Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Annual and a half update

So I haven't posted in a while.  Like a year and a half.  It's been pretty busy, and some progress has been made, but it is incremental at best.  The hallways are pretty much clear!  All 3 children have a legitimate bed to sleep on!  In a legitimate room!  This by itself is enough to allow me to get by most days without a hoarder rage spiral and that is great. 

There is still lots of work to do.  The living room is pretty crowded, and Eldest's bedroom (formerly Destroyers uninhabitable room) is very crowded as well.  The kitchen and dining room are in a state of flux, but improved from a month ago.  Hoarder's and my bedroom is as bad as it's ever been, but that's okay if the rest of the house is improving.  The real down side to this is school is starting in a few weeks and Hoarder is going to burdened with getting that done instead of getting the house done.  We'll see how it turns out, but I imagine she's going to struggle to find the time to do both.

On a personal note I have had an excellent summer.  The outside of our house no longer looks like the home of a hoarder.  Some serious work got done in the yard; including storage for the kids toys, a leveled out play area for the kids, a new garden bed and a boatload of new plantings.  No more garbage in the front or back yard.  The other day Destroyer and I were playing a game of soccer all across our backyard, which would have been impossible at the beginning of summer.  Or any time in the last 6 years.  It was pretty dusty out there when we got done.  It must be getting dusty in here, too.  I'm having trouble seeing my computer screen.  Just a little blurry.

Over the summer I've left Hoarder to her own devices inside the house, focusing mostly on getting stuff taken care of in the yard.  She has been pretty good about continuing to make progress over the summer while she has relatively little responsibility in other areas.  As always it is slow, but it has been much more tangible this summer than it has been in years past.  A couple of full truckloads of stuff (mostly clothes) have made their way out of our house (and out of the truck!).  Good on ya, Hoarder!

The battle continues, but for the first time in a long time the battle lines are actually moving, which is amazing.