Since we just finished up a remodel of half of our first floor, I decided to store our energy for the week until yesterday to dump our spring break blitz time into a whole day helping my shut in Grammy who is wheelchair bound, living alone and a hoarder, clean out her kitchen (not even the cupboards but everything else) so we can swap her table out with our old one so she has a bigger space for doing puzzles. We worked for 11 hours to organize this, gently talked her through letting go of items for trash or yard sale and went through 15-20 ziplock bags filled with paper, mail, photos and newspaper clippings. There would be a photo from 1970 next to a newspaper article from 1990 next to a junk mail from 2020. Then at least 1,000 pieces of envelopes and papers ripped into squares as scratch paper. No rhyme or reason. Sorted into a makeshift “Sunday Basket” into file folders like Bills, Newspaper Articles, Personal Photos, Medical, Funny quotes and printouts, Insurance etc with a “To Do This Week” folder front and center and showed her how to use it. We hung her spoon collection she’s had for 30+ years in racks that were sitting new in boxes and hung my Pappy’s memorial flag over the doorway. By the end, our car was packed to the ceiling with yard sale items, at least 10 bags of trash on her curb, my husband and I could barely walk/bend/move and skipped dinner, but we drove home so proud of what we accomplished all while being respectful to her and her things while she processed and made difficult decisions letting us make a lot of the choices. It felt like a huge gift to us that were able to give her a cleaner and more organized space :)

Posted by Tanya Angelino at 2022-03-28 02:49:36 UTC