Rearranging boxes

A fellow blogger asked us if we had any rituals. I asked if pretending to clean stuff and get organized, only to put everything back the way it was and start the whole process again the next day counted. This is really starting to annoy me. I don't feel like I've been hit by a truck, I'm now back to what now passes as physically okay, but I just don't seem to be getting anywhere. I empty a box, look at the stuff, possibly move it to a different box. The next day I'll probably move everything back to the first box.

This isn't entirely true. I've gotten rid of a few things, just not enough, and I can't even see that I have any extra space where I got rid of things. Like, I got rid of a box of jeans that are too small for me. (This box and some other boxes are small, so really it should only count as half a box.) Okay, so I got rid of half of a box of jeans. And I got rid of half a box of things that don't make me happy any more. And I moved half a box of things. And I got rid of some records. And today I got rid of another half a box of clothing, which was stuff that I liked but had some defect, and so I was putting it aside thinking that someday I was going to make something else out of this stuff. Today I decided that stuff could go. So adding up the half a box here and there, I should have either two empty boxes or empty shelves or something, but I need to do more than that, and right now I can't even tell that I've done that much. I know that I have done at least that much, cause I see the bag of stuff that will go out with the trash tomorrow and the other bag of stuff that will go to Goodwill, but there doesn't seem to be an equivalent empty space in the room that I'm trying to get organized.

I've now found about eighteen bags and boxes of things like cough drops, and about a dozen boxes of different size plastic bags. The bags were not in the kitchen because while they do have a use in the kitchen, they are also used to separate craft stuff and to help when packing for a trip (cause you should put your shampoo and such in a couple of plastic bags before packing, just in case they start leaking into the suitcase).

And there's just no place to put all that cough suppressant stuff or all of those plastic bags, and there's no place for the other odd things that go from one box to another.

Today I've decided that I can part with three or four more books, and a few magazines that I'd kept for the pictures, and some things that I had printed out for art classes. That doesn't even add up to half a box, and it took about four hours to convince myself to part with those few things.

I guess this is as far as I get with it, and I just never really noticed before. I get to the point where I put everything in boxes, and I'm just happy that there's not stuff falling off of the desk and such and on the floor. And I think that when I have time I'll go through those boxes and get rid of more stuff. It's just that this past week I haven't done much else except look at things in the boxes, so now is that time I've thought that I would get rid of stuff, but I can't seem to figure out what to get rid off.

I had to read some books just to get this far with it.

Those books are a little odd to me, but they deserve their own post.

Anyway, I'm going to go back in the other room and look at the stuff again while I watch some DVDs of movies I saw last year.