't get rid of them on my first attempt. 

I went back up into the attic. I started picking stuff for recycling out of a box (like games the kids cut out from the backs of cereal boxes and stuff like it). I found more and more. I threw out 3 empty boxes, 2 small boxes full of recycling, 10 more items of clothing that my friend will take home to poor farming families in Poland and all of a sudden I came across our old wardrobe. Seeing that reminded me that I wanted to ask my friend Jill how many hangers she needed. But wait. Jill said she needed a simple rack first to even put the hangers somewhere. Well. Didn't I have the perfect solution! I would offer it to Jill! If you want to find out if she took it come back in a few days!

ANXIETY ATTACK

If you had asked me if I experience anxiety attacks when sorting through my stuff I would have said:"No".
I  would have said I am easily distracted. That I have a hard time focusing and that being the headless chicken I am I start and never finish.

After learning a few things about my disorder and interacting online with fellow hoarders, I know better. It's not that I am to impatient to do it, or lack the stamina. I am experiencing different levels of anxiety. It was obvious for the first time to me when I came across a plastic tray and 2 infant head support inserts for my double stroller. I know I need to throw them away. They might be barely used, but the stroller they go with is history. I used it for years and it went to the dump.

So why can't I simply get rid of it? "But it's almost new." "Somebody might have use for it." Well. Who exactly? I don't know anyone with a stroller like that. If they had a stroller, they would have the insert, too. How much time and effort would it take to find someone who actually had use for it?

So how did I deal with my anxiety attack? I tapped the top of my head. There is a spot that my mid wife showed me using acupuncture that is a general point for calming that was reintroduced to me on a website directed at hoarders and their families. They called it EFT-Emotional Freedom Techniques. Well. I did calm down. Not enough to deal with it, but to continue dealing with the thing I started. I chucked the bag into a box. I think next time I will go up I will be ready to let it go. And it will feel good.

ROLLERCOASTER DAY

I had one of those dreaded rollercoaster days. I was tired getting up. Very tired. But I worked anyway. I felt a lot better all of a sudden. Then things went down hill. But I got my spirits back up. Followed by an incident with a little meltdown. I ended the day going up. Everything done that needed to be done. Oh wait. HELP! NO! Okay. Everything done that needed to be done except for one thing. A million things left to do. But who cares. I can do them tomorrow. I see the progress. It might be small. But progress it is, and as long as I don't let. Now I will go and finish those invitations so they can be handed out tomorrow!

HOLY PUKE!

Can't they be done by now? I mean, I feel truely sorry for the poor kids, but I am starting to feel sorry for myself, too. 2 weeks of puking and diarrhea even if it is 3 different kids is just not fun.

But being the hero I am, I have not only survived so far, but have even put in 1.5-2 hours of household work each day and have cooked nutritious meals. This means I have achieved a lot more in a certain situation then I would have a few years ago. I might not be decluttering, but I am holding the fort. Just barely. But I am.

What I am trying to tell you is, that change is possible, improvements are possible and you simply need to be patient with yourself and let yourself get back up when you fall. Just make sure you don't fall into a poodle of puke.

FIT, SLIM AND CALM

Needless to say, the ride to ballet class didn't work out. Oh and of today one more kid gets to tag along for rides. As he has to be dropped of 15 min before ballet class starts it's no big deal to have to go to ballet by myself.

I wish life could just be normal for one day. Puking kids for 6 days gets kind of old. I am fit, slim and calm. I had to adapt my mantra. Telling myself I am full of energy is simply too much.

Well. I will quit my rant and make you groan with one more shredder detail. The shredded stuff. No.It doesn't got into the trash. Or recycling for that matter. My parents have decided that it is the perfect stuff to start the fire. They put it into little paper bags, the ones you get at the bakery. So the shredded paper is put into carefully kept little paper bags and then lit under small pieces of wood. I have shredded about 1/10 of the bank accounts and ended up with medium size trash bag (squished in tightly) full of shreds. Well. As my friend Nicole put it: "Better hope for a long, cold winter." This might just be the reason my Mom hasn't shredded the stuff yet. In it's original form it takes a lot less space to store!

SHREDDER TROUBLE

If you think shredding stuff was clear sailing once my Mom's unvoiced concerns were ignored, you are mistaken. There is more than just one soul in this family that has trouble throwing things away. My Dad's issue is keeping record. He once explained to me that it obviously is a thing that affects men more than women and gets worse the older you become. He has kept a journal most of his live. 2 lines every day was sufficient for him. The stuff he records? The weather, his weight, what he ate. The last category was added more recently.

Now here is an example to show you how far he takes his record keeping. He has a plum tree in the garden that he loves dearly. When he added a garage to the house the tree was in the way. Someone else might have just cut it down, but my Dad dug it up, had it pulled down by a farmer friend with his tractor, and had about 10 men over that helped him carry the tree to the front of the property where he had dug a hole for it. It wasn't a small tree. It was at least 12-15 feet high. Yes, he cut back a lot to transfer it. The tree still is in it's "new spot". I vividly remeber that day altough I was only 5 years old. But I disgress. My Dad loves that tree. It usually bears a lot of fruit every second year. For reasons only known to my Dad he wants to know how many plums he eats off the tree every year. So he has a bucket into which he throws the stones after he has eaten a plum. Rumors about a raging fit when my Mom tossed the content of the bucket before he was able to count it one year are most likely true.

So here I am happily shredding away when the following conversation took place.

Dad:"What kind of documents are you shredding?"

Me:"Bank statments."

Dad:"Whose?"

Me:"Yours."

Dad has a concerned look on his face.

Me:"They are old.Very old."

Dad's look gets a little more concerned.

Me, acting innocent:"Is there a problem?"

Dad getting a little fidgety:"You need to keep some, don't throw them all away."

I happily handed some over while I kept shredding like mad. I handed over even more to give the appearance that I was not determined to destroy them all. I made sure to get him one that I thought would be interesting. All of a sudden I realized that it wasn't his bank statement but my Mom's. So I did hand over some other financial statement with his name on it, just to keep him happy. Once he secured stuff for the records to  be placed in a museum one day he was just fine and ignored my shredding. Problem solved. I'm an expert. Can you tell?

Oh, and by the way. Today's shredded statements where from nineteenseventyone. YUP.1971.

HAPPILY SHREDDING AWAY

Last night I was sitting in my Mom's office with her. My brother was there, too. My Mom was all excited how much better her room looked, but had to admit, that only my brother might see the difference. I was mean enough to say, the only difference I see is that the stuff on her second desk is stacked twice as high as the last time I was there a couple of months ago. Of course she got all defensive about it and then showed me a box that was sitting next to the shredder. She said:"Look. I threw away all of this. I just have to shred it still." What is it and why haven't you shredded it yet," I wondered. "Bank statements," was the answer and she kind of made it obvious that she changed her mind and might just keep them. I asked her how old they were. "Older then 7 years."

UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE MONTH! I offered for the kids to help shred it. She didn't look all that convinced but I kind of made her feel she would be doing the kids a favor. I brought it up over dinner again and even though she still didn't seem to excited about it she didn't say no. So I happily ran off to shred the stuff with the kids. The oldest bank statement I came across was from 1972. Yup. Nineteenseventytwo. As in 42 years ago. It was way too much to shred it all at once. The shredder my Mom has is for home offices and not made for heavy duty.

Cruel me knows how hoarders tick. So I decided too make sure that if she changes her mind to make it as hard as possible to keep the stuff. I took all the statements out of the paper folders and shredded those first. This way they cannot be reused for anything plus if you want to keep the stuff now you have to find something to file them in first. Evil. I know. I restacked them neatly into the box, but in random order. I know I know. Downright vicious. Our output was a trashbag (medium size) full of shreds. I am quite happy with myself. Too bad I didn't know about this sooner. I could be done by now!

NEVER GOOD ENOUGH

Please, don't get me wrong. I totally agree that striving to be better is a good thing. But there is a big difference between improving constantly and not ever being good enough. If I ever do run off to Australia, or somewhere else were I hope you won't find me, my farewell note will be made up of 5 words.

I was NEVER good enough.

Sad, huh? I agree. Very sad. There are so many women in my life who feel the same way. They feel that they are not enough. It's not true. Have you ever noticed that you will compare your figure with your good looking skinny friend's figure? And your wardrobe with your fashionista friend's? Your hoarded house with your OCD friend's house?

Why do we do that? Why do we keep hurting ourselfs that way? I wish I had an answer for you. I know it is up to me to change that. Happiness comes from within.

When I was a little girl my Dad used to take my on hikes up the mountains. Being the little girl I was, I tired easily and often felt like I could not go on. The top of the mountain just seemed to far away. My dad taught me a little trick. He told me not to focus on the mountain top in the distance but to find a goal close to myself, a big tree, or a bolder and to focus on it and tell myself I could make it to there. Once I reached it, I was supposed to pick the next goal. The bend in the road, the patch of flowers by the wayside, the anthill. But always something that could be reached in 100 steps or less. And wouldn't you know it. I was strong enough to make it to the top. Splitting up the treck into little walks with few steps made me succesful and showed me that I was stronger than I initially thought.

If you want to lose 50 pounds, split it up into little blocks. Try 5.
If you want to declutter your house, start with a drawer.
If you want to be a millionaire, start with the goal of having a 1000 in your bank account.

What ever it is. Focus on the next few steps. And please know that you are GOOD ENOUGH!

CAKE MANIA

I think I baked 20 cakes in the last 5 days. I know, I know. Crazy. I was practising for a wedding cake and you can't really bake cake for a whole week without ever feeding any to the kids. Well. I have learned one thing. A stacked wedding cake is more than I can handle. Oh. And I learned something else. If you spent all week baking the only thing you will get rid of is floor, sugar, butter and eggs. Lots of eggs. So many eggs you will constantly have to buy new ones.

5 a day was forgotten. The surface of the day was forgotten. Unless you let me count the counter top. I have 5 days ahead of me at my parents house. Object of the game is to track down everything I own that is still in their house and get rid of it. Once and for all!

HOARDER BEHAVIOUR

Ever since I self diagnosed as a hoarder, I am looking more closely at my own behaviour. I am trying to find the hoarder traits. And I do. Certain phrases like:"it's still good", "someone could use this," "this is a great deal" are just a few that a hoarder uses to justify keeping or aquiring things.

Not only do I watch myself closely but I also watch the people around me. And I have spoted a few fellow hoarders or at least a few potential hoarders.

The scariest part about this for me is that I can easily classify their behaviour. I know they are justifying. It is obvious for me that keeping this certain object makes no sense. I can literally shake my head at those hoarders in my circle of friends and family. Than a few hours later, I blush. Catching myself doing what they did.