uncluttering other people...
Nov. 3rd, 2025 07:31 pmMy mother is not a hoarder, but has a regrettable tendency to accumulate things, an inability to do sorting and tidying activities which are not "work for four hours straight and accomplish the entire task in one go", and health conditions that mean she can essentially never do anything substantial in one go any more. Over the summer I pointed out that she probably didn't need three overflowing boxes of toddler books given that her youngest grandchild is now in secondary school, and strong-armed her into going through them with me so we could donate most of them and put the rest neatly away in the available storage.
I was with her again last week, and she had spontaneously decided we were going to do some more - I bagged up and put away some of her not-currently-in-use clothes for her, and we went through the toy collection which again now fits neatly in the box, while the overflow is waiting to be collected for the church Christmas fair.
We also talked about possible clothing solutions - she has bags and bags of clothes that don't fit, at least some of which may well be needed in the future, and I have done my best to suggest that "random unlabelled bin sacks in every corner" is not the optimal solution. We'll see what results.
What has everyone else been up to?