Purging Season
It is just bound to happen. My house is quite small, especially if you exclude the part that was built to be an office. The people who live here, myself and my husband, are very busy people with lots going on. We run two businesses, a ranch, and a household, and then there are my other interests, all of which require tools and materials. All of that living stuffed into a small house leads naturally to regular and sometimes constant bouts of chaos.
The thing is that I hate the chaos. It leads to not being able to find things, not having workspaces, wasted time in trying to clear spaces and set things back to order, and it makes it difficult to have a clear thought or keep the train of thought on the tracks.
Evidently many folks feel up to their necks in chaos this time of year. The holidays are joyful but they generally are not very peaceful for most people, what with the traveling, visiting, cooking and eating, shopping, wrapping, opening, collecting the refuse from all of that—the folks who pick up the trash must dread the Christmas season. I have read several articles recently about how people look around their homes in early January with the new stuff from Christmas gifts layered on top of the old stuff and start to feel as if they are suffocating. This has become the purging season.
I started purging in November by tackling four of the worstoffending rooms in my house. I have hauled several carloads of stuff to one donation place or another and have thrown away loads. One problem with this purging process is that there are always several layers of things that obviously need to go, then I get down to containers of things that have no obvious or immediate solution—things that belong to other people, things that should be kept but have no obvious home, and the worst of the worst—things that you want to throw away but are pretty sure as soon as they are gone you will need them back (or that you will see them on Antiques Road Show and find they were worth tens of thousands of dollars). Some container of these random items are still sitting around from the November and December purges.
For me, January is also Sketching Season as there are several Sketchbook Challenges going this month. I spent New Year’s Day cleaning and organizing my “piddlin’ table” where I do most of my art-type things, but have still had very little time to sit and sketch. There is still the rest of the house beyond those areas I have already purged and the chaos is deep. It is so agitating that I cannot sit and get into the peaceful zone I need to draw or paint. I may have to do January’s sketching in February. Or maybe March. Before June anyway, I hope. Please tell me you are doing better than I am. SpringCreek-ArtsGuild@gmail.com