Sooooo, today was R’s day off. He decided to start working on the back room while I watched baby.

Three hours into his sojourn, he calls me back there and I am SHOCKED to find that he’s removed ALL the laundry to the middle of the KITCHEN and expects me to sort through the mountain.

“Make 3 piles” he says “Lights-Darks-Throw Away”

I feel like a character from a fairy tale. It’s like asking me to spin straw into gold. OVERWHELMING.

I threw out at least 9 more bags of stuff- clothes, shoes, old purses. I have mountains of stuff left to purge.

I could kick myself because when I was in the throes of frustration and taking a break, I ‘soothed’ myself by BUYING A PAIR OF SUNGLASSES ON EBAY.

WTF?! I am sitting here typing/complaining about my mountains of BELONGINGS I need to purge and I just realize NOW that I ‘comfort shopped’.

Completely without thinking- just on impulse. THIS is why I have all this crap in this house.

As I type this he is vacuuming the floor in there (yes, we can now see the floor). I have 3 carboys of hard cider that I made and stashed in the back closet. They smell like brandy now and I am thinking of siphoning them off into new containers- or throwing them away entirely.

I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, which will cut into our filling the dumpster time.

All day today I battled my back spasms and witnessed my mother’s tantrums (she has dementia and is bipolar- today is her birthday). We cannot throw things away when she is here (and she comes over for hours at a time). She is an even BIGGER hoarder than I- or ANYONE- I know. If she sees me tossing things, she will insist on putting it in her van to take home and we cannot have that happen.

Maisie is teething badly this week and has been having unusual crying jags, so that also cuts into our cleaning time.

ONLY 3 more days until the dumpster goes back and we still haven’t finished this back room and have the upstairs kitchen to empty as well.

I’m not happy with this lack of progress. I am unhappy with the amount of laundry I now have to do.

This was a daunting project when we began and it’s even more daunting now.