Sunday 6 December 2015

Dealing with stuff

My move to Parys has happened and I'm delighted to no longer be commuting between JHB and Parys. Even though my former home and current home were only 124km apart (1h15 drive), it was taxing. I can now barely get into a car and a delight in riding my bike between my home and my mom's new home (yes, she's also in Parys).

Temperatures have been roasting and today is another scorcher. We're all indoors, in our respective homes, dealing with stuff.

For my mom, she still faces boxes to unpack. When I arrived this morning she was looking glum indeed. As she says, she has boxes still to unpack and just doesn't know what to do with all the stuff. She's planning on a garage sale.

For the kids, they have to sort out their rooms.

Ruben's room wasn't too bad to begin  - he doesn't have a load of stuff. But things didn't have rightful places and little goodies needed to be grouped and placed into tubs so that he can easily find them to play. Also a sorting through of books that he no longer needs, fluffy toys that can be given a new home and such.

Ruben's drawer - AFTER
Kyla's room is chaotic. Draws and shelves of randomly distributed and tangled things. She doesn't know what she has. We don't know what she has. She can never find anything. The issue is not as much that there is tons of stuff, but that it is never put back in any order and nothing has a place. She's not too keen on dealing with stuff so this will take a while.

Kyla's drawer - BEFORE
For me... I've been in the process of moving to Parys for a few weeks. Each time I drove through I'd bring stuff. Some would be packed away; other items would be dumped to be dealt with later. Today I'm dealing with 'later'.

We're busy building a bigger 'toy room' for Celliers' toys and my toys. We're both active and outdoorsy with many sports - biking, running, paddling, orienteering, adventure racing, camping... that means stuff that needs to be accommodated for frequent and intermittant use.

I work from home so my home-office is a functional centre where almost anything can be made, laminated, coloured in, glued, cut...

And then I've got my crochet hobby... I've got separate containers for different types of yarn and also for on-the-go projects.

Yeah, stuff to be dealt with.

As much as I may wish to be free of stuff, I need a functional office. I'd love to have a 37-item capsule wardrobe, when you've got running gear for all seasons, it blows your item count (my regular-wear clothes are probably in the 37-item range).

Celliers is mostly sorted - inside the house. Once the toy room is done we'll have to get in there to organise and arrange stuff. And then we'll need to get into the garage to organise tools and making-stuff-things.

Yeah, a day to deal with stuff. Much need by all of us.

UPDATE: Ruben is sorted. Kyla mostly so. She wasn't so keen on us throwing out / giving away stuff (she is far more sentimental than me and Celliers) but she dealt with it well and her cupboards are looking great.

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