People should not be allowed to hoard....

...Well ok...I know I am one of those people but no-one can be worse than my mum. Clutter must be her middle name because I swear she has never thrown out anything in her life...I have found stuff that she and dad had long before I was born...that's how old the stuff is. Why am I grumbling about clutter and hoarding? Well mum wants to move house. She wants to sell up and move to a smaller (hah!) house...one that is low set and doesn't have so many steps because her knees and hips can no longer tolerate all the steps. And I agree she does need to downsize. My parents house is massive - six bedrooms, double storey, upstairs/downstairs bathrooms, inground pool, quarter acre back yard etc...way too big for just her, my brother and Miss 16. So it really does make sense to move. She would love to stay but apart from the size issue she also can no longer afford the mortgage so she would need to sell the house for enough to pay it off outright and still have enough to move into another home and pay it outright as well. BUT in order to sell and make it look half way decent we need to de-clutter it. Every room has stuff in it and mum just can't bring herself to do it so she is allowing me to go in and be brutal and just clean from top to bottom! Yay...my favourite thing to do and I say that without sarcasm because I really do love to clean other people's places...can't stand to do mine but mum's house is a gold mine and I bet there's all kinds of groovy stuff for me to pick through!

Saturday was a non-starting day because I had promised to get Miss 16's hair done so mum, Miss 16 and I went to her favourite stylist so she could have her hair done before Riverfire that night. She was going out with friends and wanted her new hair. Three hours, many coffees for mum and I and $170 dollars later she was done. I nearly died when I was told $170...I have never spent that much on my hair in one year let alone one sitting! But it does look really good...it's died black with gold and silver tints through the fringe with the fringe cut on an angle...looks very trendy. The first time I saw her while she had foils on it looked so blonde and Miss 16 was really worried...it looked so white! But it really isn't very blonde at all so she is very pleased with the look. I grocery shopped afterwards as mum had to take Miss 16 to her friends house so they could catch the train to Southbank and meet up with friends. Mum and I decided to tackle her house the next day (Sunday).

I took my groceries home and after MM and I unpacked the car and put everything away we veged out the rest of the afternoon watching "True Blood" which MM downloaded for me. It's a TV show that is apparently big in the US and if you are into vampires like me, you will love it :) Very gothic and they must have had a small budget as some of the main characters stay naked a lot of the time and there's lots of boinking in it so really not suitable for anyone under 18! But it's kind of sucked us in and we are now up to Season 2 of the series.

Sunday was the day to head to mum's so I went over and we decided to start with the storeroom under the stairs because we reasoned that we can get rid of any junk in there and then we can re-pack what she wants to keep and pack anything else she is is not using right now that she wants to take with her. The storeroom was a huge task! I filled my car boot with stuff for the Salvos or Lifeline, there is another huge pile of junk that will go into the industrial bin I will order for the weekend and all the other boxes belong to my sister who was storing her stuff with mum so I rang her and told she had to either come get her stuff or dump or whatever but it had to go. She wasn't happy with that as her place is very small with little room but that's not my problem...Mum isn't going to be taking that stuff with her.

We've also decided we will have a garage sale as there is lots of really good stuff that can be sold to make extra pocket money for mum. There's all the baby cots/prams/high chairs etc that belonged to Miss 16 and mum was saving for me when I had kids (no chance of that happening now!). Plus there is a whole pile of gym equipment - exercise bikes, walking machines, bench press etc that also might make a few dollars - anything to get rid of it.

Just before I went home I dropped off the stuff to the Salvation Army holding yard and now we start on another couple of rooms next weekend. By Monday morning my muscles were killing me but I think mum will start feeling better once we get rid of all her junk. Once the place looks nice and tidy then we can put it on the market and when time comes to move she hopefully won't have so much.

Now my MM is starting to talk about us moving as well but after this I think I might leave it a while!