One a day purge

After reading this post, one-a-day-keeps-the-clutter-away, I've re-committed myself to decluttering our house.  If we are going to move in the next 12 months, there is definitely a lot of 'stuff' that's built up again. I've already decluttered once, and I disposed of alot of items.  Most things went to the Humane Society of the Treasure Coast's Thrift Store, but I have slacked off.

I looked at the pantry today, and I found 3 boxes of bread mix that my in-laws sent us.  We never made them, and when I turned the boxes over to find the expiration date, I was shocked to see April, 2011.  If these 3 boxes have been sitting in our pantry for a couple of years and we never made the bread, then I think it's time to go.  Plus they are almost a year out of expiration, and I bet the yeast is no good.  Wow - that just freed up almost an entire shelf!  Oh, and let me explain my pantry - my DH built a shelving unit on the back of closet door downstairs.  We were trying to add some space to our small townhouse & it works wonderfully.

What are you going to declutter today?

Still Purging

I found this really great blog after reading a Yahoo story:

http://www.tosimplify.net

It's about a man and his adventures as he decides to move into his van full-time.  As I read the purging part of his story, it reminded me that I've come off track, so I've gotten back on track.  And, as our hot water heater broke this past week (which is located in the back of the downstairs closet), it was another sign to continue purging.

Yard jarts - we found yard jarts in the back of our wet closet.  When the heck did I receive those & what was I thinking.  Technically, we don't even have a yard - we live in a complex of townhouses!  Bye-bye to those!  I know I trashed a bunch of other stuff this week, but nothing specific comes to mind.  I guess that's just an indication of how meaningless these items were to me.

The Hardest Thing to Declutter

Sentimental Clutter. To me, this is the 'stuff' one has accumulated from people or places that holds a significant meaning and is hard to let go of. Take for instance, this bathrobe:

This bathrobe was given to me by my DH, on the first Christmas we celebrated together in 1992. When it was new, it was the whitest, softest robe I've ever worn. I loved it and wore it whether it was 60 degrees outside or 90. Over the years, he has bought a few other robes for me, and this one ended up just sitting on the hook, barely ever worn. It isn't the softest, whitest robe anymore but I felt bad throwing it out, so there it sat - taking up space.

As the decluttering continues, I had to come to reality that it was time for the robe to go bye-bye. After reading a few other articles about sentimental clutter, I decided I would immortalize the robe by taking a photo of it and journaling my thoughts. On a side note, I'm participating in Project 365, which is where you take a photo of something in your life each day & journal about it. So that's what I decided to do, and I actually felt a small sense of relief to throw the heavy robe into the trash. Let's face it - 20 years! I had a bathrobe for 20 years!

Time to let go.........

What sentimental items have you let go & did you find a way to keep the memory of them?

Yes! Decluttering Continues!

In my journey to declutter, I now have to step it up a notch. We've decided to move and I'm not going to move non-essential 'stuff'. Since I'm a runner, I buy running shoes every 4-6 months, so I go through a few pairs each year. I don't wear them for anything but running so when they don't suit my needs anymore, they are still in pretty good shape. I like to keep a pair for working outside or around the house. Low & behold I found 2 additional pairs under the bed, so I decided to donate. I also picked out a few items in my closet that can go as well. The black thing in the back is an evening gown that someone gave to me (it's a size 8 & I'm a 4) & I've never worn plus 2 shirts that aren't on my 'love' list.

What have you given away that you haven't 'loved'?

By the way, all my donations go to the Humane Society of the Treasure Coast thrift store (http://www.hstc1.org/) which is a wonderful organization in our community. I've adopted 2 of my cats from them & saved 2 others from ending up there.

I think I met my 5 a day goal tonight!

So Tues. is trash day and DH & I decided to tackle a portion of the attic last night. Here's a small list of what we got rid of:

• Extra dining table & 2 chairs (I convinced him we need to save 2 chairs for when we have guests)
• Silverware, extra mugs, shot glasses, some wine glasses, coffee pot, a stack of frying pans, chip clips from my Pampered Chef selling days, a ton of kitchen utensils, a Barnett Bank mesh beach bag (still looked brand new!), a bike rack for the back of a car and tons of miscellaneous stuff
• Two 6' cloth palm trees that used to decorate our living room
• 4 speakers and a subwofer
• A 10' piece of PVC pipe (who knows why we had that?)
• Old fishing tackle and a huge tackle bag
• An old microwave

I'm sure there's more but DH was throwing things down the stairs fast and furious. At one point in life we thought we would buy or build a small log cabin in Georgia, but I'm not sure that will ever happen. Instead, I think when we retire, we can just rent something for a few months if we are still in love with that area & want to spend a summer up there.

A lot of stuff I'm donating and a lot went in the trash. I'm curious to see how much is still out in the trash pile this morning. I'm sure the neighborhood pickers went through it. Sorry I didn't post a picture, but I didn't have a chance to download any photos last night.

On a side note, DH was able to put one coat of paint on the strip in the bedroom that never got painted. The story there is we painted the bedroom thinking we would add crown molding, which never happened. So there was a 1" strip of unpainted area that needed to be finished. The first coat is on and now he has to finish the second. Thank God he's suddenly motivated to finish that project, but he still has a few more to go!

So, at least when our company is here later this week I won't feel guilty about not having the time to throw away 5 things. I think I met the goal for the rest of the week!

Phew! Dodged a bullet.....but another's is on its way!

Well, luckily in South FL we dodged Emily as she quickly went from potential hurricane to nothing then a depression and then bye bye! Now just to quickly drink up that second gallon of unopened milk before it expires......

.....but our next bullet is on its way - time to move! Yes, we have decided it's time after living in our 1100 square foot townhouse for 11 years. Yes, the mortgage will be paid off on December 27th, but we are just too cramped in here. If we didn't ride bikes, hunt and fish, we could stay here forever and ever, but we are active outdoors people with lots of 'stuff'. We hunt for ducks (lots of decoys for those trips), wild boar (need a bigger gun), deer and whatever else. We love to fish (different rods for different fishing - offshore vs. inshore), and we both ride road bikes and mountain bikes. We cram all these things into our tiny townhouse and rent a storage unit for overflow and my DH's business inventory.

Now it's time to return to my 5 a day purge. I have 4 bags of 'stuff' ready to go to the Humane Society Thrift Store today. There will be lots more as this adventure takes place. Stay tuned as I journal how the moving process proceeds.

Continuing on my journey

This morning while getting ready for work, I went through my jewelry drawer (costume jewelry, not the real stuff!) and I found 5 pins that I never wear to get rid of. Whew! Just lightened the load a bit!

My 5 Thing A Day Challenge

I've fallen off the bandwagon and can't get up! Seriously, with so much activity swirling through my mind lately, I have totally lost my focus on decluttering. I thought about it this morning and decided to just focus on that primarily instead of all the other things that I'd like to do. Yes, I want to eat healthfully, make better consumer choices, eliminate plastic, etc.

I came back to blogging so I can chronicle my journey of decluttering. This morning I looked in the mirror, told myself to focus and to find 5 things, right now in this bathroom, that I could declutter. I opened my makeup drawer & found:

• 4 bottles of nailpolish
• 1 old tube of lipstick.

I trashed the lipstick and when I get home tonight from work, I'll dump the nailpolish & recycle the bottles. So, I am killing 2 birds with one stone, or maybe 3: I decluttered, recycled and got rid of something toxic in the house!

What have you decluttered today?

A safe & effective way to discard of prescription drugs

In my effort to declutter, I was cleaning out my medicine cabinet the other day & realized I had 2 expired prescriptions: hydrocodone and a muscle relaxer from my back spasms last year. Now, the last thing I want to do is dump them down the drain, so when I went to pick up my monthly pills, I asked the pharmacy clerk at Wal-Mart what to do with these 2 expired prescriptions.

The clerk turned me onto this site: http://www.smarxtdisposal.net/. This site gives you step-by-step instructions on how to properly dispose of your expired prescriptions in a safe, effective manner without damaging the environment. It's easy and takes 5 minutes. Check it out!

My 5 A Day Challenge

My challenge is still happening, although it may not be a daily pursuit. I'm now working in chunks of time (mostly on the weekend) and ending up, on average, 3 things a day. This weekend, I decided to spend 1 hour on my scrapping space. Before I begin, let me give you some background on where we live.

DH & I almost own a 1200 square foot townhome. I don't even think it's 1200 square feet-maybe 1190, or something like that. Two bedroom, 2.5 baths. The 'spare' bedroom serves as his office/fishing storage and my scrapping space. The entire room is a disaster area, in my opinion. We are not naturally neat-freaks, so it tends to be the dumping ground, as I like to call it. When we have company, everything extra from downstairs gets dumped onto every available surface in this room. It actually causes my heart rate to accelerate when I look at it, so I know we have a problem.

As I started tackling a small part of the room, mainly the section of the closet where I store my scrapping space, I really had to take the time to think about what I wanted that space to look like. I know I have too much stuff in there, and I need to weed it out. To begin, I just started pulling things out & asking myself if this item made me happy or not AND was I ever really going to use it. The conversation went something like this:

"C'mon, Jan, you know you've had this for like 10 years & you've never used it before in your scrapping."

"I know, but I may NEED it one day."

"Yeah, like when? You don't even realize you HAVE it!"

"I know. It is starting to get old and not look so good."

"Then maybe someone else can use it - like a preschool or something. Maybe someone else can get some enjoyment out of it."

"Hmmm, that sounds good. Let's dump it!"

And so I grew a little pile and felt a big sense of accomplishment. I also went through my endless pile of paper and made another bag of paper for 2 girls that I work with.

So in my challenge, I ended up finding 4 more books to donate, 1 jar to recycle, about 50 sheets of scrapbook paper to give to friends, 2 tackle boxes with Christmas decorations, ribbons, pearls and sequins in them, 3 pails for decorating, 2 picture frames, the bowdazzler and a brand new 8x8 album.

I think that meets my minimum for the week! What have you decluttered today?

New Design for the blog!

In my efforts to reduce the clutter and now plastic in my life, I felt a more clean look was in store for the blog. Simplification to me means several things. First, life should be as easy as possible. For example, it's my DH's birthday today and he loves apple pie, so I thought I would make him one. I had this recipe for one from Alton Brown on the Food Network. We enjoy watching him because he teaches as he cooks. I dug out his recipe and it was way over my head. There were ingredients on his list that I had never even heard of! When we watched him make it, it looked easy and absolutely delicious. Not so much when you see the recipe!

I decided to whip out my 'go to it' recipe book, The Joy of Cooking, and make the pie, from scratch mind you, from that book. My MIL went through it with me at Thanksgiving and showed me how she made apple pie, so I plan to do the same. Now, you may argue that it would be easier to go buy a frozen one from the grocery store or go to my local bakery & buy one. And yes, that is the most simple way to do it. However, it is DH's birthday & I love him and want to make this for him. It's the simplest recipe I have for making one.

Simplification also means to live with the basics of life - nothing more and nothing less. I guess that's one post for another time......

Also, in my get rid of 5 things daily challenge: Friday, May 20th I decluttered a plastic flashing ice cube that you put in drinks, a pedometer I never used, a stainless steel, plastic-lined water bottle (no plastic!) a mini photo frame and one of those Easy buttons from Staples that someone gave me.

Dropped off at Hospice Today

What a relief to drop a bag of my former 'stuff' off to Hospice today where someone else can use it and Hospice makes a little money. I was pleasantly surprised to see alot of people shopping in there at lunch time today.

I left them the shirts I decluttered from last week, along with the bag of jewelry I didn't need. I also found 3 beanie babies in my trunk (from my former office) and I don't need those either.

While I was there, I bought a drinking glass for a whopping 50 cents plus tax. The reason is I'm also trying to get rid of plastic in my life and use more natural/organic products.

What did you get rid of today & where did it go?

Shorts & t-shirts

What more can I need in life than shorts & t-shirts? I live in S. FL where 70% of the year (or more) I can get away with wearing shorts & t-shirts. However, in my decluttering challenge, I took a look at the t-shirt pile & decided I have too many.

This decluttering thing is hard. I looked at many of my t-shirts and found that my DH gave me lots of them! And, I can associate memories with them as well. I was running some 5k's back in '09, and have those t-shirts which I can't give up yet too! However, I did manage to find 4 of them to get rid of; 3 of which were volunteer t-shirts. These 4 t-shirts will go into the rag pile for use in the many projects my DH is involved in. I also threw away a workout shirt that I had from, sit down for this one, 1996!!!! Bye, bye - you've had your usefulness!

One thing I haven't mentioned yet is my scrapbooking room. I have sooooo much stuff in there and it's probably going to be the biggest challenge for me to declutter. So, I scrapped a quick layout today and I'm happy to use some of my 'stuff'!