The Problem with Purging.

(Say that fast, ten times.  It's fun!)  There are quite a few problems with purging, come to think of it.  First, there is the rule that, as soon as an item that you've been squirreling away for years leaves the premises, you will need it.  Then there is the larger mess that is created when you start the (apparently) smaller mess.  Then there is that darn lack of focus.  Speaking for myself, of course. 

I puffed myself up to a nice stressful level (it's the only way I can really do a good purge) and marched into my laundry/tool/gardening/feed room.  I deflated as flat as a pancake in a nanosecond.  I turned heel, coward that I am, and marched right out and shut the door.  I then did little, inconsequential things.  Purgettes or purgies, if you will.  About mid-morning I gave myself a good talking-to, dug up a spiral notebook, glasses and pen and marched to the cat/canning storage room.  After an hour of ignoring the actual jars and boxes by busying myself with reorganizing empty jars, I started taking inventory.  It was scary.  After three hours, working through lunch, I had four pages filled and still had three large shelves to go.  But my bones were creaky and I heard a lot of tippy-tappy toenails in the hallway - that, "OMG, MOM!  We gotta go out NOW!" kind of staccato. 

Have you cat owners (or, those of you owned by cats) noticed that anything you put on the floor is immediately laid upon?  Box, bag, paper, it doesn't matter.  I think I spent as much time moving cats as I did moving boxes.

While I did find some things I thought I was out of - mincemeat, although that's a guess since there was no label or date on the jars - there were a lot of mystery jars.  Lots.  And lots.  By then my brain hurt and I could not recall what year I decided to try peach pit jelly.  But I am pretty sure that those 12 little rosy-filled jars are PPJ.  Then there are the 14 half-pints of some dark jam stuff.  Ditto on the unlabeled/undated.  I reached far into the cobwebs (of my mind) to try to remember the last time I made jam.  2012?  2011?  1852?  Towards the end, I was scribbling down "? Applesauce?  Peachsauce?  ????"  I gave in and up, and will take up the last of it another day.  Sometime in the future.  Honest.

Besides Slim/Slom/Salami and the Plastic Bag Incident this past weekend, I also was greeted by Pepper the Cat Food Eating Dog, slinking out of the cats' room, trying to look nonchalant.  He failed.  He had managed to squirm his little carcass between the door jamb and the baby gate and had Hoovered up 2/3s of their dry food before I caught him.  Visions of pancreatitis danced in my brain.  He was not a happy camper for the rest of the day.  He drank copious amounts of water - which meant watching him like a hawk, as all dachshunds would much rather pee on your carpet than outside in the snow.  Or outside at all.  He's been on a prison diet of white rice and chicken broth for two days.  I'm surprised he's not gnawing on the furniture.  However, he does seem to have perked up and is back spinning for his dinner.  Never a dull moment.