January brings on my urge to purge. Once the holiday decor is back in storage, there's something about that suddenly spacious feeling in the rooms after all the festive clutter has been put away that soothes my soul. I start eyeing other areas - closets, paper piles, spouse-stuff - that would benefit from some major purging.
Unfortunately this is not a yen my husband shares, especially in regard to the spouse-stuff. Spouse stuff is my polite term for G's collections of "necessities" that grow like dollar weed in the spaces he habitually occupies. During my first visit to his apartment when we were dating, the sheer volume of framed photos and certificates on electric orange floral-papered walls assaulted my senses. Every inch of flat-surfaced furniture was "decorated" with things that seemed to function only as dust-collectors. This should have been a major indicator of potential home-furnishing conflicts, but I chalked it up to a single man making do with the rental unit available to him.
Fast forward more than two decades, and the Battle of Stuff Versus Less Stuff continues. G has at least 60 t-shirts piled up on his closet shelves. He wears the same ones over and over, but if asked to donate some to charity, he plays the sentimentality card. "I have to keep that one; I've had it since I was 10 years old!" If he's feeling conciliatory, he might part with two. He has enough underwear to get him through four months without doing laundry (or turning them inside out.) He peruses pawn shops, resale shops, and local flea markets for entertainment. The result is he has hundreds of DVDs and paperback books (of which he may actually read one or two per month.) He also has collections of miscellaneous stuff related to John Wayne, classic cars, Boston Red Sox, boats and lighthouses, and wolves.
Since I've conceded that I can't change his collecting ways, I try to encourage respect for my need to keep clutter minimal in our common living areas. For example, he piles magazines and papers on the floor by his favorite chair. I provided a decorative basket to put them in. He filled up the basket and the overflow went on the floor. I provided an additional decorative basket with a lid to house the older stuff, which could also double as a "table" for his drink and TV remote. When lidded basket got filled - or inconvenient because it required lifting the lid - more overflow piled up on the floor. Happily the floor thing was resolved when Gracie, one of our recently adopted Corgis, let him know she assumes any paper products on the floor are hers. If I'd have realized G doesn't appreciate his classic car magazines having chewed corners and saliva stains on them, I might have chewed on some myself.
From experience I know my January urge to purge will dissipate before the month ends. I started strong the first week by cleaning anything resembling science experiments out of the refrigerator and freezer. In week 2, I opened every item on the computer desktop, and either filed appropriately or deleted. Week 3 has begun. I'm debating between cleaning out my clothes closet or attacking the mushrooming paper piles that need culling. Neither is sounding too appealing. I may just shut some doors. The second of my triannual purge urges should hit around April.
Unfortunately this is not a yen my husband shares, especially in regard to the spouse-stuff. Spouse stuff is my polite term for G's collections of "necessities" that grow like dollar weed in the spaces he habitually occupies. During my first visit to his apartment when we were dating, the sheer volume of framed photos and certificates on electric orange floral-papered walls assaulted my senses. Every inch of flat-surfaced furniture was "decorated" with things that seemed to function only as dust-collectors. This should have been a major indicator of potential home-furnishing conflicts, but I chalked it up to a single man making do with the rental unit available to him.
Fast forward more than two decades, and the Battle of Stuff Versus Less Stuff continues. G has at least 60 t-shirts piled up on his closet shelves. He wears the same ones over and over, but if asked to donate some to charity, he plays the sentimentality card. "I have to keep that one; I've had it since I was 10 years old!" If he's feeling conciliatory, he might part with two. He has enough underwear to get him through four months without doing laundry (or turning them inside out.) He peruses pawn shops, resale shops, and local flea markets for entertainment. The result is he has hundreds of DVDs and paperback books (of which he may actually read one or two per month.) He also has collections of miscellaneous stuff related to John Wayne, classic cars, Boston Red Sox, boats and lighthouses, and wolves.
Since I've conceded that I can't change his collecting ways, I try to encourage respect for my need to keep clutter minimal in our common living areas. For example, he piles magazines and papers on the floor by his favorite chair. I provided a decorative basket to put them in. He filled up the basket and the overflow went on the floor. I provided an additional decorative basket with a lid to house the older stuff, which could also double as a "table" for his drink and TV remote. When lidded basket got filled - or inconvenient because it required lifting the lid - more overflow piled up on the floor. Happily the floor thing was resolved when Gracie, one of our recently adopted Corgis, let him know she assumes any paper products on the floor are hers. If I'd have realized G doesn't appreciate his classic car magazines having chewed corners and saliva stains on them, I might have chewed on some myself.
From experience I know my January urge to purge will dissipate before the month ends. I started strong the first week by cleaning anything resembling science experiments out of the refrigerator and freezer. In week 2, I opened every item on the computer desktop, and either filed appropriately or deleted. Week 3 has begun. I'm debating between cleaning out my clothes closet or attacking the mushrooming paper piles that need culling. Neither is sounding too appealing. I may just shut some doors. The second of my triannual purge urges should hit around April.
