Hi!
The theme I chose was a dark one and is called “Twenty Eleven”. I’ve used an image of a chaotic, cluttered garage for the header image.
The images of the mouse or eventually maybe mice are from a friend who I shall credit if I get permission. She gave me permission to use the images in my blog. She created and made these soft felt sculptures. For now I am just using “Got Coffee”:
I am thinking that image is nearly if not exactly life sized.
~ Dusty
D Cluttermouse
No A's B's or C's 
The little mouse with her hand on her head reminds me of myself on a morning after I’ve stayed up too late because I couldn’t turn off the TV. My mind was being filled with clutter from Jay Leno. Not to blame him, though.. .I’m responsible for not turning off the stimuli!
While I didn’t chose the mouse for reason of my sleep anxiety or insomnia, I suffer both and they are likely connected with my issue of OCD and obsessive hoarding – they are anxiety disorders after all. I find I can not turn my brain off at night and my dreams are very cluttered. I actually dream much more than a normal person… a psychiatrist once offered me medication to reduce the amount of dream sleep I got. I mention that in backing up my statement that I dream more than normal. My dream world I guess is as cluttered as everything else…. Well I declined because I worried that anything that might effect the amount I dreamed might also effect my creativity and imagination which is vitally important to me as a writer.
I actually have disentangled myself from the TV umbilical chord this year however! I watch occasionally and I keep track of the one or two series I really want to follow via computer.
…though that can lead to its own clutter issues.
~ Dusty
Wow! I aspire to disengage from TV too. Way to go! This is my way of cheering for you.
Keep on dreaming though. I often wish I could remember my dreams. It occurs only rarely
For me it was the strike they had which really got me to consider quiting… It felt like such a relief when I would look at the schedule and see there were no “new” episodes on and I could instead concentrate on other things like… writing! …or computer graphics! If my place weren’t so cluttered it would include painting, leather carving, sewing, and a few other things as well.
Then we had the Summer Holidays and break from standard network TV and… I got notice they were closing down my apartment building that I was a long term resident of. (which also had about enough storage for me) I became to busy to watch last fall… I found I haven’t missed it so much. Of course there’s no “Star Trek” on anymore and I never got hooked on Stargate… so, it wasn’t so hard. I used to watch over 8 hours a day.
Now that cluttered my life! Eep!
~ Dusty
This is great! I thought all this was just a bad habit. My wife and I have issues with “collecting”. Both of our fathers were backyard scrapmen, but our parents houses were clean. We are both the youngest with 9 years between our next oldest sibling. Her biggest “collectable” is clothes, then gifts which may linger around for more than a year before it gets given to somebody, if they get given at all. Under the bed is unopened candles… Clothes are every where. lots of notes,lists,reciepies… She also has trouble shutting down her brain at night. My biggest problem is with magazines. My interests change with time. I got rid of 10 years of magazines for which I no longer held much interest in. In the back of my mind, I told my self “these might be worth something someday”, but is it worth preserving them for 25+ years? I’m getting ready to get rid of 20+ years of a sign trade magazine. It is hard, but there comes a time to free yourself of this stuff. When you do it does actually feel good. My other problem is vehicles. I’m a tinkerer and like working on building/modifiying… trucks and stuff. We always drive our vehicles until the next repair far outweighs the value of it. with my vans, I keep them around for storage. I only have two right now and don’t plan any more. I try to buy the same type of vehicle for my wife so I can have a “parts car” when the old one gives up. This is mostly for economic reasons, but the result is the same, more cars on the property. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.
Hi Jackpack,
I’ve found a lot of this stuff ties together – and I don’t mean with twine.
We all have to find a way to cope and live with our problems and the problems caused because people don’t and sometimes can’t understand our problems.
I mean I was listening to Mom and my Sister talking about it and that so many of our relatives have issues with clutter. But my Mom mentioned that a lot of our relatives have incredibly immaculate organized homes. The thing is that the two are related.
Compulsive hording is an anxiety disorder and related to if not a sort of OCD. Obsessive neatness is another way OCD can manifest. They say that if there is one hoarder or clutterer in a family, there are bound to be others. I think that you will also find people who are obsessively neat. I wonder how many rifts you might find in families?
It means that some family members with almost the same problem will be at the nearly opposite end of the clutter spectrum with not one extra breadcrumb on their counter.
Of course some hoarders are incredibly organized too… some are until they get overwhelmed by lack of space or some crisis.
Getting back to things…
This collecting and hoarding is not necessarily bad. My Father was a mechanic and he would hold onto truck parts that might be of use in future. They actually did and tools and parts he held onto had value to him and customers over the years. They did hold value. I think there are many a farmer or rancher who were glad they kept their old tractor or farm truck when the new one was broken down.
But… when you aren’t in that situation and don’t have the room and when you don’t have an ability to control things within the space resources you have and it comes avalanching down on you – perhaps literally – it becomes a problem.
If was trained as an electronic technologist and later computer maintenance technician and keeping computer cases and parts was useful. But living in small apartments and basement suites means it can avalanche very quickly. Of course more so since I am not a working technician and do not have that shop with a store-room. Perhaps it might even be more important if I had a store-room because I would need room for purchased stock and costumer machines. A person can only keep so many hulks. 🙂
Mind you I was keeping some of necessity as I had little to no money and used the spare bits for repairs to my own machine. When the motherboard of my computer “went” I had to use one from an older less powerful machine that I had sitting in the closet. That worked until I could salvage a better one.
But I did have to get rid of a bunch with my last move.
It can sure be tough getting rid of a couple decades of magazines… you wonder where they might be of use even if not in your house.
Thanks for writing!
~ Dusty