We are in the process of getting the house ready for the big move - oh doesn't that sound so easy......what we are actually doing is going through the house room by room stripping it bare of any wallpaper, carpet, furniture, pictures, ceiling artex........and starting all over again!

But before that can be done everything has to be go through a process of ....is it coming with us, is it being given to someone, is it going to the charity shop or is it going to the tip................this is a complete nightmare, you have to be realistic, you have to remove all or most emotion from you being, yes you have have had it for 10 years, but do you actually have it for a reason? is there a memory attached to it? does it actually mean anything to you? could you live without it?

You would be amazed at how much junk, rubbish and useless items two people over a period of time can accumulate and hoard..............and it is shocking how much new stuff or hardly used stuff gets pushed to the back never to see the light of day when something else comes along!

I have done 2 of what for me are the hardest things, I have done my wardrobe and I have done my craft goodies! The wardrobe clear out was I have to say cathartic in a way, 4 full bin bags of clothes, one of shoes and one of bags was taken to the charity shop, and if I am honest that was the first serious sweep I will go through them again and I am sure I can get another bin bag or two out of them!lol

I had a moment of clarity when I did my shoes - it was odd to say the least but I looked at my shoes in a practical way............do I wear them? only two available answers there Yes or No the No's went straight into a black bin bag, then the next question to those remaining was Do they hurt my feet when I wear them? now this was difficult one because there are different levels of pain and some degrees of pain are acceptable based on the look of the shoe! so this question was not as good a reducer of the pile as the first question but we got some shoes out (what you mean I should have kept those wooden soled shoes that made me look and feel like I was about to keel over at any given moment?) and then the dreaded final question Do they go with anything that you still have remaining in your wardrobe...........this was the clincher and it got rid of a fair few...........and now I am left with oh I don't know maybe 25 pairs (oops!).

Then the craft room was on my radar, oh where was I going to start, how could I possibly get rid of any of my well loved highly priced goodies, but I had to do what I had to do............the first casualty was my cross stitch magazines.........keep in mine that for over 6 years I collected approximately 6 to 8 publications or some where quarterly rather then monthly but 4 at least were monthly so that was 288mags just for those 4, 40 for the quarterly ones and at least 50 odds and sods that I had picked up on the way.....so give or take a few about 400! and I went through them all and picked out the ones that had any designs that I was every going to stitch....lets just say that I ended up with about 25 magazines and the rest were taken to charity oh I did give a few say about 30 to a friend.

The next step was my paper craft stuff, boxes and boxes of the stuff and each one of them had to be gone through and sorted, I sent a big box to my mum who has just started crafting, and then 6 boxes and an envelope to some very good friends, ebay'd a few bits and bobs and did the horrible question Do you even like this? which got rid of some of my earlier purchases! I bought some more storage and it helped reduce the over all look of my collection! Not to traumatic on the throwing away front but one the organisational one it was a nightmare!

In the crafting vain the final step was all my card making magazines and there must have been about 400 of those as well, I went threw each of those and pulled out what I wanted and that wasn't much and the rest went to be recycled - as the charity shops round here didn't want them!

And where are we now - well yesterday morning I went through all my lotions potions and makeup and got rid of anything that was a least a year and bit old - which was more then 75% of it and that is all nice organised and pretty now! and in the afternoon I cleared all the stuff from under the bed - the shame of the amount of dust is unbelievable and I am houseproud....but its gone now so I feel better! All the stuff that belonged to me has been sorted the other stuff is his and he and I will do that together - god forbid that I accidentally throw something away that he wants to keep...actually that might be a good idea!

So today I am not doing any sorting I am cleaning the house ready for tomorrows assault of decorating and sanding etc etc etc..................and then the office needs to be done..................