#throwing things away

I sort the ways a home can be in disarray into the following categories:

Dirt- stains, disrepair, shower grime, dust, trash etc.

Clutter - things that are most likely usable, but you gain nothing (logistically or emotionally) from keeping them, and will gain peace of mind by removing them.

Jumble - things that belong in the house but are simply not in their designated place.

It can take some effort to discern clutter from jumble... and it's also subjective, of course, so finding where that line even is, is more difficult when you don't live alone. Fortunately my partner and I are of similar minds in this regard, so we haven't had massive arguments about it the way my parents had when I was younger.

Today I had a surprise day off, so I used it to tidy around the house a little, something I haven't had a chance to do since rejoining the workforce. There were a lot of empty packages lying around, and the floor needs a thorough mopping from all the food Son keeps spilling on it, but I was relieved to discover that most of the things I put away were just jumble, the kind you usually get with a toddler that has only partial understanding of where everything should go.

I did get rid of a few toys that we got from well-meaning relatives/friends/neighbors. The sentiment is appreciated, but Son just wasn't interested in some of these items! No use keeping all kinds of battery-powered gizmos when we 1. don't have that many batteries to use and 2. he prefers simple toys anyway: plush dolls, a ball, a little plastic traffic cone, dad's foam roller and resistance band...

On the topic of tables, today I surprised myself by removing anonther one from our home. It was a bedside table with wheels - the sort used for the comfort of bedridden people - but over time it became less and less suited to our life. Furniture didn't have a high enough space to tuck the rolling legs underneath, the table started to droop a bit to one side, and now Son was starting to climb on it (and he did nearly topple the thing on himself once). I was a bit sad to see it go, but again, we have folding tables now that we didn't have when we bought it.

I left it outside; maybe one of the neighbors will find use for it.

Last night the stools we've had in our living room for ten years became too worn out to support us, and so we tossed them out. Straight into the trash, so nobody would try to sit on them and risk injury. My initial instinct was to look for replacements, but then I realized we had more folding stools lying around in a drawer, so we could bring them out for now. This morning, my partner's belt buckle broke just as he was ready to get to work. He only had one belt, but I had two and he had lost a lot of weight recently, so I offered him one of mine. He can keep it, or use it temporarily until he finds a new belt/buckle for himself, I don't care either way.

Another thing we threw out recently was a table we had kept around with the plan to "eventually" put new legs on it. It only took us a few months to realize it wasn't going to happen and that we already had two folding tables in storage and ready to be used as needed.

I must say, having folding furniture that you can set up and put away as needed is a blessing in a small apartment!

Now to find the motivation to look under the beds for all the toys Son poofed out of existence.

Yesterday I threw out a lot of expired medicine. That's it, That's the post.

Took me a few months, but I finally said goodbye to the playpen I bought for Baby all those months ago. It was a good idea in theory, but in practice - Baby resented being caged and unable to follow me around, and my partner hated how much space it was taking up in our living room, so we ended up putting it away before I'd even finished paying it off. Now, thinking about it, I realized we wouldn't be putting it up again for any potential siblings because we have now sufficiently baby-proofed the apartment anyway. So I finally freed myself from my biggest piece of buyer's remorse.

We recently decided to give away a large electronic device that was lying unused in our living room. it's a type of large portable speaker that you can plug a microphone into, I don't know what they're called in English. But getting that thing out of the house caused a minor domino effect: with that shelf space cleared, I could transfer to it a few boxes of papers we needed to keep. Those boxes were in a small cart. I could now use that cart for my supplements, painting-in-progress and other things that were taking up the limited space on my "personal station" (a side-table next to the recliner where I paint, use my tablet etc.)

I did need to find a place to tuck it where Baby won't tip the thing over on himself (...after he'd done it once), but that was simple enough.

We also took down the baby fence we had in the living room, because the little guy was starting to grow frustrated with it and attempted to climb over it repeatedly. Now the whole construction is stored atop his closet and our floor space is freed. We did keep the play mat around, though, since it doubles as momma's exercise mat.

I threw out a pillow that was already kinda gross, and I found one of Baby's unused blankets to be a fine enough substitute when folded, so I'm not buying a new pillow for myself anytime soon.

Partner took up sewing classes recently, so we gathered all the clothes and beddings and whatnot that we were iffy about, and now they're in a "projects box". He already flipped a dress of mine into a skirt, since I liked the fabric but wanted to get rid of the bodice :) After he gains some confidence I'll get him to buy some linen and fashion me a few more simple skirts, since it would be significantly cheaper than buying them pre-sewn.

Our recycling bags were starting to disintegrate, and besides, an open bag is now not the best idea since Baby can crawl up to it and dig inside it. So we replaced them with firm bins, same internal volume, with a built-in carrying handle so we wouldn't have to put liner bags in them - just flip the whole thing over the neighborhood recycling bin and chuck the contents in. And as if to continue the trend, our cooler bag also ripped just yesterday! We don't have the know-how to mend it, if it's even possible, so we'll have to say goodbye to it. I'll propose to replace it with a firm plastic cooler, just as we replaced the soft bags with sturdier bins.

The place is starting to look closer to how it was pre-baby. I feel so much better stepping out of bed into this living space now.

Today I did something I've been dithering about for more than a decade - Saying goodbye to two paintings I made in high school. They're both quite large (70x70 and 100×100cm. The meter by meter one goes to my mother-in-law, the 70 by 70 I cut up and will use the other side of the canvas for small paintings. It's not a lot materially, but it is a big step in that I'm finally starting to let go of nostalgia that doesn't serve me.

Today I did a very minute declutter, but one that's been bothering me for a few months now: brush holders.

One was a sink-side brush holder, for dish cleaning tools. I tossed it because this thing gets so grimy after only a few days of use. And why should I keep something that gets grimy all the time, if the point of it is to keep my brushes away from the messy countertop? Instead, I sacrificed a few surgical masks I had lying around, cut off their strings and made loops to hang all the dish cleaning brushes from hooks. Much better.

The second was a holder for paintbrushes. It had its utility, but that thing got so dusty, I decided it would be better to store my brushes in a case.

I will be giving away to my friends: a calligraphy pen that I adore, but do not use enough to justify keeping; a game controller that Partner got for his computer (and only used for one game); a string of fairy lights; and other knick-knacks I don't remember off the top of my head. Oh, and we finally got around to putting all the baby blankets in the textile recycling bin. Unsurprisingly, there's not much use for baby blankets even among other parents of babies; that's how we got stuck with them in the first place and why nobody wanted to take them from us, haha. (If you're wondering, Baby has a sleep sack for himself. He's not left out in the cold.)

I did manage to use up a lot of my paper, so that's good! We still have so many notepads and notebooks that we won't need more for years to come (except to buy notebooks for Baby when he reaches school age).

It's a mess in here, but we'll get back on track.