hit the ground and run.

one of my projects, on-going, is getting rid of magazines.
i have always subscribed to magazines, as far as i can remember.
when i was little i subscribed to electric company magazine, 321 contact and barbie magazine. barbie magazine only came a couple times a year and, to a little kid, it seems totally random. so, i'd think about it for months and then give up and forget about it and then it would suddenly show up.
anyway, i have always had magazines in my life. my mom's dad gave me subscriptions to magazines for presents, too. like reader's digest. i got that for years, when i was in, like, 5th grade through middle school. it's funny to think about that now, because it seems so inappropriate for the age range, but i liked it. i also got national geographic and smithsonian from him. then, i subscribed myself to sassy, ym, entertainment weekly, details, us (before it was a gossip magazine). then it was jane, w, harpers, us (when it became gossip), readymade, lucky...
mom always had subscriptions, too, so we'll add in more, real simple, elle...
our kitchen had this stack of magazines at the end of the counter that reached nearly hip-high.
we have some hoarding issues.
i kept YEARS of magazines, all perfectly in order, moved from house to house, up until i was...25ish, maybe.
did i ever look at them?
no.
but i always felt like it was a research library, waiting to happen. each one had so many interesting articles, it seemed like a shame to chuck them.
or course, i would never have been able to find the articles i was looking for, without consulting a REAL reference library, which would have their own copies of the articles, which defeats the whole purpose of having my own copies.
i even daydreamed up my own dewey decimal style filing system, to find articles i was looking for. but i never put it into action. and it might have been pretty sad if i had, because i was 19, daydreaming about catagorization. it seems a shame that i wasted mental space on something so dry. i should have been dreaming about stilettos covered in mirrored glitter and making out with celebrities and whatever young adult girls dreams about.
anyway, clutter and hoarding is a serious problem for the fisher ladies. and by fisher ladies, i mean me and my mom. and since my mom is dead, now it's me. and, since i'm going to have to deal with her hoarding at some point in the very near future, excavating through layers of christmas lights and unopened post-its value packs, it is doubly my struggle alone.
so, in my quest for adulthood, i have been monitoring my hoarding. i notice that my own housekeeping style is almost identical to my mom's, which is untidiness that safely but narrowly skirts dirtiness. we don't live in squalor, but we create piles and heaps and stacks for future perusals, which never occur.
take my present location, for example.
to my right sit two stacks of cds, each a little under a foor tall. these are for deciding to either keep or sell. they are leftovers from similar stacks that lived on my desk in my first la apartment.
to my right is a low, menacing stack of papers that are all important. bills, reminders, important paperwork. many of them are waiting for my file cabinet to be moved into the office, but we haven't gotten that out of the future-guitar-cd-chill out nook, currently the unpacked-box-room.
on the floor, to my right, is a small, but disheveled pile of cards, papers, folders and binders. they are things related to mom that i haven't fully come to terms with.
stacks and piles, stacks and piles.
i worry about never having it all together.
i mean, i know it's not really possible to have everything entirely together, ever. and i guess that's what makes life interesting, the endless balancing and rebalancing.
but i'd like to think that my previous disinterested, disorganized, sudden bursts of tidying, followed by long barren periods of accumulation, are just a phase of my housekeeping style which i am currently learning to grow through.
i don't want to have an untidy house that looks like it's entirely decorated according to what ended up where by chance. i want things to look purposeful.
and tidy.
and clean.
and, i admit it, i am not positive how to make that transformation, since my model for housekeeping was pretty haphazard.
mom had a good excuse, being a working, largely single mom of a pretty spoiled, lazy kid. our house was a little cluttered, mostly because i didn't really help, and mom didn't really make me.
so, i'd like for, say, shannon's sections of the house to be less clearly delineated from my own. there is an almost surgically precise line dividing his things from mine and it's a little embarrassing to me.
all this is a long-ass preamble to me starting another long story.
i have been reading a lot of real simple, as i get rid of old magazines. i tear out whatever i wanted to keep and chuck the rest.
so, the readership of that magazine is basically moms. these are busy ladies. they're more affluent than, say, good housekeeping readers, but not so affluent that they can forget about cleaning and just focus on being rich, hot wives. again, they're busy, with careers and kids and husbands and stuff.
so, while i love the magazine, i sometimes i have a hard time relating to the demographic it's geared towards.
these are ladies who will have a cup of tea in silence, at 5 in the morning, to meditate and start the day in peace. finding calm, quiet moments is a constant struggle for them.
i have exactly the opposite problem.
my problem is getting started in the first place. well, part of it is that i have a lot of time on my hands right now, but this isn't a problem specific to this period of my life. when i have free time, i tend to just...loaf. that's the only word i can think of. i can spend a day off doing seriously nothing. i mean, maybe reading. but even then, i'll take breaks to just stare off into space.
is this normal?
if i'm not careful, i can waste weeks at a time, just drifting around the house, reading and snacking and laying on things. the house probably needs cleaning, laundry probably needs doing, there are piles of stuff to unpile, but i don't do it. it's inertia. once i am at rest i have a very hard time not staying at rest.
so, this morning, i woke up and got going.
i am trying a new method for making myself do things.
no staying in bed after i wake up.
just get up and do stuff.
so, i have been meaning to change the bed, to wash out any lingering mold spores, and today is the day.
i stripped the bed, put the wool comforter out in the sun to cook, with some unwashable pillows.
i am washing the washable pillows.
i am washing all the bedding.
i'll put on fresh bedding, including pieces of this amazing 5 piece quilt set that i bought yesterday. it's snowy white, quilted with white thread, with flowers and stuff, a comforter and 4 pillow cases. it'll be too shabby chic all together, but broken up, it'll be perfect. cozy.
i also bought some other stuff yesterday. this is unrelated to my chores, just to share:
-a long grey cardigan. it's kinda cheapo, but i've been craving something with that sillouette.
-this amazing pleather jacket. it's short (not cropped) with some big buttons, puffed sleeves, and a little hood lined in fake shearling. it's black. it's the perfect size for wearing a hoodie underneath. slim fitting, but not skin tight.
-a book about decorating with junk.
-my dream pea coat. talla, it's vaguely reminiscent of yours, which i have a crush on, but it's narrower through the ribs and maybe a skosh longer. it was $200 at off 5th! cashmere wool!!
(on a side note to this side note, off 5th is off the hizzy, people. they have amazing bags and coats and some sweet jeans. lucy, come home soon so we can shop at the petaluma outlets. there is a nine west outlet, too, and a bcbg outlet that was so delicious it made my head swim, but i had just burnt myself out at off 5th, so i had to leave. these outlets are the bomb diggity.)
so, i'm trying out various methods for getting more done.
i think i might be really lazy, combined with not knowing where to start. it's a heady cocktail.
i want to take this time to do some really brave, dramatic work on myself.
i want to be brave about cooking.
i want to practice guitar.
i want to writewritewrite.
i want to decorate my house in a way that i am insanely in love with.
i want to ease up from reading so much. i want to do things, not read about other people doing things.
i imagine myself getting swallowed by my life. i spend so much of it almost totally submerged in it, with days and weeks and months passing without me really ever grasping hold of them. they just slither away. and every once in a while i am able to remember how to rise out of it all and see it with some kind of perspective.
so, i'd like to get better at getting that perspective more regularly.
maybe a weekly check in.
maybe it means being more present at every second.
i'm not positive.
anyone else have any methods that really work for them?
this last year, from december 2006 to now, was like a fire. a fire raged through my life. it burnt everything. some things came out of the fire singed, but salvageable. somethings were miraculously spared. and somethings were destroyed. so, my life burnt down. now, looking at the ashes and the rubble, i am allowed to rebuild. but, rather than rebuilding it the same way, flaws and all, i'd like to use this time, when everything is already pretty much destroyed, to rebuild a dreamhome of a life. i want to add everything i have always wanted but was waiting for. and i want the new house to take out every impractical cupboard, dark corner, mildewed bathroom and stinky carpet. i want my life to feel brand new to me in the best way. highlight the things that made it through the fire. smoothly incorporate the new acquisitions. and make piece with the things i lost.