Freer

I promised to expand on the other benefits of de-cluttering.  well here goes so far....
Stress reduction - we have less stress around tidying up and trying to put things away; are able to find things; don't have to get past items that are rarely used to get other items in cupboards etc.  We aren't tripping on things or having to clean around them  as much - we still have a bit to go here though.
Owning less feels lighter and freer.  That we are less weighed down by clutter is the obvious but there is  more to it than just that  - this is hard to explain, perhaps an example of how it has applied may help...  we used to own about 800+ more books than we do now.  We sold about 150 to a book store before we moved.  We told friends to come by and take any that were useful to them, gave about another 200-300 to the college where we had studied and donated heaps of others to charity for a book stall fundraiser.  We still have a lot of books.
Our book collection fills a 6 foot x 3 foot book shelf + an 8 foot x 2 foot paperbacks shelf ( I love this shelf as it goes up to the ceiling and each shelf is just high enough and wide enough to hold a paper-back) + 2 other shelves each 6 foot high x 2 foot and 3 foot wide with craft, computer, wood working books and magazines.  As long as I don't count the other shelf  full of hubby's teaching resources that just about covers it.... oh and each teen has at least one book shelf in her room with books and other teen type bits.
In our recent de-clutter we have disposed of 4 large bookshelves and that is after getting rid of 3 before the move.  We still have a lot of books by most standards.  For us it is now manageable.  We have less dusting, it is easier to find the books we actually read and refer to and best for my book addict hubby - we have space to acquire a few more.  We also don't have the difficluty (and stress) of finding space to fit the amount of shelves required to house an additional 800+ books. Our lives are improved by this act alone.  Another bonus is that along the way we got to bless others with books, which delighted most of the receivers and we got the warm fuzzies for that too - win-win.   
Multiply this affect accross other areas of our lives and you begin to see just how much less we have to look after now.  Yes we had unintentionally become servants to our stuff.
Does this begin to explain what I mean when I say that I feel freer?

PS - sorry there are no pics - I have been trying since last night to upload the pics of our bookshelves and even resizing and reformatting them would not get them to upload.  :(

Garage Sale

I very carefully did all the 'right' preparation to have our sale.  Put the add in the paper in plenty of time; notified of a 6am start (garage sales are early in our part of the world); made up signs; priced and labelled everything; got change from the bank; put the signs out early, set the alarm for 4.30am, had plenty of grocery bags ready...

we were ready for the customers and waiting... and waiting... where are they all?  Usually the dealers are out early. no dealers, no customers.  By 7.30am we knew something was up, so off to the shops went hubby to buy the newspaper.  I found our add - in the wrong section!!!  I had put the add in the wrong part of the paper.  sigh. 

What were we to do?  Postpone? Hope a few saw our signs and found us? 

We couldn't postpone as we have an 18th celebration here next weekend and just can't manage both on the one day.   Tat really only left us to hope......

We covered the cost of the add.  Just.  I have been too discouraged to add up the proceeds once i had made back the add cost.  I estimate it to be around $12-16.  Still it is $12-16 more than I had yeasterday... as long as I resist the urge to add in the cost of my time and energy in preparation. 

Chalk it up to experience.  Next time i will KNOW which section of the paper the add goes in, that's if there ever is a next time. 

Mid morning I posted a notice on freecycle and very soon had lots of folks come to relieve us of the stuff.  So it was a few busy hours with friendly freecyclers and I got to chat to them all.  They were very curious but sympathetic to see so much good stuff begin given away.  Maybe some thought it was christmas... hey wait.  It is. 

There were several other benefits:

We got to meet several of our new neighbours.  Nothing quite like sitting out the front of your home on a Saturday morming to get to greet them all as they go by in the course of their day.  And since it is a sale, folks feel more free to come by and say "Hi".  I enjoyed that immensely.  It seems that in our tiny L-shaped cul-de-sac of about 10 houses at least 4 have moved in within the last 4 months. 

I caught up with an old school friend from primary school days.  we hadn't seen each other since about grade 4 or 5 when her family had moved away.  I recognised her voice immediately and then her auburn hair.  We chatted and filled in over 30 yearsof life, promising to stay in touch since we live in the same suburb now.  (my home town is over two hours away). I also got to tell my kids that this is the lady with whom I used to do all those crazy tricks on the monkey bars.  That one got them as I suspect they think I was born middle aged and fat! 

And last, but definately not least - I got free of all my clutter and none of it came back into my home.  Two ladies even took the last couple of bags of bits to drop in the charity bins on their way home since they were going right by. 

Now I am off to have a well deserved shower and a snooze - 4.30am......

800 and still counting

Yep! we have now ticked off 800 items and continue to put items aside.  I am sure that even if I keep this up for another month I would still be able to find things to purge from our lives.  What's more, I suspect that if I were to repeat this exercise each month that even after this major exercise, we would still manage to find more things we don't need as much as we think we do.  Hmmm... this has got me thinking. I wonder if i would be able to find another 100 items each month for the next 12 months that I could re-home?  ... food for thought.  I'll get back to you on this one after it has percolated a while.   

Some interesting and mostly unexpected things are coming out of this de-cluttering challenge.  I started it as a purely practical thing.  It's really simple: big houser = fill  it up. Not that we actually set out to fill it up.  It just happened along the way.  Hubby says it's a law of physics: stuff expands to fill the space available.  plenty of space; plenty of expanding potential - he does have a point. Then we move to a small house - oh dear stuff won't fit = time to cull. That really was my thinking; nothing clever, philosophical or major... except that it seems to be doing something in me.  I am thinking about the stuff we have in a different way - an idea I will continue to explore and you will get to hear of it as I go.  It also seems to be having an affect on Hubby and teens too.   

One pleasant outcome is that I am feeling less burdened.  strange how that works.  Lose some clutter and feel freer. Lighter.  Less bound. 

...and dog

Over the last couple of days I have introduced you to our two cats.  there is one more animal in my family (not counting hubby or teens).  Our dog Buddy.
Buddy is our 4 1/2 year old Labrador x Ridgeback.
He is 40 kg of love and sloppy tongue.  He loves people, chasing his ball and our two cats.  His bark is big and deep and a handy deterant to strangers entering the property (although in all likelihood he would lick any intruder and present his ball for a game).

I love this pic .  buddy was so happy chasing the ball and my friend C caught him in full flight returninig with the ball to be thrown again. It is kinda scary having 40 kg of exuberant, somewhat clumsy dog running at you and stopping just in front to drop the ball (sometimes his 'brakes' don't quite work as expected).

if you will humour me a little more i have just one more pic to share...

Buddy and charlie sleeping on Buddy's mat on the floor in our old house (before we got Eddy). Aaaaw.

Kitty Trouble

Teen1 had an attack of the hungries yesterday and decided to satisfy it with tinned soup.  One of our furries - nine month old Eddie decided that she should share...

I happened to be nearby with the camera when she complained about the would-be tucker thief.  Quick action netted me a few shots of the action and I even  overlooked the no-cats-on-the-table rule.
 
He is so darn cute. 

Keeping a wary eye on eddie...

She finished her soup and then gave the cat the tin since he didn't get any of her soup.

I reached my limit of ability to overlook cats on the table at this point and put the tin on the floor.  Eddie quickly followed... and happily licked as far down the tin walls as  he could fit his furry little head - which is a remarkably long way for a nine month old catten.

Hubby's contributinon...

Hubby finally cleaned out his jocks drawer.  He had been complaining for ages about his socks wearing thin and jock elastic going loose or worse -  (I'll spare you the details).  I told him in the most sympathetic, wifely way that I could muster, (remember this man is a hoarder) that if he cleared  out hisdrawers he would (1) find how many were actually decent and (2) have room to put new ones.  He took the hint (I didn't say anything I hadn't been saying for at least two years).  He went out and bought two packs of "Seven days in Rio" – why does anyone need 14 pairs of undies??  It’s not like we don’t own a washing machine or it doesn’t do many loads each week, multiple times a week! I guess one never knows when the need will arise for many underdaks.  We could have an alien invasion and may **** ourselves at the fright and it may happen at the same time that power goes off and water supply is cut.  Mmmm undies aren’t what I am likely to be thinking about in such circumstances …but I digress.

Hubby cleared out his jocks drawer for the first time in quite a few years.  So much so that he filled a giant shopping bag with dead undergarments. Yes!!  I am not saying how many items that added to our next batch of 100 but let me say that we are already nearly a third of the way into our next 100 items!

I just have to include (for my satisfaction) the evidence of his hard work.... that is our bemused cat Charlie in the background who sat watching as I unloaded the mountain of jocks onto the floor.  He didn't move the entire time except to rasie and lower his gaze with each deposit.  It looked so funny that I just had to include my observer (or is it supervisor) in the shot.

Now if I can just get hubby to go through his overflowing socks drawer, ...his polo shirts, his shorts, jeans and jumpers….What am I thinking?  Geepers, we don't want to risk casuing an invasion from outer space.

700!

We made it!  Throughout the last week and a bit we just kept putting items aside to contribute to our next 100 items in our ongoing de-clutter.  Sunday afternoon teen2 gave me a hand and we catalogued the current pile.   When we got to the bottom of the box, we only had 97 items, we looked at each other and immediately looked around to see what else we could add to make it to the next 100.  Laughing, we raced to see where we could find those elusive last three items.  I called out to the rest of the family and soon had the 100 filled ... and the next 100 underway.
Only this week to go until the garage sale and progress is going much slower now as we are getting to the end of the boxes to unpack.  We are starting to find that we are going over areas that have been covered and surprisingly still finding things we really don't need.  I suspect that we could go over the same areas again in another week, if we had the time, and discover that we could still part with more itmes. 
BTW the blue fronted drawer in the pic represents a Tallboy we don't need, but i just placed one of the small top drawers rather than the entire unit.

Kirby Love

... or Up-Chuck stain all gone as I was going to title this post.  Lovely clean white (well creamy-white) carpet. It isn't quite dry yet but i couldn't wait to show off my delight. :)  Mr Kirby has earned my respect and will have a treasured place in our home for many years to come.  Hubby did the cleaning honour and he said it was so easy to use and lighter to control than the old Amway 1000 vac that we used to have for many years, until it turned up its toes (at 20+ years old).

Notice the two tone of the carpet.  I brushed one part one way and the other part in the opposite direction.

Here is the 'before' pic again for comparison. This one is the same angle as the 'after' pic.   The before pic is a different colour because it was taken at night. 

The de-cluttering continues but has slowed this week due to other things crowding in... teen's Gr12 graduation, planning her 18th for next week, commencing Christmas preparation [33days to go!] (gift lists, gift budget prep and incurring shock at what was already a conservative budget), birthday, graduation and christmas shopping, dreaming up things I can make, another teen sick leading to doc and specialist visits...  Oh and add to that a heat wave.  I have been putting items aside during the week and just need to document them.  Hopefully I will get a pleasant surprise that amoungst all else we still get another 100 items...

Speaking of heat, we did get a little reprieve in the middle of the week with some rain and of course that pushed the humidity through the roof. The temps have steadily gone up again.  Today we are to have 32degrees (celcius) and tomorrow we are bracing for 36degrees.  Add to that the high humidity and the song of cicadas and it is a wonder we are able to move at all let alone getthings done. Oh and this is still Spring, we haven't got to the real heat yet.  yikes!  When i was a kid we would get most summer days around 31-33 degrees with maybe one or two doozies around 35-36.  Now we are getting many days around 36 and even up to 40 degrees.  Ehough of my talking about the weather. 

Not clutter

This arrived in the post the other day: 

 

Our home has no broom cupboard, no spare room, and no store-room.  we have a tiny bathroom, a small lounge room and a combined dining and family room which is doubling as the office and my craft space.  I have no idea where or how I am going to to store this beauty.  Is it clutter?  NO WAY!!  this baby is treasure.  A treasure which is sitting in the family room awaiting a home finding fairy to do some magic. 
My dear friend C recently ripped up all her carpet and had bamboo flooring laid.  she no longer needed her Kirby vacuum cleaner.  our previous home had all timber floors and we had no need of a vacuum cleaner.  Now we have thick WHITE carpet in all four bedrooms.  what could be worse than white carpet?  ...dirty white carpet.  I detest carpet and have delighted in having timber flooring.  Now I need to get acquainted with sucking the floors clean instead of a simple sweep and mop.  Of course we all know that carpet is NEVER clean even when sucked daily. ...having to suck carpet sucks...  I am really hoping this baby does the job.
To further complicate life, one of our daughters is allergic to dust mites and carpet is a major dust mite habitat.

This same daughter threw up during our first week in our new home!  Hubby and I were awoken at 3.30am by the sounds of a distressed daughter coming in to tell us that she had just thrown up several times and that she had made it to the bathroom by the third hurl.  The second one was in the hall, the first just inside her bedroom... you got it, on the white carpet.  Despite darling hubby (with the iron stomach) immediatly springing into action to clean it up, there remains a large brown stain on the white carpet.  Did i mention that i hate carpet??
Well our new friend Mr Kirby will get to prove his worth.  Thankfully this beauty has many attachments and even a carpet vacuuming feature.  At least there is a little light at the end of the tunnel. stay tuned for the (exciting?) conclusion to this story.

Shed

Here are some of the contents of the shed de-clutter. We spent a big chucnk of Saturday and Sunday going through the shed and sorting many boxes and crates of stuff.  I am married to a hoarder who comes form a line of hoarders.  Complete reforn is therefore highly unlikely. 
Most of the contents of the shed actually came from hubbies father. Some time after dear FIL retired, my in-laws sold their home and down-sized to a retirement village.  This meant the contents of his very large 6m x 7m shed came to our house.  Hubbies two brothers claimed the useful stuff as both were doing renos, leaving us with over 40 years of accumulated shed clutter to add to my darlings 20 years of acquired shed clutter.  sigh.  I am a patient woman.  For the next six years I was unable to get the car back in the garage and put up with many broken promises to sort it out.  !!!  Eventually we moved house and guess what??  Instead of sorting it then, it just came with us!  
...but, this is where is gets funny - well to me, possibly not to my hoarder hubby who finds parting with his treasures very distressing.  He no longer is able to take over the double garage as we don't have one - we have a lovely open double carport; so the cars get to safely live under cover.  their once again shiny-not-bird-pooped paint work is thankful.
Hubby gets a shed of his own and it is a generous shed - 3m x 6m.  Previously his stuff took up about 7m x 7m.  Getting the shed sorted and usable is important to him so he is at least motivated to progress in the direction of de-cluttering.  All of this brings me back to our weekend activity - operation de-clutter the shed. 
In the past my attempts to assist him sort or tidy his spaces have ended in arguments and tension.  thankfully this was not the case this time.  well there was a little initial tension both days around him getting started, but that soon passed.  We even managed to have fun and he tried to thank me with sweaty kisses - "I'll pass thanks till you're showered and fresh."  I have given him a few sweeteners to ease his pain.
1. anything that is disposed of that he later needs can be re-purchased.  i don't expect there to be many such items but he has full agreement and permission to replace any item IF and WHEN it is needed, and it helped him to part with a lot of excess stuff from his dad. 
2. we will acquire any items necessary to make his shed work for him how he needs it to work.  we already bought him a pegboard to accompany the new packet of pegs (from his dad). 
3. I will reward him with adult rewards ...
4. He will get a working space / retreat where he can while away many happy (productive?) hours.

Oh and we even got to pass two big boxes of 'useful stuff' to our future son-in-law.  :)  My dear daughter shuffled from foot to foot saaying tings like "do you really need that?"  "Don't take too many things as we will just have to find somewhere to store them."  Oh some traditions are such fun.  

Re-thinking Christmas

Anyone who knows me would know that i really love christmas and tend to go a bit overboard loading my loved ones up with way to much stuff.  well here is my declaration - I am going to do it differently this year.  Having spent so much time and energy getting rid of so much clutter, the thought of cluttering our home up again with nice but not needed stuff just horrifies me.  I know... i am the worst offender in the introducton of clutter to our home so I am the main one needing reform; the change begins with me.  I spoke with hubby and out three teens and they all agreed. It is now a family commitment to reduce the christmas clutter.
The main christmas clutter is our christmas stocking.  This is a tradition i started when the kids were little in order to buy a little more sleep. I would fill a stocking for each girl and put it on their bed before I went to sleep, they would wake early and play with the stocking and its contents thus giving me a bit more sleep.  It worked so well that when I suggested dropping it a few years ago as the girls were all getting older there was a loud protest.  "NO the stocking is our favourite part of christmas!" in fact they wanted to make it even bigger.  Bigger it did get and it actually became the main part of my christmas budget and got to the point where it has become quite a monster.  well we are now reigning in the monster.  Here's to a clutter-free Christmas....

We Cracked 500!

Woohoo. We passed the 500 mark in our decluttering yesterday.  the clear-out of the undercover area had taken us half way there and yesteday's efforts boosted it well past 500. Most likely we passed 600 as well but I am NOT going to attempt to record or count most of the shed contents. we still have more to go ... I wonder if we have another 100 items we could re-home???

Proud to burst!

I am so proud of my hubby! yesterday we followed on from clearing the outdoor area and moved to..... the shed! after some procrastination and time wasting, hubby went and started pulling boxes etc out of the she and bringing them over into the shade of our undercover area for me to sort.  this is sooooooo BIG. 
1. he finally started on a project that has had him stalled for over five years!
2. he trusted me enough  to leave me with his precious boxes of accumulated treasure when i am in full de-clutter mode. 
3. he made lots of decisions to part with items that he has no need for.
4. he didn't whine, complain or get all needy in that painful male way.

5. he didn't get angry, aggreessive or mean in that other male way.
6. he willingly parted with about 6 big boxes of shed-based 'useful' clutter.
the pic here is just some of the cleared stuff.  two other boxes went to our son-in-law-to-be as he is a cabinet maker and really can use the hinges, screws, nails, cabinet latches, etc, etc.  there was also another big box but it was too hard to access to photograph. 

then later in the afternoon he got me to cut his hair.  now my hubby is blessed with a very full head of thick, curly, greying hair.  his 'fro just gets bigger and bigger.  he doesn't like getting his heair cut... he also doesn't like it when his hair walks into a room before the rest of him.  so it was hari cut time.  he was an angel.  i really should have taken a before and after pic as the pile of hair just doesn't do justice to the amount of hair that was cut off or how lovely he looks now.  now if he will just let me colour his hair....

i have no idea where all this hubby behaviour came from but i sure like it....hmm ...no it's not possible.... men in the mid-40's don't suddenly change.... perhaps someone swapped my dear old grumpy hoarder for some imposter.... Nah. that's not it.  but i really must ask him what brought on this more friendly disposition and i wonder how long it will last?  love ya babe and i am so proud of you - i know this is a HUGE tihng for you.

progress has slowed

Yesterday hubby had a day off so we headed out to the cluttered undercover area and had a busy couple of hours.  we tossed stuff and put plenty of other items in boxes for our de-clutter challenge and then got to decision making on some other items.  we had several pieces of furniture that hubby had made.  they were well made but no longer needed.  i expected some opposition to parting with them but to my surprise he was totally pragmatic and suggested that we part with them.  so before we could change our mind, out to the carport they went.  we opened up the space and were able to set up our table and chairs for the area.  it felt good to be able to make use of the space.  between the furniture items and other items we collected about 50 more items for our de-clutteing challenge.  stay tuned for the next notice of 100 items....

To top off a successful morning, i went out for coffee with a great friend who i only get to see every few months.  we had a lovely catch up and i came home tired, yet refreshed... if that makes sense. 

and one more makes four...

Yep, this is the fourth lot of 100 items to leave our home.  Hubby is still liking it, the daughters are into it and i am enjoying the fruit of our efforts.  we are slowly getting to the bottomof most of the boxes.  as long as i don't focus on all that is still to do i can keep from getting overwhelmed...  the house is slowly feeing more like home. 
we are planning to hold a garage sale in a couple of weeks to be free of our clutter.  wehave a deadline in hte form of an 18th party for daughter no 1. that deadline is pushing me a bit.  the latest i can set the date for the sale is on saturday 28th November - yikes that is only two weeks away.  new motto... i think i can...i think i can...

Hubby is on board too

After I had moved the first two lots of 100+ items out of the house hubby declared how much better the house was feeling. He said it was nice to have space, to be able to find things as well as close cupboards and drawers.Yeay!

Now this may not sound like much, but to anyone who knows my dear hubby it is BIG!  He is a hoarder from waaaaaay back.  When I first met him if I had been a wise woman I may have known what was in store for me just by taking a peek at his bedroom.  Alas, I was young, naïve and lacking in worldly experience… I misinterpreted what I saw… Had I only realised the significance of the fact that the only floor visible in his bedroom was a few stepping stones to get from the door to the end of his bed!!!  It was a large room and was several feet deep in STUFF.  I should have run away screaming before I had the chance to fall in love with him and be forever under the spell of those big brown eyes.  Yes he still finds it very difficult to part with anything, still reminds his mother how hard done by he was when she disposed of his “airtanks” (made from powdered milk tins and tubing) when they moved hose when he was eight years old .  sigh.

So to have dear hubby declare how much he liked my de-cluttering challenge was praise of the highest kind, music to my ears and a sure sign that we had better get to sorting the mountain in the shed VERY SOON before he changes his mind!!

100 items of Clothing?!

yesterday my daughter came home with a BIG garbage bag full of clothing.  oh dear.  just when we are trying to declutter and fit into our new home, more stuff comes in! 
It actually turned into a good thing.  The girls all have overflowing robes and boxes with clothing they haven't yet unpacked becasue there just isn't anywhere to put it.  I gave them a challenge this morning; they could go through the bag and choose any items they liked to try on but they had to go into their robes today... aaannnd they also have to make ALL of the other clothing fit too.  In our move we have down-sized and while the girls all have their own room, each room and each robe is significantly smaller. 
My teens surprised me - they all smiled and went "you're on!"  The bag had lots of really nice things in it but they only chose about 5-10 pieces each each and once they had tried them them on they reduced that down to only a few items each.  I was very surprised at their self-control.  They each said they didn't NEED any of the other things.  They each went to their room and went through the overflowing robes, drawers and unopened boxes, tipping them onto their beds (or floor) and started going through it all.  The girls were excited about getting 100 collective items of clothing out of our lives.   The first reward was being able to see the floor fully, the second was being able to shut doors and drawers properly and the third was the fun, comraderie and competition we had.

Did they make the 100 items? YES and with a few to spare.... funny none of the girls wanted to take back any items once we passed the 100 mark.  So what does 100+ items of teen clothing look like?  ...not that big of a pile on the lounge chair really.

The second 100

Here are the results of my efforts yesterday in the great dee-cluttering project.  I have achieved my second 100 items to leave my life.  

To start off my 2^nd 100 items I decided to head outside.  Our outside area is lovely – only we can’t use it as it is full of furniture that just doesn’t fit into the house.  Time to make some really hard decisions.  Surely if I do the hard stuff first the rest will be easier???... that strategy has worked for me with other stuff before… but some of these things are special to me. 

What about furniture that just can't fit anywhere?  The old set of 6 Don Rex dining chairs?  We have had these chairs for nearly 20 year and bought them from a couple who had them for 40 years.  I really like them, I don’t have the space for them, I don’t NEED them, but I like them…  they need to go.

What will I do with the very old chairs that I have carted from one end of the country to the other intending to 'do them up'?  I don’t have space or use for them.  It is the same with my lovely teak blanket box, I paid to move it to Victoria and back again.  I love it but it doesn’t fit anywhere – not even in my little lounge room as a coffee table.  Sigh.  Time to take its pic and see if I can sell it. 

Well now my enthusiasm has waned.  

Time to cheer myself a bit with stuff that isn’t so hard.  Hmmm,  the bed-head that we bought with a bed then made our own bed-head?  The bed stand?  The big old office desk?  These items are all surplus to requirements and I can be totally practical and easily part with them.  They are just stuff and as stuff they no longer serve me and I don’t want to serve stuff. 

I seem to be writing an essay here…

Am I the only one who finds this stuff tough?

How do I cut and part with things that have attachments? ... well they don't have attachments, it is me with the attachment issues.  Let me think this through... they are taking up space that I just can't spare, so I am better off to re-home them.  But I have paid money to buy, store, cart and renovate them.  i am somewhat invested in them and this makes it all the harder to do what i know i need to do.  Some things are very hard to part with.   

here is where i  have put the things so far and i will pack the items which are currently sittingon my lovely teak box in the pic above into cardboard boxes, ready to jooin the stuff aleary inthe carport.  let's see how long before the cars no longer fit in their...  

woooooo hooooo I made it to my second 100  items ready to go out of my life.

My strategy that worked for this round was to take a break after the first tough part and then to come back to it fresh and start in a different spot.  This was aided when a friend dropped in for coffee and I told her of my dilemma.  She stayed and gave me 90mins of help.  We got so much done in that time.  We unpacked another 3 boxes, evaluated each item as it came out of the box, found homes for heaps of keepers and tossed the others back into one of two boxes – one for definite cull and the other for ‘uncertain’ items.  This kept me moving at a good pace and while I may like to cull those things, some are not mine to decide.  So I put them aside and told each of my family members to go through the ‘uncertain’ box and only remove an item if they would definitely use it. They were to take it away and not clutter up the house with it.  I was pleasantly surprised with how many items were left in this box by the end of the day. It worked!  And better yet I am not getting in trouble for ‘chucking their stuff’. 

the great life un-cluttering project...

i got off to a great start yesterday. i was sitting planning my day and how to use my limited energy to best make a little more progress in the 'great life un-cluttering project' - as i am now thinking of it. my first thought was that i needed to make a trip to the charity shops to unload the big mountain of 140+ things that were now beside my front door so that i could start again to collect another 100 items to declutter from my life. then i thought... if i already have 140 and i sold them for even 50c each i would have $70 to go towards something else i really could use. then if i add another 100 items and if i can add even another 100 items i could turn some of this into a little cash... hmmm i am thinking that a little garage sale might be in order. ok where to store this pile?? .... oh that is the question really.
ok here is my solution: by putting the stuff in the carport l can continue to prepare for the garage sale - at least it is where the sale will be. the cars can still fit - for the moment...

getting started

Well this is my first blog posting... I am at the beginning of a new journey and the title i have chosen for this blog kinda explains it. my life needs some major overhauls. i have only just recently discovered blogging. i have been following the blog of a friend for a while but it is only since life just got too clogged that i have been venturing further in the world of blogdom to see what else is out there. my there is a lot.... over the last little while i have slowly discovering and following more nd more blogs. they are inspiring me, encouraging me, challenging me.

This combines with a few other things... a while ago i joined a yahoo group called "Simple Savers" (and when i work out how to link i will link to it) and the challenge for November is to de-clutter 100 items from our homes. i have never participated in the SS challenges in the past. now it is time to engage in the challenge.


The decluttering 100 things challenge couldn't have come at a better time. we have just moved house and are unpacking the boxes. we had quite a cull before we moved; a garage sale + heaps of stuff was freecycled (another cool yahoo group) or went to charity or was eBayed, but it seems it wasn't enough.... oh dear. We have downsized our home from a large house with four large bedrooms, office, store-room and rumpus/craft room, shed and a two car lock-up garage which was also full of hubbie's tools. our new home is lovely. it is also much, much smaller.

we still have four bedrooms but each room is small. the biggest of the kids rooms is smaller than the smallest previously... no office, craft, rumpus, store-room or garage... ooooh it is getting a bit scary. there is a shed for the tools and out of season storage like fans/heaters but even that is a standard garden shed. the cars will be happy because they get to be under cover in the CARPORT:) no garage means hubby can't take over with his tools...
we all know what is coming...
it is time to have another look and make some tough decisions. some i expect will be not too hard, others.... well... we are a bit attached to all that stuff. oooh i am feeling some pain already. do we need all this stuff? really need it?

our stuff has been in storage for three months while we lived with a friend. the experience has been quite insightful. we really missed some items and others not at all. now it is time to re-evaluate. i am partially excited at the challenge and partially... well scared. we are going into unknown territory here. now don't get me wrong. i do regular culls. but this is something more. we are going to have to really evaluate EVERYTHING.

Since the linen cupboard is where SS started i think i will take that lead. since moving even our linen cupboard is smaller and it is overflowing.... sheets, towels etc.. hmmm handtowels. about 12 months ago i 'replaced ' all our old stained handtowels with 8 new dark blue hand-towels. yeay no more stained, ugly towels. i 'promoted the old ones to rags and told the family ... it didn't work very well. instead of using the old ones as rags i kept finding them back on the towel rails, usually when using the toilet and bathroom right after the guests have been. sigh.
how did they creep back into use?
I guess the only way to get rid of them from use is to get rid of them. This story is repeated wth the tea towels. they no longer fit in the drawer there are so many of them. i recenlty replaced a heap of worn out, holey, thin ones (some that i have had for over 20 years), but failed to actually part with them so the drawer is overflowing. cull a heap and now the new ones fit happily in the drawer - with room to spare.

ok now to check out the bottom of the wardrobe... it seems to be overflowing. oh, way too many pairs of unused shoes. one worn out pair that should have been tossed long ago - easy. what about these three near new pairs that were 'unfortunate' purchases? you know the ones, worn a few times and so uncomfortable that i just couldn't 'break' them in. they were a poor purchase choice but i couldn't just throw them out as they cost a lot of moeny... sigh. time to give them to someone elso who may have better success wearing them.

while i am in the wardrobe, let's see what else we don't use.... hubbies jacket, some long-sleeve shirts, covered in dust they get such seldom use - oh this is easy and such fun... now what about my side? oh that's a bit harder. still i am just freeing myself of things i haven't worn and have simply held onto... top, blouse, top, top, pants, one, two, three, skirt. hmm this isn't so bad. i haven't worn any of these items in ages and i know i am not likely to so i can let go of them....
i can't believe how easy and fun this is. i have already reached over 100 items - 140 items in just a couple of days.
the picture above is of my pile of 140 items, bagged adn boxed and ready to go to charity. it is just outside my front door and i have to keep it covered so that we aren't tempted to rescue any items.

ahhh i feel a little liberated already.