I read a few blog articles last year about the subconscious emotional stories we tell ourselves regarding money, which can affect our choices and finances in the present even though they generally come from long-ago childhood experiences. That made sense to me; but when I first thought about it, I couldn’t identify any such stories that might have gotten stuck in my head.

My finances seemed okay—both my husband and I had fairly good jobs, which we had been able to keep through the recession, and a nice house. The only issue was that we had spent a lot on our kids’ tuition, room and board, etc., while they were away at college, and before that we had sent them to Catholic schools. As a result, there never had seemed to be quite enough money left over for me to feel comfortable spending it on clothes or other fun shopping for myself.

So I asked myself, what kind of story from my childhood would fit that pattern? The houses where I lived as a child were all good places, with plenty of space for me to run around and play. My parents were divorced in the ’70s, and after that I lived with my mother and stepfather. I often wore hand-me-down clothes from a cousin when I was little, without thinking much about it at the time.

The internal narratives that we rely on to make sense of the world are drawn in large part from archetypes—that is, familiar characters representing various aspects of the culture. When I thought about what character might have taken up residence in my head, Cinderella came to mind. Although Cinderella lives in a nice house, she is a stepchild who doesn’t have much that she can call her own, and the money always gets spent on other family members.
 

Girl dressed as Cinderella in old-fashioned clothing with a pumpkin.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)
 

Whether or not there had been any reasonable basis for such feelings when I was a child, they certainly didn’t need to be part of my life now, especially after my kids had graduated from college. So I decided to have a little chat with my inner Cinderella and explain a few things to her.

I found her playing with a rag doll family she had made to console herself for being left at home, with the village hag as the babysitter, while her stepsisters enjoyed a lavish trip to France. Sitting down on the rug in front of the fireplace with her, I said, “You know what, Cinderella, it’s time for you to grow up and find a place of your own.”

Dropping the dolls, she stared at me fearfully, no doubt imagining herself cast out to be eaten by the hungry wolves of the forest. After all, she wasn’t the Disney Princess version of the character, but instead came out of the old-fashioned books of fairy tales that I had read before modern revisions took out the gruesome and violent stuff.

“Don’t worry, I’ve found a good place for you to live,” I quickly reassured the poor frightened girl. “There is an abandoned village called Channelwood on an island that’s no longer inhabited. It has lots of pretty houses built high in the treetops, safe from wild animals; and you can gather fruit and vegetables from the village’s old overgrown gardens, catch fish and dig clams. All yours, with nobody around to take it from you or bully you, and a lovely ocean view to give you more perspective on the world. I’ll even send you off with a suitcase full of brand-new clothes for the trip. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

She gave me a hesitant half-smile. “But how…”

“Oh, it’s easy to get there!” I told her cheerfully. “I’ve already made arrangements with the captain of a cargo ship that sails past the island regularly. I know him well—he often carries away my shipments of emotional baggage and my consignments of mental clutter. You’ll be in good hands. And there’s no need to worry about getting lonely; I’ll send you a few nice playmates after a while, as soon as I discover where they have been playing hide-and-seek in my psyche.”

The fire crackled loudly, sending up bright sparks. Cinderella stood up, straightened her ankle-length skirts, and began putting on her big wooden shoes. She still looked just a bit worried as she asked, “Please, may I bring my pet mouse?”

“Yes, of course you may. I wouldn’t dream of leaving him behind.”

Long ago, my mom gave me a cheerful ceramic bear holding an artificial rose, with the words “I Love You” across its chest. I had it in my kitchen display cabinet (shown here) for a while, but then the rose started to decay and it didn’t look as good. I didn’t want to throw the bear away because it was a nice gift full of positive emotional energy, so I put it on top of a box in the basement.
 

Ceramic bear with "I Love You" on its chest, holding a decayed fake flower. 

I noticed it again while tidying the basement recently. The cardboard box lid was strewn with little bits of fake rose that had fallen off. This time, the energy was more along the lines of “poor forlorn little piece of junk.” So, the bear just had to go. Sorry, Mom.

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

Last year my houseplants got infested with gnats. I tried repotting the plants, but there were so many gnats flying around the house that they soon colonized the new potting soil. My husband tried setting out cups of apple cider vinegar to trap the gnats, which didn’t do anything other than make the house smell like vinegar. What finally got rid of the gnats was covering the potting soil with a few inches of sand. The plants are thriving now, the annoying gnats are totally gone, and as a bonus I don’t need to water as often because the sand cover keeps the moisture in the soil longer.
 

Healthy pothos plant in a black pot. 

Often that’s the way of things—a problem starts with something tiny and grows to seem hugely annoying, which leads to making the situation worse by putting time and effort into bothersome fixes that don’t work, but all we really need to do is to spread just a little sand over our worries!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Tomorrow my daughter starts her new job in Cleveland. She came home for a year and a half after graduating from college, while she got some work experience and saved up money toward getting ready to move out. We did not charge her any rent, but she tried to help out by doing some grocery shopping. She tends toward impulse buying, though, and my freezer is now full of random stuff that never got eaten.
 

Freezer drawers crammed full. 

I think it’s very unlikely she would want the ancient Fla-Vor-Ice that’s buried under one of those heaps, and I am sure she has totally forgotten about most of what she put in the freezer. Still, just to be polite, before she gets on the road this afternoon I’ll ask if she wants to take any of that stuff with her. I expect most of it will be on the curb tomorrow evening for Tuesday’s trash pickup, though.

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

I had a quiet Wednesday at home because I took vacation before Thanksgiving, while my husband had to go to work. My daughter was back from Cleveland, but she took the dog to the groomer’s and had lunch with a friend. Then, instead of peaceful thoughts, my mind started filling up with “shoulds” — today I have plenty of free time, so I should work on a story project, write my Nurturing Thursday post in advance, do some Christmas shopping online, clean the bathroom mirrors…

But the early afternoon sun coming in my back windows felt so nice and comfortable, I just closed my eyes for a moment and listened to the silence. The mental clutter drifted away like dandelion fluff on the wind. I went out to the backyard, took a deep breath of fresh air that felt pleasantly mild for late November, and noticed that a few pink snapdragons were still blooming.
 

Pink snapdragons still blooming in late November. 

I took a photo and uploaded it to my blog for a draft post; but rather than trying to hurry, I deliberately left the post half-finished and allowed myself to enjoy having an afternoon and evening with nothing much to do. After my family ran the Turkey Trot this morning, I lazed around the house for a while before sitting down to write the rest of this entry. I’m feeling much refreshed now, and wishing a happy and stress-free Thanksgiving to all my readers!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

November 24, 2015 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Last night I dreamed that I went on a road trip with my husband. We had to cross a bridge that was so high it reached up into the clouds. Once we got up there, we couldn’t see anything at all besides the thick fog—no lane markers, no other cars.
 

Cars crossing a bridge on a foggy day.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)
 

Then all of a sudden we went over the side of the bridge and started falling! At first I panicked, but then I thought, “Hey, wait a minute, this has to be a dream because bridges have guardrails.” After that I woke up, found myself in my own cozy bed, and all was well.

So—maybe my subconscious mind was telling me not to worry about the unknown future because it’s not really as scary as it might look. No matter where I go, there will always be guardrails keeping me safe, whether or not I can see them.

One of the decorative items in my family’s previous house was a tall clock that looked like an antique grandfather clock, though it was really just a cheap replica. We brought it with us when we moved, but the color clashed with the woodwork, and anyway it didn’t last very long at our new house before the machinery broke. My husband put it in the basement. He looked at it a few times over the years to see whether he could fix it, but had no success, and it wouldn’t have been worth paying for repairs.
 

Broken grandfather clock in the basement.

We finally got rid of it last week after it had been taking up space in the basement for over a decade. Although it wasn’t in fact a cuckoo clock, the word “cuckoo!” came to mind anyway when I thought about how we had left obviously useless clutter sitting around for that long!

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

My daughter rented a two-bedroom apartment in Cleveland, although she does not have a roommate. The main reason seems to be that she wants to use the second bedroom as a giant walk-in closet to accommodate her extravagant shopping habits, which I illustrated on this blog last summer with a photo of the closet in my entryway, totally full of her coats and shoes.

Although her original plan was to move out last year, it did not happen then, which probably was for the best because staying here another year gave her time to save up some money and get a clearer idea of what she wanted to do. But now she is gone and the closet is empty, except for a few hangers; all its overflowing contents got packed into large cardboard boxes for a one-way trip.
 

Closet with nothing in it but hangers. 

Sometime in the near future I’m going to clean the closet floor and polish the woodwork. Then I’ll paint the walls a nice bright color to get rid of the scuff marks from being piled high with all those pairs of shoes.

One thing I’ve learned from cleaning up clutter around the house is the value of empty space. People tend to think about their stuff mainly in terms of buying more of it, and about empty areas in terms of what else can be put there; but I would say that a comfortable house needs to have enough empty space so that everyone can move around easily and find their stuff when they want it.

Back during the summer, I got rid of a dog bed that Diva Dog totally refused to sleep in (as I mentioned here). My daughter bought another bed in a style more to the dog’s liking and put it next to a wall where the dog often napped. It has the words “Gone Fetching” in the middle, though you can’t see them in this photo with the dog snoozing there.
 

Dog sleeping on a red mat next to a wall. 

Bed, dog, and daughter left for Cleveland this morning, although they’ll be back for a Thanksgiving visit before my daughter starts her new job at the end of the month. It seemed very quiet around the house today. I took the garden fountain off the porch and put it away for the winter because this weekend is forecast to be much colder. In life as in nature, everything changes…

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Many years ago, my kids played Nintendo 64 and Xbox games in a comfortable nook in the basement, sitting on beanbags. The old TV that they used is long gone. More recently, my son helped himself to the TV stand, leaving an empty spot in the basement. But it’s not quite empty, because there are still old squashed beanbags, disconnected speakers, and game stuff down there.
 

beanbags 

I’ll ask whether anyone in my family wants the beanbags and speakers before I get rid of them, but I tend to doubt it because they’ve been in the same spot without anyone using them for so long. More likely, everyone just got used to seeing them in that area and paid no attention to them—which is, of course, the usual way that a house ends up with clutter!

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!