Compulsive hoarding is a mental disorder that is just beginning to be understood. As a hoarder, I have acquired things over the years with a specific purpose in mind at the time of the acquisition, used some of those items for their intended purposes, forgotten the goal for different objects, but now that I find that they have outlived their purpose in my life I am struggling to rid myself of those same things.

You can read the start of my journey here.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

An early Christmas.

I am ever so glad it was warm outside today. Well. Warm for Colorado in December. It was in the 50s, and we needed every degree of warmth possible to complete our task, plus the space heater, but complete it we did.

The. Storage. Pod. Is. Empty.

My mother and my husband did the vast majority of the leg work with a little help from Hopper. We thought of hiring Frank the last couple of hours to help out. I wish we'd have thought of it sooner. It was a great investment, and he was a huge help. 


Our basement holds most of the contents of the pod at this point, but it does not feel like it will be impossible to get through the boxes, even though they take up a large portion of the family room. It's going to take awhile to get through the crafts and get them sorted. There's a lot of crafts, and while I have quite the craft area I will not have room for everything, so I will be paring down as I go along. I think it's going to be a case of "easier said than done," but I refuse to be intimidated. I will get through it.

I meant to take pictures in the pod before we started unloading, but it's just as well I didn't. By the time we finally finished, I felt like a Popsicle I was so cold, and I doubt my fingers would have been able to operate the buttons on a camera. Now that everything is inside, I'll make sure I get pictures before I start going through boxes tomorrow.

I know we have a lot of games that we'd gotten for the girls over the years, but realistically, I know we won't be using them all, and many of them are still brand new. I want to go through them, get out the ones I don't think the girls will use, and donate them to one of the local toy drives in time for Christmas. Hopefully, they'll bring smiles to a few faces this Season.

I'm exhausted tonight from my role in today's adventure. I didn't lift anything. I left that up to The Hubster and Mom. However, I stood in the pod for the 5 hours it took us to go through and delegated. The craft boxes went on one side of the family room. The games, toys, and other boxes that are going to require a bit more time to sort went on the other side. The books all went in the workout room. 


Speaking of books, The Hubster was in shock when we came across 13 more boxes of books after he thought he'd already moved all the boxes down to the workout room. He's positive he's not going to be able to fit them all on the bookshelves we have ready for him to use. He's looking at paring down, too.


Emptying the pod today has been an eye-opening experience. It's made us very much aware of what it is that we struggle with hoarding, and it's made us very much aware that we do not want to continue down the path we'd chosen. We no longer choose to go down that road. 


We've decided to take a detour that will lead us to our real lives. 


Merry Christmas to us.

9 comments:

  1. Yay you!!!!
    So glad you've accomplished another goal!

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  2. That is awesome!!! Congrats!!!! :-)

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  3. Good for you! I'm always amazed when I read what all you accomplish each day. I don't know where you find the energy, especially after having had major surgery so recently. Praying for you and sending lots of Christmas love your way!

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  4. Good for you!! So glad that pod is empty now! I know you'll be cheering when the pod company comes to remove it!

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  5. Yay for an empty pod, you are moving along swimmingly!

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  6. I love you and I'm proud of you and dad. I respect the hell out of both of you, fyi. You're my heroes.

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  7. Stumbled upon your blog from another.
    I read your whole blog this weekend. Very inspirational.
    I hope you are doing ok. It has been a while since your last post and you are such a faithful blogger.
    Take care and get well soon

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  8. YAY for progress!! That is amazing!!

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