Döstädning

I’m looking out the window at a very snowy landscape. Not surprising for a Michigan winter. We’ve had a lot of winter storm systems come through, dumping quite a bit of cold and snow on us. Sandwiched between the winter storms, the weather warms and hits us with freezing drizzle or rain. I get to stay cozy at home. EJ has to drive through it. The snow plows keep the roads clear but our driveway can get a bit tricky to make it up. Thankfully, EJ is very skilled at making it up the driveway.

After JJ left for Alaska, we rang in the New Year by cleaning the guest room and organizing his stuff to keep it safe and out of the way. Our organizing has expanded into other areas of the house. EJ and I went through our closet for any clothes we didn’t wear or want. Then we went through the totes in our pantry/storage room to get rid of anything that we haven’t used in years and don’t need. We made two trips to Goodwill with lots of stuff to donate. In Spring/Summer, we’d like to sort through EJ’s garage with the same purpose. You could say we are doing “döstädning.” As Grok (X’s AI) explains:

It’s a cultural practice in Sweden where people—often the elderly—gradually declutter and get rid of unnecessary possessions during their lifetime. The goal is to spare their loved ones (especially children) the overwhelming task of sorting through and disposing of a lifetime’s accumulation of stuff after they pass away. The concept gained widespread international attention through the 2017 book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Swedish author Margareta Magnusson, where she describes it as a thoughtful, ongoing process rather than a one-time purge—focusing on keeping only what brings joy or utility, while being considerate about what gets left behind. It’s pragmatic and considerate rather than morbid, and while it’s most associated with Sweden, similar mindful downsizing ideas exist in other Scandinavian cultures too.

For quite some time we’ve wished we had a “home gym” to exercise in. EJ has an inversion table to stretch out his back, but he hasn’t used it as much as he’d like or should because we didn’t have a good space for it. Mostly we’ve kept it folded up in our library and had to keep moving it to access books. Our treadmill has been stored in the garage. Theoretically, we could have used the treadmill there, but more than half the year the weather is too cold. It didn’t take long for it to get surrounded by and boxed in by garage stuff, making it inaccessible and unusable.

Our house has three bedrooms. One is our bedroom. The second is our home library. The third bedroom was JJ’s before he moved out on his own. We’ve kept it as a guest room for our friend who stays overnight with us a few times a year when he has medical appointments in our area. However, as 2025 clicked over into 2026, we resolved to change the guest room that is rarely used into our exercise room that we can regularly use to get into shape. Exercising will be beneficial for us both, but especially helpful to reduce EJ’s back pain. Infrequent guests will have now have to sleep on the couch or get a motel room.
In addition to donating unwanted clothes and items, we’ve been busy setting up the exercise room.

We took apart the guest bed. We wanted to immediately list it on Facebook Marketplace to get rid of it but we will have to wait until Spring. Right now, no one could make it up our driveway unless they have 4-wheel drive or a dog sled. So the bed, box springs, and mattress are still in the guest…er, exercise room.

We thought we’d have to sell the antique hanky dresser that was in the exercise room. Neither of us wanted to get rid of it, but we needed the space. Then EJ suggested we move it into our bedroom in place of my nightstand (which wasn’t next to my bed). I didn’t think the dresser would fit, but it fit perfectly. However, we had to figure out what to do with the nightstand. I finally decided to move it into the master closet to hold linen. This meant we had to move a low shelf and little bench. The shelf went in front of the window in the kitchen where it holds plants, mittens, and boots. It’s above a heat register so it’s a good place to dry wet mittens and boots. The little bench went into the exercise room in a place that was out of the way and too small for anything else. The seat lifts up so we can use it to store little weights.

I found a elliptical bike for $20 on Facebook Marketplace. The poster said that he had bought it new for his daughter but she wanted one that was more like those at the gym and never used it. Her dislike is our gain. Or should I say “our loss” since I’m hoping to use it to lose some weight.

With herculean effort, EJ moved the treadmill into the exercise room after first testing that it still worked. It does, although he has to replace a couple brackets. He’s working on that. Once he gets that fixed and we get rid of the old bed, we will be in business.

I’m making progress friending our new cat, Harvey, who lives in our garage. It’s slow progress, but progress nonetheless. Harvey was a feral, stray cat given to us by a couple we met at the thrift store in mid-November. For weeks, we only glimpsed Harvey a couple of times. A couple weeks ago, he (or she, we aren’t sure which) poked his head out from under EJ’s big workbench when I went out in the mornings to feed him and Theo. For the last couple mornings, he’s waited near the door before moving away when I go out. I always stand near the door for a couple minutes so he can get used to my presence. He’s coming closer to me although he’s still very skittish. This morning he actually started eating while I stood near the door. Before, he came near the food dish while I was out there but was too nervous to eat. So we are making progress.