See, when I started this, I could go into almost any room in the house, reach out a hand, and hit clutter. I was tossing so fast because there was just so darn much that *obviously* had to go. I didn't realize how much I had done this last month until today when it suddenly became *work* to find things!
I've been taking stuff from all over the house but primarily working in the front room and the computer room. I wanted to work some more on those rooms today so that's where I was concentrating my efforts. Well guess what. The front room and computer room are going so well there's no longer a plethora of easy clutter to get rid of. Is that cool or what? I could have just gone to the basement or the attic and easily gotten 37 items (or more . . . . far more . . . .) but I decided I really do want to have the main living areas nice before I start on storage areas.
So, I didn't get all 37 but the computer room is now looking niiiiiiiiiiice. And I still got 18 items out the door today (and more packed up for another day but they don't count yet).
So here are some of them :)
First we have my son's rain boots. Nothing exciting there, just rain boots too small for his growing feet. He told me we needed to get rid of them and get him new ones :)
Here we have a big bag of fridge letters. They always seem like such a good idea but they end up on the floor, under the fridge, around the house - everywhere but on the refridgerator door. And my kids rarely played with them. I found this pile in a box, unused. Out it went. With it (in the picture) is a small, triangular puzzle. The kids got a bunch of those at Christmas. They never actually played with them, just opened them and strewed them all over the house. I found this unopened one the other day.
Here's a men's XL jacket. We have far too many jackets for two adults but it seems so hard to get rid of any. I asked dh if he could cull any and this is what we came up with. The one on the right is a hooded sweatshirt I got off freecycle with a bunch of other clothes. I got two really nice pairs of jeans from it and a few shirts. Most of the rest I passed on but I held on to this for some reason. I finally realized that it's not really my style, it doesn't fit, and I don't wear pullovers anyway, LOL! Yeah, I know, some of the things we hold on to make no sense when we actually THINK about it, huh?
The Mickey Mouse shirt is from when I was a kid. My parents found it in their clutter and sent it to me in case I wanted it. Yeah, I wore that what, 20 years ago? Uh, yeah, I think I'll pass that one on. The other one I kept holding on to for years despite the fact that it's too small and not really a color I wear. It's a cute shirt (the picture doesn't do it justice) but really, having a cute shirt that you'll never wear taking up space in your dresser drawer doesn't make a lot of sense.
And now the blocks. I *loved* blocks when I was a kid. My kids? Not so much. So I kept acquiring blocks for me I guess. I finally looked at them today and realized that it was stupid to give up so much space for a toy my kids don't play with. So I culled them. Here is about half of the plain wooden ones we had. I kept one full set of plain wooden ones and one set of colored ones. Enough to fit into one bin (instead of one bin and one entire messy shelf like we had before). Certainly enough for the once every other month my kids play with blocks.
Here is another set of blocks that went out. These are really nice. We got them for my son at Christmas when he was 1. Again, barely played with. One is missing but the rest are there in that nice wooden box. Next to it is a jar of wildflower seeds, half full. They are pretty but get "wild" quickly so next year we'll go with something more tame. In the front of the picture is a plastic frame, still in the wrapping. On the right is a small picture album I never used. The picture on the front is of a kid and a cat but not MY kid and cat :)
The last picture is very cool :) My 4 y/o son picked all of these items to go out. I'm so impressed with him! Maybe the hoarding gene passed him by :) In the picture is the wooden lion I mentioned before (see, I knew I had taken a picture of it - though you can barely see it, it's on the bottom right), a kid's monopoly game (we have Pokemon Monopoly, we don't need this one), a Triceratops bank (I was really surprised at that one since he loves dinosaurs so much but he did have two banks - we moved the money from this one to the piggy bank one) and in the upper left corner, a puzzle that hasn't actually gone out yet (oops). He loves puzzles but he's a little past this one so he earmarked it for his 1 year old cousin.
Also today went out 2 books on child raising, one CD of children's music we didn't care for and one huge, plastic "dance game" mat the kids got for Christmas one year, tried once, and never touched again. Not couting the puzzle that didn't go out yet, that's 18 items for today. Some went to Goodwill, some to the consignment store and some to my aunt's church sale collection. Not the 37 I was planning, but not too shabby either.
2 comments:
Happy Birthday! What a great way to celebrate!!
>My parents found it in their clutter and sent it to me in case I wanted it.
My mom does this to me ALL the time. I've recently re-aquired 2 crimping irons from the late 80s I had when I was in grade school, my shoes that I wore to prom and never again, and a pair of crusty, flattened-out sandals that were at least 15 years old. All of these were "In case the girls might want to play dress up". They went to the round file.
I used to think my mom was just cleaning her house into mine, LOL! The more I read about the psychology of hoarding though, the more I think she honestly believes all the crap she sends here is useful and good and of course we'll want it. The mildewed toys from her basement go right in the round file (blech!) but this shirt was ok to go to Goodwill ;) Good for you for not holding on to things you *know* you don't need/want ;)
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