Plus-Sized Pin Up

I got a text this morning from my older brother. He wanted me to check out the A&E show Hoarding. He said it was available to stream on Netflix. I watched the first episode and asked him the point. He felt it was extremely hilarious. It saddened me. I suffer from OCD, which is also an anxiety disorder. There is a sense of control when you're out buying things. Unfortunately, all control is lost in the home. It becomes a vicious cycle: buy to find control, house makes you feel out of control, buy to find control . . . It just goes on.

I admit that I have never been the cleanest person, but I thrive in a clean environment. After my house burned down when I was 11, I started hoarding just about everything. I would pick broken things up off of the ground, go scrounging for junk in the dirt hills behind our house, save huge old pickle containers. You name it, I saved it. However, when I started cleaning everything out to move into my husband's house, I realized how much junk I had. There wasn't necessarily an emotional attachment to things. I honestly couldn't figure out why I was hanging onto even half of the crap I had. I just felt as though I needed a change. I needed to start purging things from my life. It as time to let go.

It hasn't gone well. My husband is a classic hoarder. He won't accept it, but our garage would stand as witness. Over 95% of the junk in our garage are pointless things he insists on keeping. He claims that he forms an emotional attachment with anything that comes into his possession. This includes piece of broken junk on the ground. I cannot even begin to imagine how many pigeon feathers he has packed away. Our garage is a one-car and heated garage. He wants to eventually put his computers and servers out there. We want to make it into a pseudo-rumpas (sp) room. At the moment, we have to walk sideways through it and hope we don't knock anything over. He can't set up one of the spare bedrooms as a computer room, because he is hanging onto useless old computer parts. Even though he won't use these 20 year-old parts, "They are a part of" him.

My mother and father keep pestering me about when we sill start the adventure of cleaning out the garage. I don't know . . . I think I'm going to have to sit down; go through the boxes; one-at-a-time ask him whether it is kept, thrown, or given to charity; etc. His parents also feel that this is a good idea. I'm afraid that I'll have to be the bad guy and throw it away no matter what.

Sorry, I'm ranting.

My point: I am starting this change in my life to better my health. How can I come into this house that causes me stress and expect it to feel like a haven? I have a hard time sleeping in my bedroom, because of the mess. This has an impact on my health. Starting Monday morning, I am putting down my food and dealing with the things I can do. I have done this before and been successful. My husband wasn't really willing to help last time, so it shall be my mission. Like getting in the habit of going to the gym 2x/wk and getting cardio 5x/wk, I can make this a habit as well! And, hey, it will increase the amount of exercise I am getting! LoL ^_~

Well, I think that's just about covers it. I'm planning on returning to FlyLady. When I worked through her methods previously, they really helped. The question is whether I have the discipline to continue following it. Since Angel is coming on the 22nd, I really need to kick stuff into high gear. Hopefully, following the FlyLady steps, I'll be able to keep a handle on things. Plus, it will give me something to do instead of stressing and feeling depressed about the no-job situation. All I need to do is come up with an awesome cleaning playlist ^_^ I have no shortage of good music!