My Dark Secret

Despite my many assurances that my house is now, on the whole, decluttered (and it is), and despite my assertions that I do not buy 'stuff' any more (and I don't), I have a terrible dark secret. A shed, which looks like this.

And this.

Oh, and over here as well.

When we built it, we had fond ideas of lining it and turning it into a summer house, opening onto the pool. Or using it as a home gym. Or at the very least, storing all the bikes and other gear that is now stuffed awkwardly under the house, making it a half day exercise merely to get to the bikes to go for a simple bike ride with the children. But we can do none of those things because I only sort-of decluttered the house, and the things I couldn't bear to get rid of outright sort of migrated to the shed, and then magically turned into the world's most giant clutter-bomb. And now, several years later, steps must be taken. We have ...ummm, maybe neglected to invite the council to sign off on our shed building project. In order to do that, The Man actually has to finish it, and to finish it, we have to take everything out of it so he can get to the walls.

So every day this week I have hauled myself up there and sighed, and pulled out a box, sighed, opened it, and wondered listlessly what possessed me to put all these unrelated items in a box anyway, sat for a while, gazing into middle distance, waiting for divine inspiration. Then I walk down to the house with a few items, find them a home, put them in the bin, recycle them, or put them in the op-shop bag. Then I trudge back up to the shed, sigh etc etc. This is possibly the most inefficient way to declutter that has ever been invented, but it works for me, because you know how organization manuals always tell you to have a box for rubbish, and a box for this, and a pile for that? Well, if I do that I end up with a bunch of boxes and piles that I just shove in the corner when someone interrupts me (and they always do). So when I return later or the next day I am faced with all the same clutter, rearranged into different piles. Madness. So by reducing the pile item by item, the clutter actually goes away permanently. And I get to do lots of exercise and talk to the cat.

And amongst all the junk family heirlooms, I found the perfect birthday present for my brother (Doug, if you are reading this, I bet you are thrilled. A present from the shed. I know, you should be so lucky). So, happy days. And Posy, who 'helps' in all life's inconvenient moments, found all the dress-ups that I have been hiding for two years, and modeled them all, and then, oh heaven help us, she found the chemistry set. So this afternoon we did 'experiments', and I had to watch her like a hawk.

'Look Mummy, if I pour the sodium carbonate into the methyl orange it looks like fake blood. I could take that for News at school. What if I pour both of these into the copper sulph.... oooh, look it's fizzing over the top...' I'm just relieved she hasn't worked out what the bunsen burner is for yet.

Tomorrow, The Boy is going to bolt together the wooden shelves that are piled, deconstructed in the corner. They once held all our homeschooling supplies down in the house, but now I am spurred on by visions of our pared down possessions in neatly labelled crates on wooden shelves. Maybe there will be wall stencils with uplifting mottoes...yes, yes I have been on pinterest too long...