Breathing.

My mother always said, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Fact is, I was kind of a cranky little girl, but looking back, I think I was somewhat justified. So speaking of my mother, I've had a horrible insight regarding her problem and myself. She is a hoarder, as I've said before. I have tried to help her get her house cleaned but it has ended always in tension and arguments right away. Now, however, as I'm struggling with my own clutter problem, I've read that the tendency runs in families and can emerge about now in a person's life. My sister struggles with it. My brothers struggle now with it, I've seen. So I'm trying to take on that reality that I must come to terms with my own tendencies of hoarding. For example, I have 5 chickens, 4 cats and 2 Saint Bernards. In a 1200 square foot house. I haven't adopted anything more in a long time and the 4th cat was brought in by my husband. I hoard books. Papers sometimes. But I am willing to part with clothes I don't wear anymore. There is this part of me though that is very concerned with the environment and I think to myself that I could maybe cut all those old clothes up or sew together the good parts of socks with holes and make a blanket out of it. I have WAY too many spiral bound notebooks. They're everywhere. The issue for me now is decision making and distraction. When I have quiet time alone, I can do wonders. It's when the house is noisy all day and I have several work-related responsibilities or interpersonal stuff happens to me, I can't even see the stuff in my house. It is simply peripheral to my focus which is to cope with the interpersonal chaos before me. But when quiet comes, I can see the mess. It becomes shocking then. For example, under my computer screen, right now, is a pile of papers I must sort and deal with. The trouble is I don't know how. Much of it has to do with my dad, and it intimidates me because he is now cared for financially by the State. But as much as I'd like to say it's his stuff, it's not all his. There is the rebate form from my cell phone provider. And the Saint Bernard Rescue newsletter. And a joke book Cy left here with me one day a long time ago. See:

Of course you can imagine there are multiple views of piles like that around my house. And a stack or two or three. And what it does essentially is to yank out from my psyche and scream out is shame. I feel an extraordinary amount of shame for being unable to cope with day to day life right now in a way that meets a social standard for orderliness. And yet, you can see from this photo, that although I try to maintain a certain degree of orderliness, it does get out of hand:

I don't know what to do with all those CDs. And like all hoarders, I have a hard time letting go of them. Most of them are mine, although several are Dave's. And in the pic also is the view of my grand intentions to paint my room in an unconventional way. I still have that corner and the ceiling edge to do in the red I have waiting, but moving things out is a bit daunting to say the least, not to mention time consuming. She says as she parks on her tushie making a blog post instead.

Okay on a happier note, Sunday I went to Portland to volunteer at a booth to represent the Saint Bernard Rescue Foundation at the Pet Fair there. There were too many people at the booth so I wasn't really needed, and only two dogs but I'm glad I went so it alleviated my guilt. And I learned about a supplement that is showing help for dogs with arthritis (like my Boris) who are already taking glucosamine. It's called MSM. There was another one there that even people take, but it is a bit financially prohibiting. Of course people brought their pets. I only was able to get a few pics, but here are a few:
Here's Ralph with Annie sniffing him. He stopped by the booth to say hello:


This is a new breed called a Leonburger. It's some kind of official mix of Great Pyranese, Burmese Mountain Dog and something else. It's a luxury breed, very expensive and bred for what I don't know:


Here's one of my favorite visitors, a little chihuahua named "Lentil". Oh that dog was so sweet! No angry misbehaved thing like some I've met. The first chihuahua I ever really got to know was gentle and sweet like Lentil is.



Lasty, our booth was basically like this all day:


I will try to post my progress as I struggle with the clutter, stated in a positive way, hopefully.