Nesting

NEST letters available in my Etsy Shop.

I am spending this weekend at home doing "nesting chores." The sun is shining and the temperatures have finally gotten to a reasonable number so that maybe, just maybe we can put the screens in the doors and get some fresh air circulating inside this house. I have ANOTHER head cold....I have never gotten this many colds (or whatever this bug is) in one season in my entire life. Believe it or not, I am a pretty healthy gal (knock on wood) so this being sick thing is really starting to bum me out. It is getting a bit ridiculous and I feel like a broken record bringing it up again. But I am finding I am not the only one who has suffered numerous bouts with the yuk. What exactly is going on?

Back to the nesting topic ~ I've been discussing the topic of hoarding with my blogging friends Heather and Donna as well as other girlfriends and it seems like there is some sort of epidemic of TOO MUCH STUFF going on. We've tried to figure out why this is happening. If you've noticed there are many TV shows, magazine articles and books on the the topic, so it must be a nationwide problem. It's good to not be the lone person with this dilemma, but whatever the reason is I have come to the conclusion that my home is not a mansion and there are limits as to how much it can hold. I don't have a basement or an attic. I have very limited closet space. I hang on to things thinking that I'll be able to use them in the next house, but moving never seems to happen. Unfortunately we have an ideal homesite here and it is the house, not the location that is the problem. We have thought about tearing the house down and rebuilding, or adding on an addition, but all of that seems like an awful lot of work and very expensive. We rehabbed this house when we first moved in and the thought of doing it all over again doesn't seem to appeal to either of us right now.

So the only alternative is to pare down on all the collecting, the trips the flea markets and antique malls and start to edit the amount of things we already own. Life always seems so hectic and unrestful around here and I'm beginning to think it has a great deal to do with this house. When we go up to our cottage, everything is peaceful and calm. We built the cottage to be as low maintenance as possible so we wouldn't feel like it was a burden to keep it up. And that definitely makes a world of difference. We feel relaxed and carefree when we go there. But here at this house, it never seems to be that way.

When I work on my art in my tiny home studio (it's actually a spare bedroom), it's always such a chore to get to my supplies, even when they are somewhat organized. I think there are just too many of them - too much for the size of the room to make retrieving things easy. I dream of having an art room/studio with a large table in the middle of the room surrounded by shelves or cabinetry (either new or antique) on all the walls. But that ain't going to happen in this house, and I can only deal with what Ihave right now at this present moment. So I am going to attempt to do some major editing in the house this weekend. My DH will be in heaven and more than willing help out with a project like this. I'll keep you posted as to how much we accomplish. Wish us luck!

Oh and if you want to determine if you are a hoarder yourself, try taking this little quiz that Donna told me about. You may be pleasantly surprised at the outcome - or totally mortified by it like me!