I'm still working on it

So after the flu, the bronchitis that was awful, etc. etc.  I'm much better, and trying to attack my mission one babystep at a time.  Today I reclaimed the bookshelves at the end of the playroom to be.  Still too much stuff, but, books sorted by author are now on some of the shelves, with books in boxes, already sorted by author, waiting to join them. The lower books are doll and craft books that wanted to stay.  Also some jars of buttons (I LOVE buttons) are there, for now.

I hate being sick!!

Well, I finally got the  bug that's been going around at work - nasty stomach bug.  I sat in bed and sorted through paper files yesterday, so I felt like I got something accomplished.

I hate being sick!!!

Cold weather, sorting and the mission progresses

Too cold!  That's my main complaint this week.  The tumble I took on ice covered snow wasn't fun, although I wasn't seriously hurt. 

Busy work week, but, I did get some progress made.  I sorted all the trims by color, into containers I already own.  I have the fabrics sorted into the dresser I already had, by color, which makes several containers empty.
So, for a cold, miserable, sore week, I've gotten things done.
It amazes me that things that took up so much room when they were messy, take up far less, when tidy.  Who would have thought?

Progress on the mission

Well, just when I didn't feel like I was making much progress, I reached the dresser.  I emptied the drawers and sorted fabric by basic colors (pink prints fills two drawers, so I seem to have a strong preference for these), a blue and green drawer, a drawer for solid fabric (like you use for backing some of those pretty prints), a panel drawer with specialty print panels, and a totally empty drawer (for now, trust me, got loads more fabric).
My plan is simple (until I make it more complicated, which I am prone to doing):  I have all my sewing stuff sorted in mesh hampers (and one large clear plastic bin), by what type of fabric/what it is used for (for example, one is full of fabric I make dolls from).  The clear plastic bin is full of trims (have I mention I LOVE trims?).  As the drawers fill up, the hardest part begins - what I want to keep, and what I don't.  After doing downsizing of fabrics for the last couple of years, it begins harder to make that choice.  I also have a better idea of how much room I will have for storing these goodies.  Sigh.
Here is a before picture.  I will post an after, once this side of the room looks more after.

Ongoing mission

A few of my collection of dolls recline on the antique fainting couch I had stored in the clutter room.  Yes, I knew I had it, but, it was so buried in "treasures" that you couldn't even see it.  Now the velvet treasure has some of my "girls" enjoying the velvet softness of it.  These ladies are antique boudoir dolls, who allow me to take care of them.  The charming lady in purple is a French silk face doll.
I am still inching along, but, had to work all week, so incremental progress on my mission to redo my grown daughter's old bedroom (now officially called 'the clutter room").  Tomorrow, hope to get more progress, as I am off from work.

Continuing on with the mission and soring things out for myself in a dream

Well, today emptied two more of those giant plastic bags (they are banned from my use forever).  I now have separated and sorted everything I removed from the future playroom, yesterday.  Everything either has a home already, or has been assigned a home location.  Nothing has been left homeless except for a small wicker basket of odds and ends that is amazingly small, considering what I started with.  In the process of assigning homes, I cleaned out my huge steamer trunk, which I use for sewing stuff (it has drawers and looks so cool) and reconfigured what I was keeping in it.  MUST REMEMBER: Do NOT over fill drawers.  Put only what belongs in each drawer, there.
One of the joys I've discovered this last year, is actually using the stuff I collected to benefit my home, not just let it take up room.  I lovingly refinished this old steamer trunk over a long hot summer.  Now, instead of just looking really cool, it serves a purpose.

I also have some little vintage dresses hanging on the old wooden hangers that came with it.
Feeling quite pleased with myself, today.
Last night I had a dream that although wasn't factual, was scarey real in terms of my subconscious sorting out why I hold onto stuff the way I do.  The people in the dream followed behavior patterns I had pushed deep in my memory, because they were ways I had been really treated, in the past.  I woke up anxious, until I realized that the life I live is vastly different than back in those days, and that it is up to me, what I keep, what I let go of.  No one else makes those kind of choices for me, at this time in my life.  What a difference that self reassurance made in my approach today.  It wasn't about how much stuff I could get rid of, but, rather how I felt about keeping it, what I was keeping it for.  One rule:  everything has to have a home.  The purpose can be as simple as the little vintage dresses, quilt, vintage gloves (they are beautifully beaded), shoe button hook - the purpose they serve, is the way I feel when I look at them.  These are things I gathered over the years because I enjoy their history, their texture and the pleasure they give me.  They have a home, I like them, I want them, so they stay.  Wish all things were that simple!

Insight: Do we own stuff, or does it own us?

I am sentimental about stuff connected to memories.  A little dress that my girls wore, old winter hats, baby shoes.  I have totes in the attic for each of the girls, filled with special items from their childhood.  I have to remember that letting go of old shoes, etc., that they wore doesn't mean letting go of all those memories.
Growing up, I always felt poor.  We moved so often, that if it didn't fit in the station wagon with us, it didn't have value to my parents.
When I finally stayed in one place long enough to graduate from high school, all my belongings fit in my bedroom.  I moved out when I was eighteen, my mother was angry at me, and threw everything into an appliance box and pushed it down the stairs.  When I left for the Army, everything fit in in a suitcase.  When I was assigned to Fort Bragg, a suitcase and duffel bag held everything.  When I moved into an apartment, everything fit in my car.
When Robert and I first married, we lived in a mobile home, which we took to Pennsylvania after he was commissioned as a Reserve officer and finished training at Fort Sill.  Everything fit in that mobile home (two bedrooms) and our car.
When we moved into a house (an old house that we will be working on forever), with two (and later three) little girls, they had their own bedrooms that filled up with stuff.  Over the years, we have filled up the attic, the basement (which I cleaned out this past year), an enclosed porch that we added to the front of our house (which is now a separate sitting room full of sewing stuff and entry (which holds a display cabinet, antique desk and a closet that my youngest daughter now uses).

Still working on not holding on to so much stuff.  The pictures show the new and improved entry, and the dolls explain alot about why I have so much sewing stuff.  I love sewing dolls.  These two were finished after classes I took three years ago in Ohio at the Dollgatherers Gala.