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Australia Day 2018 – The Aftermath

The aftermath of the cull….

To be honest I have been downsizing for some time now, getting rid of all the ‘stuff’ that no longer has a need and has taken on the role of space thief and dust curator at the same time. Australia Day long weekend was ‘The Big Cull’ but it didn’t go exactly to plan…

On the Thursday before the long weekend my body decided that it would have a crack at vertigo (I have never had it before) and whilst I am totally for trying new things I can now say without a doubt that vertigo is not my kind of thing. Between the sleepiness, dizziness, nausea and the medication I was not myself and couldn’t do anything.

As for B he went in for a ‘routine’ filling on Thursday night that ended up being anything but routine with the tooth requiring extraction afterwards they sent him on his merry way with strong pain meds. Even in my own vertigo induced hazy state, the pain he was in was very evident. There was apparently also ‘complications’ with the extraction which meant some of his jaw bone also had come out as they prised the roots free. Surely that was the end of the rough run, but no this ‘poor me’ post must continue, one of B’s stitches came out that very night.

As a result, B spent Australia day sleepy and I, fighting vertigo, so we were, let’s just say as far from productive as you can get. Looking back, we both spent Australia day in a somewhat semi-conscious state, like most Aussies.

We did actually get something done and as we jumped in and started to clean up we both quickly realised that everything there had been kept for one of two reasons: The ‘just in case’ I need it or the memory attached to the item. The attachment to items intrigued me as we weren’t really holding onto the item we were holding onto the memories attached to the item. Well that was the case for me and my roller derby gear, so many things happened whilst I was skating and they were a symbol of that. Once I got over this attachment I was happy to pass them onto someone else that would get as much enjoyment as I did from them. But the emotional attachment B had for a box of cords I don’t fully understand, must be a male thing.

So, for the ‘long’ weekends (standard with Australia Day written off) progress we got most of the single car garage cleaned out just a few little bits and pieces still to go. It ended up being a bigger job than we thought and the shed is very daunting, I had the fear that the motivation of the cull would subside and it would not get done (my fear has come true). The weekend ended with full bins and piles of sorted ‘Stuff’ standing tall as monuments of our success, it is time to take the next steps jamming full the bins each week until it is all gone, going to the second-hand clothes market, listing items for sale and palming off other ‘stuff’ to people we know… the saga continues.

A tip to those in the process of doing or planning a cull, the items that have memories attached ask yourself, How often do I actually use them? How often do I pull them out and look at them? Why not take a photo of it/them to preserve the memories and pass it on (give or sell) to someone else that will be able to have the same enjoyment that the item once gave to you..

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Australia Day 2018 – Clean up

It’s the day before Australia day 2018, with tomorrow Friday making it a long weekend we would normally go away camping, usually to Fraser Island. Whenever we go camping I am like a kid at Christmas. There is no chance I am going to get much sleep the night before, just a hyperactive child ready to explode. But it’s not going to be the same this week.
No packing up the truck, no shifting into low range, no rolling out the swag, and no flying the flag at our campsite proudly. This year, we will be spending Australia day at home sorting out the house, garage and shed. Sadly it’s all quite un-Australian.
Our home has become a haven for ‘stuff’, hoarding cadets maybe, we like a lot of people we have acquired a lot of ‘stuff’, most of it having been held onto just in case one day we may need it. Stuff just takes up time and energy, even when it is just sitting there awaiting it’s yet to be discovered purpose. Stuff continues to grow and the job of sorting it out becomes more daunting. We have just in case ‘stuff’ in our spare rooms, in the shed and in the garage. The plan for our Australia day long weekend is to cleanse, to get back to the simple life and only have the essentials, what we really need in the now, not what we may need for some indeterminate reason. The end game for this is the less stuff we have, the less we have to look after, clean and sort, so more time doing things we enjoy doing like fishing, camping and hitting the track.
Even with our plans of cleaning and sorting this weekend, there is a small level of excitement, sounds crazy I know, but there is a secondary reason to the tidying rather than camping decision (aka. madness). We will have a new camper soon, ‘Track and Tide HQ’, is on it’s way and we need somewhere that we can put it away safe. We are not 100% sure when it will be ready, but have been promised it will be in the next couple of months. The long weekend spent tidying with a beer in hand and I’m confident on Monday there will be a camper shaped spot in our shed just waiting to be filled and an organised house.