I have friends whose houses are masterpieces of organization and elegance. Not our house.The cats complicate things because we must drape some of the furniture. And because we have a leather loveseat and sofa, it always looks messy because the drapery material never stays in place and the bottom line is the cats still find exposed parts to scratch.
Anyway, I was in my dressing room and realized that it was full of stuff that I never ever will use. So I started throwing things out. But what I would like to avoid is accumulation. What do you do when something you buy comes with attachments and 14 years later they are still in the drawer? Do you get rid of the stuff right away or hold on to it because “you never know?”

And there are cosmetic products and pain aids that don’t work, and I stop using them but don’t throw them out right away. Is the secret to bite the bullet and be ruthless? And throwing jars of cream out is a pain in the butt because the recycle Nazi here scoops out the contents and rinses the glass container and only then does it go into the recycle bin. I also totally wash out mayonnaise jars and canned corned beef containers and those will cut you if you aren’t careful, so I put them in the dishwasher.

When Ed was an ombudsman, he never did his paperwork unless the supervisor sat with him. He left the ombudsman program when the Republican governor Rick Scott took over and fired the head of the program because he dared to ask for information on the nursing homes in the area. I said, “whatever you do next, don’t choose anything with paperwork.” So he became a guardian and the problem escalated to mammoth proportions because what a guardian does is take care of ALL OF THE MAIL FOR EACH WARD, AND ALL THE FINANCES, AND MAKES ALL MEDICAL AND FINANCIAL DECISIONS. So every surface in the house has guardian paperwork on it and I have to clear the dining area before we can eat and he gets upset if he can’t find things.

That’s my story. Help.

xx, Teal