Home Garden Companion

Ilona's Garden Journal

buy quality plants
  • Plant Library On The Journal
  • Garden chores
    • Do as I say
  • Ilona’s Garden Home
    • Old House Blog
    • Garden Librarian
  • Ilona’s Garden Flavor Shop
  • Privacy Policy

Day in the life Featured

And Now It Is Arctic, But My Home Is Cozy

Bookcases, boxes, magazines -I can’t get rid of everything!

While it was a personally productive fall for me, the blogging and the garden had to take a back seat. I made good on decades of promises to de-clutter and come to grips with the pile of life’s detritus and accumulation.

You see, I come from a line of “collectors” on my mother’s side. My dad was spare in his living and his spending, but I inherited the idea that everything is good for something… someday from my mother.

Then the fact that I had ten children kind of caught up with me. The economics of those days meant saving old clothes as “pass me downs”.  I believe I was a bit over optimistic in what actually constituted a worthwhile saved item. And was worse when it came to my own clothing.

I finally got rid of all the size 6-8 apparel of my thirties and forties. A certain realistic attitude must take hold. I hauled excess sheets, and perfectly good clothes to the nearest thrift center.  Baby clothes? Out.

While we had some warm, lovely gardening weeks, I was delving into the dusty innards of old boxes. Washing and sorting the bric a brac of a lifetime in the same old house. A roomy house, inviting storage of the most unnecessary, never-to-be tackled mending, repairing, and crafting projects. I don’t even have that many years in me, if I started tomorrow.

Yet, I still couldn’t give up at least one attic box of “craft doodads”, just in case the muse and the time should magically appear together. Not totally reformed, I still must be able to find that thing that “I know I have somewhere”. At least, now, I know where to find it.

 The Awakening

During said nice weather of just a couple weeks ago, I awoke at dawn to view the most beautiful sunrise. As if the world had become encased in the sphere of a fiery opal, so intense were the colors of blue, scarlet, and golden apricot, sparkled with streaks of an ethereal, incomparable green.
I mentally contrasted that rich visual treat with the dusty, dim world I had been inhabiting all fall;the parts that I had not traveled elsewhere.
That world of dust shrouded objects, incomprehensible jumbles of precious memories with trash heap junk, that had been moved around from room to room for years. The realms of cobweb encased dungeon of the basement and back porches to webhung neglected rooms of the attic and “junk room” bedroom.
clutter
Recorded on Instagram

 

I am finally seeing my way through this tunnel of clutter, The light, free feeling is worth the sacrifice of a season of bulb planting, and putting off the pyracantha pruning.
The days spent inside mucking through the many years of “Mañana” were well worth it to me, and to my family. I hope to host most of them this Christmas in my newly decluttered home.

It Was A Long Time Coming

How did I arrive at the place where action finally caught up with good intent? I was like a slow train. Making resolutions about two to three years ago, in which I made tiny steps of progress, helped. Teaming with my husband to finally finish off the last couple remodeling projects inspired and motivated. After all, I had to clear the attic and the “junk room” to get started with those.
Ceiling of the junkroom removed and replaced; view of attic above
The outside needed new siding, added the upper window for good measure (a project that had waited, oh, about 15 to 20 years)

Perhaps you will forgive me for not writing, not posting, not taking photographs, or making video (although I find it hard to forgive myself- why can’t I do more?) However, I do not regret the progress I have made (though at this late date) in life, despite those pesky guilt trips.

Next year, though, If still in the land of the living, I hope to find myself happily puttering around in the garden.  Writing the musings such pursuits inspire, and maybe even rationalizing buying a new camera, or at least making some of the planned garden videos that didn’t materialize yet.

Until then my family and I will enjoy the simplified spaces that allow me to think and actually use and enjoy the things that I own. …Ahhhh… such peace of mind.

My cluttered, disorganized life always interfered with that endeavor. It feels so good to take something from the dimension of wishful thinking and bring it into the now of experience. It cost sweat equity, a little blood, and yes, some tears here and there, but after months of steady determination to be “at it”,  the end is now in sight.

Thank You

  • I have a list of thankful mentions in this… God, who daily gives me strength,
  •  the encouragement of husband and children, their hands-on, down and dirty, physical help in the work;
  • the many organizational self-help books I read through the years,
  • Target, IKEA, and other stores that had containers and bookcases and boxes…magazine holders…well, you get the idea.

Then there is the inspiration of people who organize and get a handle on this part of life who made role models for me.

The philosophical takeaway is that everything is so inter-related and we can’t do everything on our own. And maybe, too, that we don’t need as much stuff as we think we do.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Visit Ilona’s Garden Journal on facebook: Click here
© 2014 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal by Ilona E. An excellent blog.


DISCLOSURE: I may be an affiliate for products that I recommend. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Thank you, in advance for your support! Privacy Policy
« Word To The Wise
The De-clutter Journey »

Oh, hi there!

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

Standouts

Do You Grow Herbs? 10 Reasons To Love Them

There are so many ways to enjoy herb plants, that they are not for herb gardens only. Think about tucking them into the landscape, into containers or into your home. I do I enjoy thee? Oh, Herb, Let me count the ways! 10 Ways I Enjoy Herbs (and you can, too!) In companion plantings, herbs […]

10 Cool Season Annual Flowers To Plant

Shirley poppies and Bachelor Buttons Not every garden writer alerts you to the fact that annuals can have seasons that are shorter than other choices. For places like Ohio which have hot summers, there are common annuals that only do well when our weather is cooler, such as in early summer. Those flowers sort of […]

Newest Postings Here

  • HELLLOOOO, From The Other Side
  • February Gardening, Last of Winter in the Flower Garden
  • Compilation of Past Mini-Posts of 2003
  • Wayback in Ilona Garden Time
  • 3 Tips For Landscaping Successfully With Ornamental Trees

Finding your way home via the garden path


Read reviews from the GardenLibarian

Visit For A Spell

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • Wanelo

Portrait of a Gardener

gardener musings

Musings

What’s Wrong With Today’s Gardening?

Modern gardening

What Is Wrong?

Garden Journal

fine garden journal

Journal, Planner and Log Book

Shop Small Trees and More

People’s Choice

Wayback in Ilona Garden Time

posted in Uncategorized

1910 garden plan

3 Tips For Landscaping Successfully With Ornamental Trees

posted in Landscape Design Know-How, Landscape Trees

Garden update

Mid-Ohio Gardening Update

posted in 2018, How's the weather?

All Season Garden Color with Bold Foliage Effects, Masterful Contrasts

posted in Garden design ideas, Landscape Design Know-How


Bonsai Trees

Stay updated!

Get all the latest tasty goodness straight to your inbox!

Topics

Past Posts

Join Me

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Garden Enthusiasm

Garden Enthusiasm Delivered

* indicates required

View previous campaigns.

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2021 · Part of Ilona’s Garden by Ilona Erwin