Drowning under a sea of clutter and dust

Well, not much is being done this weekend as I'm still feeling rough.  I'm just pottering around doing bits and pieces and lots of reading and listening to the radio. I don't need any shopping but I promised Iain I'd walk to the garage with him this afternoon as he needs a couple of things.  The fresh air and exercise should do me good.

Whenever I'm feeling under the weather I seem to focus on how untidy/dirty the house is and it gets me down a bit.  Must be some phsycological thing, but I haven't figured it out yet!  Anyway, this hit me on Friday night so I decided to tackle a room at a time, each weekend,  and do a little extra cleaning and decluttering.  This weekend I've started on the living room.  Nothing very energetic yet.  I decluttered and washed down my sideboard so it now looks like this:

I was too embarassed to take a 'before' photo, as it was groaning under the weight of all these papers together with other bits and pieces.

Here you can see they're bagged up and I'm sorting through them bit by bit. Every time I do this I promise myself that I'll file my correspondance etc on a weekly basis so it never gets this bad again.  But still it happens - we're 5 months into the year and I have yet to start my 2011 file!

There were piles of magazines all over the room so I made use of the cardboard racks I found stuffed beside the bookcase, and made a tidy little magazine corner on top of my bedroom drawers.

 Not a permanent solution but it keeps them tidy till I can sort through them for articles I want to keep.

The corners of the room are hoovered, the fireplace and TV are cleaned and I feel much calmer.  Our surroundings have such a big impact on our mood and wellbeing.  I'll never be a minimalist person and there'll always be some clutter and dust somewhere, but there are limits and I've reached mine right now!

I think I deserve a coffee and a few pages of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' now, before I start on the pile of tat on the living room table!