temporarily: 'living in chaos'

I mistook my efforts at boxing, packing, deleting, diminishing, discarding as effective: but when I left home for a couple of days, the guys came to start re-doing the entire interior of our house while I was gone. Mess was not unexpected, but I somehow was unprepared for the way I feel when it appears 'everything got stirred with a stick'. It is reminiscent of what a child would do to a mudpuddle or anthill, just to see the resulting swirling, troubled waters or bedlam of insects in random retreat.

I've discovered I have a pitifully low tolerance for the State of Confusion we are currently residing in. I even told the guys when I came in on Thursday night to find all the doors off the kitchen cupboards and EVERYthing exposed: I feel like I got caught with my pants down. There are so many boxes of stuff awaiting a truck to be hauled away for the yard sale at church, you can't walk through the doorway into the kitchen from the front door. And more empty boxes came in from Publix today to load and disperse... but I continue to be horry-fied at the amount of flotsam and jetsam we have allowed to accumulate in our lives.

All the furniture in the living-dining area is clumped up in the middle of the room, like wagons circled out on the plains, defending the innocents from attack. The guys will be back next week: to start the actual work of painting ceilings and walls before replacing floor. And completely re-doing a bathroom, so I will be emptying closets, cupboards and pantry. And moving enough junk to fill a dumpster out of the workshop to paint in there.

My current mantra is based on reminding myself what the 'experts' say about how you should go through your closet once a year and dispose of what you don't use/wear, while knowing some of our stuff, junk, jetsam has been collecting dust and rust for a quarter of a century or more. We have been in this house since late 1981: wow!

I've been telling myself Everything in the house has to be moved: either for painting or floor. But right now, I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed: probably because everything is so 'exposed'. With boxes stacked all over, and more boxes to fill. Where did my orderly little life go? Where did all this stuff come from?

I know this 'bedlam' part won't last forever, and look forward to living in a fresh new house, with neatly painted interior, new tile floors in kitchen and bath, hardwood in living area. And especially Much Less Stuff when all the superfulous is given, donated, hauled away. The running commentary here is "we will like it so much, we will want to stay!"