Displacement Activity AKA Avoiding things

According to Wikipedia  a displacement activity is the result of two contradicting instincts in a particular situation. Birds, for example, may peck at grass when uncertain whether to attack or flee from an opponent; similarly, a human may scratch his or her head when they do not know which of two options to choose.
Displacement activities often involve actions to bring comfort such as scratching, drinking or feeding.
I decided that this week that I would go through my clothing to get rid of the baskets of clothes that do not fit in cupboards. I want beautifully organised shelves, drawers and hanging space. I want to be able to do a load of washing and fold or iron it and put it away without having to cram things in. I also want to lie on my bed and read 11/22/63 (how I will ever memorise that title is beyond me). I also want to recover my arm chair in the delicious velour fabric that looks like an Indian rug. I also want to reorganise my craft storage.
So here I am with 4 conflicting desires and what do I do? Go searching on the Internet for storage ideas.
After an hour or so of that I mentally shake my head and  head off to my room. First go to get the t-hub so I can listen to some pod casts while I work. It's  in Duncan's room and flat. Put it in the cradle thingy to charge and look for a CD to play instead spend 15 minutes arranging them in alphabetical order.
Time to start on the clothes... well actually I begin to sort my shoes. I am quite proud of my efforts.

I get one bag ready for charity and start stacking the others on my shoe rack. Not enough space. I start to ponder the problem and drift into the craft room to find some boxes for the shoe overflow and get distracted by rearranging my desk in my craft room. As I do that I notice the time. Lunch.

Daisy taking up sorting space on the bed

Lunch over and back in my room. Spend 15 minutes lying on the bed next to the cat talking to her, then my hand grabs  11/22/63.  I read a chapter. Caitlin pops into the room and joins me on the bed talking to the cat. I start thinking about tea. We both decide to go down to the local shopping centre.

Back at home groceries unpacked. Dishwasher on. Maybe I'll clean the fridge? No back to the clothes. I'll start soon. Take the bag of shoes out to the car to deliver to a charity bin (darn should have done that while we went to the shopping centre). Back into the bedroom. Spot a stain on one of the cushions and take it into the laundry to spray with stain remover. I realise the washing hasn't been put on. Do that.

Make a cup of coffee, sit down to have it and decide to blog about displacement activities. Once I have done this I will begin again!?! No. Husband has just arrived home from work and lays down on the bed for a rest - he says it will only be for half an hour but past experience tells me he will be snoring in 5 minutes and asleep until dinner goes on the table. Opportunity lost as I really need the bed to make piles on.
So what is the issue with the clothes? I really quite enjoy the end result and don't mind the process of relining the drawers and stacking them. It's just such a mammoth job. I think one of my stumbling blocks is that so much of  it is separates, so if I decide to keep out a bottom I have to make sure it also has a top and vice versa. Then the decisions on arranging them... by style, colour, separates together, do I put the camisole top with the sheer shirt or have all my shirts together and camisoles together. I wish I had a professional organiser who will make those decisions for me!

Oh look - almost a year between posts!

My New Year's Resolution list is usually get organised, lose weight, be more creative, get fit, balance work and home life better and only read serious novels - all that improving stuff... but not this year - This year it's to write more.
Not that the others aren't important, but for once I am managing to tick off a lot of the others.
Here's my progress.
Get organised... It's a work in progress... slow progress... sometimes painfully slow progress, but it is happening and it is sustainable.
Today's achievement was to finish my linen cupboard. I basically hauled everything (sheets, towels, airbeds, sleeping bags, hot water bottles, a suitcase, heated rollers toiletry bag, spare blankets and some other random stuff) out of it and onto the family room floor last week. This action was prompted by the fact that for the past month, putting things away consisted of opening the cupboard, looking for a space, chucking the item in and then quickly closing the door so it doesn't fall out, each time promising myself that I'd do something about it the next day but of course I hadn't. Why do something today when you can put it off tomorrow and the next day and the next?
Two things prompted my emptying the cupboard - a post a friend put on facebook showing an organised linen cupboard (sheet sets stored in the matching pillow slip and all stacked beautifully - oh how I wanted that cupboard) and the fact that I couldn't find two matching sheets to put on the spare bed before my sister arrived the next day.
So step 1 was to prepare the cupboard. The lining paper was a bit torn in placesso I replaced it with gorgeous flocked wrapping paper I found on special at Lincraft. It looked so pretty!
Next step was to rationalise and organise my sheets. I figure we need a set and a spare for each bed in the house plus one or two extra for camp beds. I had WAY more than that jammed in the cupboard. I have been buying all cotton sheets for the past ten or so years so I decided first step was to get rid of any old poly/cotton sheets. Tatty ones were given to the MOTH to take for work as rags/throw overs and nice ones were put in a bag for charity. I filled an outdoor garbage bag. I then matched up all the sheet sets. Any orphan sheets were also popped in the bag for charity. Somehow some of the matching pillow slips seem to have gone AWOL, but I solved that by popping those sets in plan white pillow slips. I prefer white pillow slips any way.
I have a lot of lace trimmed or embroidered cotton pillow slips that I do take the time to iron and fold properly (did I mention I love white pillow slips??). They always start off in a neat pile but end up all over the place. I did a little "home shopping" for a suitable basket or box. I found a really nice wicker document stacker/in/out tray that I have always intended having on my desk but couldn't quite fit. It was the perfect solution and also looks rather sweet stacked with white linen. My sister arrived and I abandoned the organisation.
A little over a week later, after some major avoidance strategies, I finally went back to it today.
All the towels were sorted into beach towels and bath towels. A shelf for each. Once again the charity shop benefitted. The more babyish beach towels went into a bag along with some excess (I think having over 20 is a little excessive) hand towels. Some rather ragged bath towels were popped into two boxes in the laundry. One for spills and dog washing towels, one box for hair dyeing adventures.
One of the big issues in the cupboard were the fact that our camping airbeds and sleeping bags were so slippy bulky and took up so much room. The airbeds were rolled up, two placed in a small suitcase that I also needed to store and the other two were placed in shopping bags. Up onto the carvernous top shelf with them! The sleeping bags have been rehomed to my sewing room for the time being. They will fit up in that top shelf but I need to make new cases for them first. LOL - should have thought about that before I donated the sheets.

My organised linen cupborad (well 2 shelves any way) Mabe not quite as pristine and toy soldier orderly as Matha's but I can see everything at a glance and more importantly lay my hands on it all easily.

The random other stuff has been either binned/recycled (empty perfume and essential oil bottles and a couple of cardboard boxes) or rehomed/donated to charity (toiletries bag, soap, heated rollers, insulated cooler bag and an apron)
So now all that needs to go in the cupboard is the Christmas tree. While I am making bags for the sleeping bag, I want to make one for it so it can tuck away tidily on the floor at the back.
I can now see everything, lay my hands on what I need without causing a manchester avalanche and actually have a little spare space should I succumb to buying something else. I feel so virtous!

How to avoid housework!

7.00am: I woke up this morning determined to get the house cleaner and tidier today. But decided that since it was Saturday, I might just have another couple of minutes of rest.
9.00am: Finally out of bed, feeling a bit guilty about wasting the last two hours, I stripped my bed and threw the sheets in the washing machine, keen to try out my new green eco pegs once the sheets were ready to hang out. I squirted a bit of cleaner into the toilet and then the wheels fell off. I realised that I hadn't had anything to eat. Now I am supposed to be eating healthily, so I thought I'd better have something substantial for breakfast , so fixed myself a nice bowl of muesli and a cup of coffee. I decided to take it outside to my front garden, and took my novel to read while I drank my coffee.
9.30am: Finished my coffee and realised that I was a mere 70 pages from the end of the book. Might as well finish it and then I'll be able to get back to cleaning with no distractions.
10.30am: We need milk, there was about a tablespoon left in the bottle. It was a lovely day, too nice to drive so I decided to walk. Chat to a couple of friends in the shops, pile way too much stuff into one of those little baskets. An hour later and two green bags full, I staggered into the kitchen to unpack.
11.30am: Time for a cuppa and a few pages out of my new book - some Ian Rankin short stories.
12.00: Lunch time. The TV was on and I got caught up in a steam cleaner infomercial - I want one of those! Wouldn't that make cleaning fun and easy? What is it about infomercials? They are so boring, repetitive and I hate the music they put on them, but I sat mesmerised.
1.00pm: Magnum PI comes on TV - I love that show and decide to put my feet up for an hour!
2.00pm: I began to unstack the dishwasher and thought I'd tackle the kitchen, but wanted to listen to something - I turned on my computer so that I could download a podcast from one of my favourite Radio National shows and as I waited for it to load, did a bit of browsing which lead me to a free ebook site, this in turn lead me to Project Gutenberg and I discovered that they need volunteer proofreaders (I'd never noticed that on the site before)- What a great idea - giving a little bit of time to proofread to get more books on Project Gutenberg - I love to read, I'm a pretty good proofreader (of everything but my own writing) and I thought it may expose me to books I may otherwise never even contemplate. Why not? So I signed up and spent a pleasant two hours reading the rules and protocols and then proofreading 5 pages - what fun! But back to housework.
4.00pm: The sheets! I had forgotten them and the garden was now in full shade, so there's no point hanging them out now so into the dryer with them (sorry environment) and back to that toilet, now flushed many times over. A little more cleaner, brush and wipe down. Now we are getting somewhere!
4.30pm: I headed back into the kitchen for a renewed attack. Listening to the book reading I stacked the dishwasher, thinking about tackling the stove and then I noticed that we were out of dishwasher tablets.
5.00pm: I could do them by hand or go for a walk to the shop. I decided on the walk with the dog for company. Had a chat with my husband who was filleting fish in the back yard, replanted yet another plant the dog had pulled out.
5.15pm: Encouraged my son to go with me to mind the dog while I bought the dishwasher powder. The afternoon air was so cool and fresh, that I continued walking until it was quite dark.
6.45pm: Home again, dishwasher on and I began to make dinner - a zucchini quiche. The bag of oranges beside the stove caught my eye, better juice a couple before they go off. Juicer on and 15 oranges later, remembered the sheets again. I made my bed and then back to the kitchen to clean. I took the rubbish bin out to put in the big bin and the cat and guinea pig both squeaked at me. Feeding both animals, I noticed that my pot plants were looking droopy, so turned on the hose and gave them all a water.
7.30pm: Back inside, the table needs clearing and setting and the dishwasher emptying. Dinner
8.30pm: Dishwasher on again and time to sit down in front of the tele. As I look at my unwashed floors, untidy lounge room, huge mountain of ironing, I sigh. Oh well there's still tomorrow!