Taming The Squirrel

A letter from a recovering hoarder.

Moving to a new house is not for the faint-hearted.

Time flies. The only thing that grows faster than my grandchildren is my chin hair.

Remember when you were a child, how the days towards Christmas crawled slower than a teenager taking out the trash?

These days, I am starting to think: Is there any point in stashing away the Christmas decorations? Because Christmas comes rolling around again faster and faster, like a loop on the Magic Mountain roller coaster.

By the way, I hate roller coasters. If ever you managed to trick me into coming along to a theme park, I would happily be the keeper of any and all bags while the rest of the group went on the roller coaster. I get enough of a nauseating thrill just watching others enter the rickety little carriage of doom, strap themselves down and prepare to scream like badly paid actors in a horror movie, and afterwards declare how much fun they had.

You’ll find me (and your bags) at the nearest food truck, munching on loaded fries.

Time flies and we are getting older.

We are moving to a new house, a smaller one, and Husband and I are in the process of sorting through decades of stuff and deciding what to bring, what to give away, and what to toss.

My name is Jorunn and I am a squirrel.

I hunt and gather, hiding treasures (and then promptly forgetting about them).

Self portrait, in the process of cleaning out our basement.

So taming the squirrel and going through with this sorting process is very necessary, both in order to fit all our things into the smaller house and also so our children will have less to go through when (hopefully very many years from now) we are no longer here. Swedish death cleaning is popular, not only in Sweden, but it does not get easier just because it’s trendy.

For new readers of Nordic Simplicity:

I am using my interest in and knowledge about colour to make our new house the best possible nest to live in with joy, for the rest of our days.

I have written several articles about this during the planning process, like the recent one about my Butter Yellow Kitchen, and earlier posts, like the one about How To Pick A Colour From An Elusive Childhood Memory, and Elements Of A Perfect Kitchen (because the kitchen is the most important room in the house), and how Husband and I Made A Pond In The Garden Before The House Was Built! It’s all about priorities. I love my pond. We made the pond last summer, and there are frog eggs in it now! So the frogs moved in before we did. Lucky frogs.

Norwegian Death Cleaning

Husband and I are very different. He can take one look at an item, and immediately place it in one of the three piles. Me, I caress the item, savouring the memories, imagining different uses I might have for the item, and fretting over whether or not I will regret giving it away:

A half finished embroidery.

…that I (or my mother, can’t remember) started around the time when Nixon was president in the US. Who knows? Maybe I’ll decide to take up cross stitch embroidery again? And perhaps those colours might be considered chic again some day? Answers: Nope, and nope. Reluctantly, I put it in the thrift store pile, hoping that someone else will finish it.

Knitted doilies.

My mother knitted a myriad of doilies. In colours that I would never use in my home. And I don’t like doilies. But get rid of them? I feel I am giving away my mother’s love. For now, I have put them in the “keep” pile. I have not got the heart to give them to the thrift store. I’ll put them in a box as a memory.

A hodgepodge of patches.

Bright red and garish green fabric remnants from a Christmas quilt made in the early 80s. Those were easy to donate, including said quilt.

An unfinished flannel quilt with cats. Definitely a keeper. I AM going to finish that. One of these years.

Squares of vintage cotton fabric from turn of the century (no, not 2000, they’re from early 1900s and I bought them at a yard sale when I lived in the US.) But I probably won’t take up quilting again (except to finish the flannel quilt), because I have enough quilts to cover all our beds. In multiple layers. I have put vintage squares aside for now. Maybe I’ll use them in a collage one day.

But now, a celebratory cup of tea. I am exhausted from all these decisions, and will continue sorting another day.

Eyes on the prize: My creative studio

In the new house, I will have a room of my own.

I call it “my creative studio” and will spend many lovely hours making art by the window. It will be the shining reward at the end of all this sorting and tossing.

And I will fill my creative studio with things that inspire me (many of which I have salvaged from the basement while sorting and tossing). But no doilies allowed. Sorry, mother.

I can’t wait to give you a tour of my creative studio once I have moved into it and made it mine. But first, the butter yellow kitchen.

. . .

Tell me. How do you feel about Swedish Death Cleaning? And are you able to do this without moving to a new house?