BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!

Subject: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 12:03 PM

A couple of other Mudcatters and I have been sharing our efforts about de-cluttering our lives/living spaces. It just seems there are a lot of us who want to do this or are trying to do so or have actually been doing it! One mentioned they thought a de-cluttering thread, like the holding ourselves accountable thread, might be helpful and fun, so...here we go! Post your goals and or when you have done something positive to meet them. Depending on how it fills up, we might do it on a monthly clean-up the thread basis, or just leave it all to see how we've progressed. Let me know what you think, okay? I'll post my goals in the next one.(Is this the Year of Organisation?**BG**)

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 12:06 PM

Goals for now:

Clear books out of office, pass them onto children, friends, and/or sell. Decide where to sell and/or give away books.

Go through one bin from storage every other weekend. (Not more often as I have to figure out what to DO with it once I go through it!)

What I have done, so far:

One big bin of books waits for kids to stop by this week. Have three boxes ready to fill up with more books.

Have a stack of books to list for sale.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Emma B
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 12:08 PM

i don't have too many books, I just don't have enough house :(

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 12:18 PM

LOL...I used to have the same affliction, Emma!

I think I may list the books my kids don't want, here, as I'd rather give them to friends than strangers. Mind, I don't know if there will be anything Mudcatters are interested in and I would have to have help with postage, but if folks are be interested, I may just do that.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,LilyFestre
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 12:25 PM

No time to post goals but I have decluttered my closet by sorting out clothes that are now much too big. I will have a yard sale later this summer to get rid of them once and for all. Many of them are now 5+ sizes too big! It's nice to go into my closet and be able to find something that actually fits instead of searching and searching. Pants that require safety pins are now all gone! YEAH!

I like the idea of this thread. More soon......

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,LilyFestre
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 12:26 PM

As with the weight, I am trying to get rid of the excess. Who needs it?

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Becca72
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 12:27 PM

I have the same book fetish. I also have a touch of OCD, so what I'm doing is reading each one (the ones I haven't already read, that is) and deciding if it's something I want to keep. If not, I list it for sale on Amazon. Anything that won't make money on Amazon I bring to work. We have a neat little system at work...there is one table in the lunchroom where people leave the crap they don't want anymore. Sure enough, someone somewhere in the building takes it off our hands. It's a great system and I've already unloaded a bunch of stuff that way.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 12:32 PM

The only problem with clutter is when it comes to moving house; the more the clutter, the bigger the job. However, we've been renting now in Lytham St Annes these past few months until we get our house sold over in Durham. Fortunately our seaside flat in LSA is just about big enough to store all our stuff, most of it in boxes, but from time to time the need emerges to seek something out.

Can there be any greater fun than opening a box of goodies unseen for six months and exploring therein? Last week I was looking for my copy of Where Beards Wag All by George Ewart Evans, and in so doing I turned up a cassette copy of Gong Live 1974 bought at the Glastonbury Festival in 1983; 25-years-on it and played like a dream, and my heart soared afresh!

I suppose it depends on the quality of ones clutter; personally, I couldn't live without it.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: peregrina
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 12:54 PM

I'm joining this one!

goals for next two weeks: 1. fill a charity bag with clothes from the giveaway box and actually get rid of it. 2. Get council to collect fake sofa-chairs that give everyone a backache.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 01:15 PM

We're putting our CD collections onto an external drive at the moment... I thought it might be an opportunity to clear some stuff but duplicates are few and far between, and if there are any, they're with other stuff to keep (up to 4 versions of Mozart's Requiem) that isn't duplicated elsewhere.

After this concert on Saturday, there's going to be a clearout of craft stuff... possibly.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 01:20 PM

I have been busy at this for quite some time. I tried to hold a garage sale for several years but something always got in the way--some kid activity came up that I couldn't avoid or the weather turned nasty. Last fall I had to put a new roof on the house and after exploring the bank options (expensive and long term) I took money from my IRA and turned around and documented and donated a lot of functional high-dollar garage sale items to the Goodwill. They will offset the tax hit on the IRA early withdrawal. It felt good to move that stuff out.

My sister had sent boxes of books that I left unopened because I had no room for them. Finally in the late fall I unloaded all of the front room of bookshelves. This is a 15' stretch of shelves floor to ceiling. From their comingled place on the shelves I arranged them alphabetically and by fiction or nonfiction on the tiles in the living room (worked like a grid--very helpful.) As I worked I set the books I knew I wouldn't read or no longer wanted in books on the other side of the room. Those that I thought I could sell easily on eBay went in one box, but a lot of them simply went out the door. I rolled a book cart full of boxes into Half-Price Books and got about $30 for them. Not a lot, but the shelf space is worth it. I rearranged the shelving, moved the television and associated electronics, and was able to shelve what I wanted to keep from the five boxes of books my sister had sent.

I also donated a lot of clothes. I have a love seat in the living room where clothes are set that have been purged from closets and drawers. It has piled up since my daughter cleaned out her closet a couple of weeks ago. My house is still messy and cluttered, but I can't afford to just donate all of it. The stuff that I can ship easily and list reasonably on eBay will go that way. I sold an antique music box last month. 1890s, but missing a couple of important pieces. Someone in my great aunt's family decades ago had taken it apart and didn't reassemble it. I wasn't going to spend $1000 to $1500 to restore it, so I sold it to someone else to restore or use for parts. It was beautiful, but absolutely useless. And funny thing, it didn't bring me any closer to the family I didn't know very well. One less thing to collect dust.

And an interesting convergence of events--at the used book store yesterday I picked up a copy of Aslet's Clutter's Last Stand. I have one of his other books and read through it periodically, use it like a cheering section to move on to the next mess. This thread can serve as a tool also. I won't ever resort to the agony of one of those television decluttering programs--what a nightmare that would be! It was never so bad here that (except for when I wrote my thesis) I couldn't see the floor. That seems to be the tipping point for the television purge episodes. My goal is to have a lot of this out of here by summer so I can do the things I want to do in my spare time and not waste time addressing clutter. It really is a black hole, but you can turn it into deductions and cash and sometimes put it to good use by giving it to others.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 01:51 PM

Great ideas, folks!

I had a momentary pang of guilt in wondering if I would be an "Enabler" (Oh no!) if I offered books to other Mudcatters who are trying to de-clutter. **BG**

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:09 PM

I'm down to the garage...and I don't DARE touch it! It's Man Stuff!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: LilyFestre
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:18 PM

<-----stays away from garages, workshops and mole holes!

I always knew you were a smart woman, Sorch! *G*

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:28 PM

Well, I have 'threatened' that if HE doesn't get it sorted and cleaned up before Labor Day...I WILL!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:29 PM

Goal #1: Get my friggin' back fixed...

Goal #2: Plant spring garden...

Goal #3: Complete above goals...

Goal #4: Figure out womenz...

Whew... Better stop there...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,Tinker
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:47 PM

I will join on this thread as the clutter issues are multiplying in direct relation to the size of the house.

Goals:
One bag of clothing per week out of the house and donated. (tax information appropriately logged)

One box per week in Dining room actually sorted of various miscellaneous papers and at least 50% added to recycling.

All all work materials moved to office and sorted there.

Spend 20 minutes per month with each kid til their clothes/rooms are also sorted.

Okay that's it for now. I have filled a large recycle bin in the dining room so now it's on to the clothing....

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: bobad
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:18 PM

I've got two tennis elbows to get rid of, anyone need 'em?

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,strad
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 06:09 AM

You people are giving me a guilt complex!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,Appaloosa Lady
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 08:11 AM

Is it my imagination or is this thread mainly full of women?



"I have a love seat in the living room..."

Goodness Gracious! I'd hang on to that if I were you...


"Goal #4: Figure out womenz..."


...Bobert may want to buy it. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 08:44 AM

A Decluttering Shanty

We are clearing out the clutter
All that space makes my heart flutter
Sell old clothes to buy some butter
Time to make a cake.

Books collect in piles and boxes
Some to give to friends- those foxes
Who have fed us books and loxes
Now must take them back.

Where'd I get that old recliner?
We don't need the mismatched china.
Sell it: fly to Asia Minor
Or Sascatchewan.

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: gnu
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 08:46 AM

Hehehee...

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 08:46 AM

With credits for rhyming suggestions to Giok and gnu, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 09:22 AM

We Freecycled a box of magazines, three bags of wire and wooden hangers, four boxes of books, and a large dresser.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Alice
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 10:01 AM

For over two years now, I have had a job that keeps me working out of town most of the year, so I have not had time to be home.
This is my third week home, and I've been able to declutter. I cleaned the closet, filling a box with old clothes. I purged filing cabinet and stacks of papers, and filled THREE large black trash bags with papers, not counting all the papers I shredded.
It feels great to be home and to be able to do this.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 03:14 AM

I suppose a day home sick today could be filled with sorting papers... at least the shredder can double as a DSB*.

LTS




































* Designated Sick Bucket - you had to look didn't you!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Tinker
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 03:59 PM

Okay I spent 20 minutes in Zach's room today and hey there actually is a floor in there. --- but I really don't want to look in the closet....

I met my Dining room goal for the week and returnt one box of stuff to my church office.

Now if I can just get a bag of clothes out of here tommorrow.....

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 04:11 PM

Way to go, Tink!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 04:44 PM

I have a couple of piles of clothes that should be sorted this weekend. It would be nice to clear up that seating area, even if it is my designated staging area for moving stuff out of the house.

I found a place that recycles fibers, so I'll be taking my garments, good and worn out, to Thrift Town in Fort Worth. I already recycle paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, aluminium. All of that fibre can also be recycled and doesn't belong in the dump. Thrift Town has a contract with a rag broker. They sort clothes so that what sells in the U.S. stays here, the clothes that are good but too redundant (in the printed message) go to places like Africa (baled by the ton--that's why all of the Nike shirts and such in the photos of African refugees in particular) and those clothes that are worn out go into bales to go to paper mills, etc.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 02:54 AM

I'm still in two minds about my local council's committment to recycling.

We used to have two collections, one took recyclable stuff and the other ordinary garbage. Now it's one collection and although they ask you to put the recycleables into orange bags and garbage into black bags, it all goes into the same truck. So... how does the garbage truck know which ones to crush and which ones to recycle?

I did managed to offload one bag of unwanted papers... hey, it's a start!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: peregrina
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 03:30 AM

Took the current project's book piles out of the living room and moved it all to the study. Back to writing at a real desk!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: fat B****rd
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 04:59 AM

Since my Step-daughter and her family moved back to their place we've painted a little but due to extreme laziness we still haven't opened all the cardboard boxes full of 'stuff' that we brought up here. Mind you when we open them and wonder how we managed without all the 'stuff, none of it will get thrown out, so we'll have just as little room.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 05:58 AM

If Bonnie succeeds in rehoming my adoptive harmonium, I intend to buy a cupboard and christen it the Interim.

The Interim will be for things that I use every now and again, and can't find when I need them: the plug-in timers for when I go off travelling and need lights and radio to switch on and off; the minding-a-cat-for-a-week food bowls; the Union Jack purse for sterling for when I'm in England.

Meanwhile, I have St Anthony plagued to find that Feliway plug I unwarily unplugged to give to a friend, and lost. How many places can a Feliway plug hide?

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 08:25 AM

Perhaps it's eloped with a travel iron?

St Anthony must be on overtime - the amount of stuff I've lost over the last few months... I'm thinking of bypassing him and going straight for St Jude - most of this year is a lost cause!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: freda underhill
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 08:32 AM

this is the thread for me. Like alice i've been working away from home (3 years) and am now back. I live in a co-op, + have renovated so I now have my own place (downstairs). going through 30 years of memories - keeping the good ones!

Boxes of books to go through, I take them up the road to second hand shops and give away the others. have been giving away clothes, shoes and music.

and discovering a lot of artwork, beautiful things, materials and dreams.

what's left feels lovely, but there's still about five boxes to go through .. aaargh!!!!!

freda

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 08:40 AM

Freda it seems you've made lots of progress already! Welcome back to your home, and enjoy finding the treasures.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Becca72
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 08:47 AM

My next project is to go through all the sheets, towels and extra blankets and pick out the ones I don't use anymore for whatever reason and donate them to my local Animal Refuge League. They are always in need of these things. My only rule is when I drop the stuff off I'm not allowed to go into the cat room...3 is enough!!!
:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 09:53 AM

I just packed a trunk full of things to go to the recycling shed in town. What's that I see: open floor space? Ahhhhhhhh. Keep it that way!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 09:39 PM

I have tons of towels from my Dad's house--I'm not sure what he used them all for. I kept it figuring that when my kids get ready to move out they will take some of this great usable stuff. So far my daughter has some, but she's at college in a house with four others and can't store anything, just keep what she needs now. What she takes to her own home later may still be residing in my cupboards.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Sorcha
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 09:56 PM

Maggie, I've given up on keeping orinary stuff like that for the kids. When they do finally get married, move out for real, whatever, they want All Matching New Stuff so I just take that kind of stuff to the animal shelter (towels are good there) or the 2nd hand store.

The only things I keep for The Kids are the family heirlooms.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: open mike
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 12:29 AM

hooray for freecycle..i got rid of a stove that was in the yard for ages, and also an ancient, well, sort of old flat bed scanner that was given to me. www.freecycle.org is a great resource.

i also scrubbed the floor in the bathroom....or at least part of it...
it is good to go thru papers when the wood fire is going, so i can put them in there and they are gone...here is an e-mail i get occasionally
from www.OrganizeYourselfOnline.com

You know you deserve to be clutter-free. What you may not be sure of is how to get there.

So to help you, here is a quick list of ten great steps you can start taking right now:

10. Know what you want to do - Everything starts with your goals.

9. Work with a friend - You will be amazed at how much more you can accomplish.

8. Track your progress - Make your successes count.

7. Stay curious - The more you want to know, the more you will learn.

6. Seize the day - Each year gets underway only once!

5. Give something back - Sharing with others motivates you to accomplish more.

4. Take small steps - It will not happen all at once.

3. Keep at it - Finish what you start.

2. Inspire yourself - Plant seeds today that will blossom for you in the future.

1. Put it all together - Try your own customized program with the Organize Yourself Online service.

If you have ever considered getting your Organize Yourself Online program underway, now is surely the time to take action.   This is the only program you can find that allows you to combine all the steps you need to truly get organized - now!

The demand for the program can be overwhelming this time of year, so do not miss out.   
www.OrganizeYourselfOnline.com

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 12:07 PM

The usual procedure for Freecycling is to pick up what you want, not expect (or offer) delivery. However there was a recent opportunity to do some real good AND get rid of a bulky, unwanted item in a way that honored one of the kids it had belonged to long, long ago. So we made an adventure out of a day off, and delivered it, and helped get it into the home we gave it to when it turend out that the recipient would not be able to handle it, physically-- we already had it on a dolly so it left the van still strapped on to that, and went neatly up the stairs and into the kitchen.

I like other flexibilities that Freecycling offers, too. We belong to several regional groups that are beyond our home-range but within our travel-through range, so dropping things off is actually helpful for us because that way we can get rid of more stuff. :~) And more quickly.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 04:50 PM

Surfaces. That's my current obsession. I've realised that the reason I don't dust and polish is that dusting any surface requires taking 20 things off it. So I'm clearing all the surfaces.

Whoah, it's going to look strange without all that beautiful but blinding stuff!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 05:08 PM

I have an antique metal and enamel table in the kitchen that usually lives under an extended counter edge. I pull use it as smooth surface for pie crusts or to make poteca. Today I moved it beside a different counter and set up one wing and moved the microwave from that counter onto the table top. We'll see how well this works--if my son will slow down enough the first few times through the kitchen to not smash the table in its new position. It isn't in the way, but it does narrow the corridor a little. He's 16. This may be a bull-in-the-china-shop experiment, but I do love having that counter top cleared.

There was a box on the kitchen floor that I've dealt with. Little things sometimes can be the biggest hurdles. It was an old cardboard wine case full of old grocery receipts (in monthly envelopes) and check registers and flimsy copies. Over the last few weeks I shredded and recycled and today I finished shredding and even burned some of it (got tired of shredding). That box is flattened and in the back of the pickup to drop in the paper/cardboard bin down behind City Hall next time I go past.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 05:30 PM

No, no, no! Clearing one surface by filling another is *cheating*! The Curse of the Adolescent Stumbler will strike you.

Wow, why shred grocery receipts? Are your soybean buys secret?

But well done on that box!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 11:26 AM

No, they're not secret, but until a few years ago account numbers used to be on the receipts. Even without debit card or credit card accounts listed there is still often personal information present. I want to remove temptation to go through the trash if someone spots receipts before it gets picked up. It gets shredded and commingled, junk mail, receipts, etc. The income tax formula for subtracting state and local sales tax is sufficient so I don't keep them for that (except one year when I bought a bunch of computer stuff, then the receipts saved me a lot of money). I put them in an envelope for each month based on past experience--if you don't save it then you'll need it later. For some silly little thing. But after a while they don't need to be kept. These had been set aside (out of sight. . . ). Now they're history.

Space next to stove is good thing, and using a table is okay (I dropped a few words in that last text, (I pull use it as smooth surface for pie crusts or to make poteca. should have said "I pull it out to use as a smooth surface"). What I need to observe is: is this the best table for the space, the best way to use the microwave and the table, or do some or all of these things need to go? I have lots of kitchen gadgets I inherited, so some purging there makes sense. I have two microwaves. Two bread machines. Etc.

I was reading Clutter's Last Stand again and identified a couple of more things to go through--in particular, the yardage that my sister sent from my Mom's estate. It was set neatly in drawers in a dresser I use for sewing stuff, but I didn't look at it critically. I could probably pull at least half of that out, and if I don't make room for sewing again pretty soon, probably more than that! In a clutter quiz at the front of the book one of the questions is "I can save this old pilly blanket for a quilt bat"--he got me where I live there! I have way too many blankets here. Some are truly interesting antiques, textiles worth preserving that can still also be used. But a lot are the indeterminate-age fuzzy double-sized blankets that should probably be donated to the Goodwill or next time there is a tornado.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: mrdux
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 02:29 PM

My promise was to clear out the basement storage area/utility room this winter. Well here it is, almost the beginning of spring, and I'm pleased to report that the project is almost completed. When I was single and living alone, I have thrived amid massive, almost legendary, material chaos and clutter. But once into the thick of it, even I was amazed at how much stuff can accumulate in a mere eight years (when we joined households), and how fairly uncomplicated the sort vs. dump process has been. I found my kindergarten class picture (c. 1957) and my old stamp collection, and the braid cut off during my wife's first childhood hair-cutting event. Definitely keepers. I found an old 12-string guitar (a West German Cordova -- see thread above the line), status at present unclear. I also found a box of bank statements from 1990 (two banks ago); a bag of dead batteries; a large bag of broken coat hangers; a pair of analog cable converter boxes; a severely wounded CD player, a dead televison, and an even deader computer box -- a burned out motherboard and no hard drive; several boxes of clothes that haven't been worn since the Reagan administration. . . Our neighborhood association is having a clean-up day in a couple weeks: bring out your dead electronics and difficult-to-recycle plastics, and they will do the recycling for us (I got a reprieve from the end-of-winter deadline to take advantage of the service). . . between that and Goodwill, I should only have to make one trip to the dump. And, nearing the end here, it looks like I've managed to do this with room to spare for everything that actually needs room.

Wish me luck on the dash to completion.

michael

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Thompson
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 02:49 AM

I have a lovely old 1960s table I have to find a loving home for. It's inch-and-a-half-thick parana pine, a rectangle with rounded edges, with a central pedestal - a beautiful table that just doesn't fit where I'm living now.

Must put it in one of the Irish sales papers - Buy & Sell or the like.

And then there's that harmonium. If I found a home for that, I could put a cupboard in its place.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 04:50 AM

Clearing one surface by filling another is *cheating*!

well I've been doing a bit of that. Last night I went through two boxes of old drawings, projects, magazines and threw out two large bags full of stuff. Now I'll be putting new things in the boxes and putting them under my bed. I also spent time matching socks, and threw out some singles, and going through tangled necklaces and sort them into two boxed - clunky beads and small beads.

the architect comes tomorrow for his final inspection so I'm doing some more polishing tonight. I told him not to expect a Vogue environment. I hope he likes magenta, lilac and electric blue.

And I have several enormous old books - Grimms fairy Tales, Oscar Wilde, Australian Bush ballads etc. They might end up under the bed too!

freda

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 08:32 AM

Freda, NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

You have committed the ultimate sin... throwing away single socks... now all their partners will appear mysteriously and be bereft of companionship and you'll be left with another drawer full of single socks again.

This is the reason I gave up wearing socks much of the time. Couldn't be bothered matching them up. The pair I've got on now only match by the grace of the Deity, I just grabbed two out of the pile.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 12:28 PM

As a child of parents who lived through The Depression I feel like we got some unhelpful mixed messages that were meant to teach frugality and thriftiness but escalated into packrat-itis and an inability to differentiate "useful" from "overkill." I'm seeing so many of the excuses for keeping things articulated in Clutter's Last Stand. I've traveled this path with Aslett before, and was able to identify and eliminate things through the house last year. I found this book on clearance at Half Price Books (someone else de-cluttered!) and am finding it even more helpful. I see it on sale at Amazon starting at about $2. You can look at some of the inside pages, including a chapter on the rational you can use when keeping or discarding gifts. I'll enter some of his remarks here every so often--see if you recognize yourself.

I'm a recycler, I have been for over 30 years, and I've been finding ways to effectively recycle things without simply pushing them off onto others. In some instances this means finding the place for clothes and rags, and in another, it means taking household electronics to the collection site in town so they can determine if they work or if they need to be recycled safely. I compost yard waste, but I'm about to get back into composting kitchen waste (I couldn't keep the dogs out of it, but I'm working on a system out of their reach). Paper, metal, plastic, glass. And trying to buy more glass instead of plastic containers.

Have some of you noticed that the liquid laundry detergents are now more concentrated? It isn't just a gimmick--it takes less water, less plastic, less packing materials and less shipping costs to get that out to consumers. It's about time they figured this out. Cardboard is still probably a better way to go on soap because that box can be recycled and was made of cellulose, not oil.

I may be in diet a holding pattern until the gardening season kicks into high gear, but I think I can lose a couple of hundred pounds next weekend anyway. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 03:09 PM

LOL...well, maybe i can top you with a few more pounds if I get the extra books out of here this week! BTW, I shred all of my receipts, too, for the same reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 03:48 PM

Dyslexia is a wonderful thing (not)--aim at the part of the sentence where you want to add a word, hit send--and then see later that you missed. But as long as all of the words were there, a dyslexic isn't going to notice what order they are in. At least this one doesn't.

I may be in a diet a holding pattern until the gardening season kicks into high gear,

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Thompson
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 04:58 PM

Seems to me (sorry for bringing this on-topic in the BS section) that there's a folk song in here somewhere about clutterers and declutterers.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 10:56 PM

I love this thread, how could it drop off the page?

I haven't made huge inroads, but I find I can make significant improvements in a room simply by looking around. In my bathroom I have a couple of drawers and a cabinet that have caught all of those little "useful" things that I'll never get around to using. Old hotel shampoos and lotions and conditioners. Dental floss holders. Old toothpaste samples. In the past I've donated those to homeless shelters, but these are old and probably not in as good a shape as they could be. Tossed 'em. Also pulled out a variety of little odd things that I don't ever use, they just take up space. It was an extra grocery-sack filled with stuff that went out to the trash this evening by the time I finished.

I have an electric typewriter that I was going to sell on eBay, but I always test these things, and I found that it wouldn't turn the platen. The motor is out of alignment or broken. It will go out to the curb, but in sight so if someone else wants it they can pick it up. I even enclosed a note describing how to open the case and what the problem is. I'll put this out over the weekend with some other stuff so there are a couple of days for people to pass by and pick over it. What is left the trash guy will get on Monday first thing. I can't be bothered to repair it, but maybe someone else can.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: bobad
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 10:59 PM

SRS, do you think anyone still uses an electric typewriter? We have one we'd be glad to give to someone who would like it, and it works well too.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 12:08 AM

Today I cleared junk out of a kitchen corner then organized my pruning tools,keys, camera, bag, hat, and walking sticks. I threw out stuff, boxed up a few good things for freebys, and screwed a magnet strip to the wall just over the shaker-style pegboard. That gives me a home for the different tins of salve I use before I go out to the garden and again on wounds after I finish for the day. On the same magnet strip is a photo of a special child friend and an "I Love You" note from my husband.

I mailed several packages and prepared others to be mailed in the morning. I cleared the puzzle table in the parlour and put another armful of newspapers, magazines, and catalogues into our recycling.

All the carefully packed Christmas bins went into the newly cleared attic storage. The trays of houseplants for spring sales along with the paperwhites that have gone by came off the plant propagation rack and onto the shelf in a window. Finally, and most challenging, I packed up a large storage bin with children's clothes to sell or give away.

Now I can't sleep, so I started two batches of slow-rise bread for tomorrow. Guess it's time for a little writing and singing. The wind's come up, the house is quiet, and I'm too tired to sleep. Morning comes early.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 02:03 AM

My university library administration office has a couple of typewriters. They're in common areas in the office where people can use them for addressing envelopes, and sometimes for forms that can't be run through computer printers. You might look to see if there is someplace that has that kind of need.

I have another electric typewriter for the same kind of use; the one that I'm tossing was a spare. One of these had been my Dad's and I've had one for a while. Years ago I had a Cadillac of typewriters, a large Silver-Reed. It was wonderful to work on! Then along came computers and I used an interface cable to turn it into a (albeit slow) text-only printer. This was in the pre-dot matrix days. Early 1980s. I finally gave that away.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 08:30 AM

I decluttered my in-trays this morning. Now some rotten sod has come along and filled them up again.

It's not worth it I tell you!!! If you create a space, some bugger just comes and fills it up for you!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 10:51 AM

Paper is an easy target for de-cluttering. I found a bunch of old Outside magazines tucked away in a file. It's not that I was keeping them, I didn't have a system for keeping them where I would read and then recycle them. Over the weeks I've pulled out a lot of New Yorkers and though I still have my Dad's habit of keeping the cover art, I've recycled the body. I did keep some of the special issues, but I should read them and recycle or put them up on eBay. (All of the fiction issues from the last few years--who knows? Sell them for enough to cover the fees and postage, it's no big deal to stuff them in a mailer and send them on their way).

I enjoy eBay, it gives me an opportunity to learn something more about the item I've decided I don't need before I make the final move to sell it, or if it is something that won't fly at eBay, to discard it. I sell only a fraction of this stuff there, sometimes junk is just junk, and that's all there is to it.

From Clutter's Last Stand (page 26)

Selling Your Junk . . .
Some False Hope

"It may be worth something someday."
"It will be an antique someday."
"It will be valuable someday."

The glittering illusion of the possibility that someday you might be able to sell that piece of junk for a phenomenal sum creates an excuse to cling to even the most worthless items. All sorts of appetite-whetting success stories appear in the media, telling how some lucky soul wandered into his attic and found a rare old coin, kettle, or credenza that made him rich. Don't let that hope get you out of perspective--only a few pieces of junk in tens of thousands are rare and valuable, and if you averaged the value of all the hours spent to sort and clean it up to sell it, your wages would probably be about 7 cents an hour. There isn't much cash in your closet, mostly clutter. I've seen many people spend $100 on gas, signs, and advertising for a garage sale to take in $50--and that isn't profitable either in terms of the pocketbook or of your life's time taken.

I think this applies to eBay, though with eBay you have such a broad marketplace that far exceeds the range of those who would walk up your driveway. Have a plan to do a quick thumbnail search to see if your item is something that sells online. If not, donate or toss.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 10:49 AM

Here comes the weekend and spring break. I hope to be able to enumerate (without boring you all) numerous successful redistributions of stuff. Anyone else have a big decluttering push coming up?

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 11:10 AM

I suppose that is something I could do this weekend.... I'd rather be doing something that involves watching 44 hairy, muscular thighs run up and down a field after an odd shaped ball...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maire-aine
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 12:04 PM

I managed to clear off my dining room table, except for the centerpiece, and keep it empty for a whole week. And I make sure to hand up coats & jackets where they belong, instead of hanging them on the back of the dining room chairs. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a big step for me.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Tinker
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 04:01 PM

So far my major task of the week was the refrigerator. It's sparkly inside.... NOw to get to the regular stuff...

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 08:01 PM

It's amazing what you see around the place when you stop looking at things as somehow functional, maybe, in the future. . . but as something collecting dust that you'll never get around to using.

It's spring so I have to mow. The mower is parked in the back of the garage in a bunch of stuff--that space needs a good going over also. So much so that between the house and the garage I'm going to keep distracting myself with different decluttering tasks. Oy.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 12:36 AM

Oh, my aching backside--I dug about 1/3 of a new garden this afternoon. While I was out there I took some junk out of the garage and loaded in the extra trash can and dragged it to the curb.

Moonglow came down to pick up some stuff today and that included a whole bunch of flat cardboard boxes I hadn't let go of since we moved in here six years ago. She and some friends on campus are building a structure from cardboard, something to do with supporting Habitat for Humanity. I asked her to recycle the corrugated when they finish--I and my attic don't want it back.

I put that typewriter out at the curb and someone in a pickup full of other stuff they've picked up curbside drove by and grabbed it. They're welcome to it! I've also sold a couple of things on eBay and found some more to list. I don't have a car listed, like Bobert, but like Bobert I do have bills to pay, so I figure a couple of hours toward this on the weekend will cover the cell phone bills or something substantial enough that it makes the work worthwhile. And clears out a little bit more.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: freda underhill
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 02:14 AM

yesterday I gave away a small mirror, some books and a make up bag.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:43 AM

I decluttered half a shelf of VHS videos. I bought myself a Mothering Sunday treat - the whole 'Blackadder' on DVD. It takes up the space of one video box, yet contains all the episodes plus specials that formerly took up 10 video's worth - 30cms worth reduced to 3cm.

Next is the turn of Limpit's bedroom... oh joy.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:40 AM

Yes, it's true, those valuable things seldom turn out to be valuable after all.

Unless you're the kind of capitalist that always manages to turn a profit to someone else's disadvantage.

I looked hungrily at eBay to see how much my 'valuable' vinyl Chieftains albums would make - and found them selling for - oooh - $12!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:46 AM

Sha'n't bother to look up ours then... unless you've got some gaps and would like to complete your collection?!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 08:20 AM

Collection? What is this collection of which you speak? No! This is rubbish, to be thrown out!

Or would be if I wasn't minding it for someone else. I'm told that what I need is an iMic and a Numark, plus some audio software, to play the vinyl album and then record it to CD.

Incidentally, I've just been away for the weekend and have finally confirmed what I've suspected for a while: my house is infested with untidiers.

Before I went away, as always, I cleaned and tidied the house, washed and put away every dish, put blue stuff in the toilet, and washed the bedclothes and put them out on the line.

I turned at the door and looked back. Yes, perfectly empty, perfectly tidy.

When I returned, the Untidiers had come out of their hiding place. I couldn't put my finger on *exactly* what they'd done, but this was not a tidy house. Now I know who to blame.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 10:13 AM

I joined eBay almost three years ago, and in the last two I've been selling lots of paperback mysteries that we boxed up at my Dad's house. Right now I have a set of all 21 Travis McGee mysteries (out of dozens of books MacDonald wrote, and I have another 40+ of those here still). That sale ends tonight and it has just topped $50. I had 18 of the books when I decided to list them, and incomplete sets don't bring nearly as much as the full set. Over a couple of days as my travels took me around Fort Worth I dropped in to a couple of used book stores and found the rest. So I spent under $10 and now they're selling for $50. It doesn't usually work this way, though.

For me, selling the books gives me a little time to look them over, read the cover blurbs, get a feel for the mysteries that my Dad enjoyed. While not reading the books myself, it gives me a small glimpse into the world where he sat in a well-lighted corner of his living room every evening and read. (That's how the neighbor figured out something was wrong. Tom thought it unusual that he hadn't seen Dad reading for several evenings, so he went to check on him.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 07:46 AM

Ah, inspiration! Kat, thank you! for this thread; perhaps it will get me off my duff and busy doing some of the decluttering I've been threatening to do for years.

As with several posters, books are the major "clutter" in our house, along with papers, magazines, and all the rest of the junk that collects on every flat surface. I've been wanting to get rid of scads of old magazines; now I will go find a place to recycle them--I promise!

We have a so-called system called "but-first," which simply means that whatever you need to do in the house has several things that must be done before you can get to the actual project. In other words, "I'm going to clean out those desk drawers, but-first I have to take everything off the top of it and dust." And of course, by the time you get through with that, cleaning out the drawers is the last thing on your mind.

But with the help of this thread, I'm going to pick just one small space and fling out all the junk until I find the flat surface. Ah, a new 12-step program... :>) I'll let you know if I manage to actually do it.

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 09:21 AM

Ah alas.. the 'but first' thing is a rampant Virgoan trait - I can spend 3 hours sorting books into alphabetical author order, but fail totally to remove the dust from the shelf.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 10:15 AM

Is it really, Liz? I'm also a Virgo. Hmmm. Never put much trust in that system, but surely this is true evidence! ;-D

There is a drawback to eBay--the "this might sell, let me look it up" maneuver. Then realizing that all of the magazines you dumped could have been sold in lots of a year at a time. . . [sigh] oh, well, they're out of the house now. I have a few that I'm going to experiment with, but the lions share are no longer cluttering my cupboards.

The box of books is taped and labeled and waiting for the post. Seven pounds four ounces out the door today. Every little bit helps! (The cash in the bank is the real help--now to avoid committing it to buying more junk! Lucky me, several newly-minted eBayers pushed the price up early and fought it out to the bitter end. I got about $20 more than I expected.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Thompson
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 05:28 PM

Butfirstism gets other tidying done, though, so it works too.

Magazines: I usually go to the doctor's or vet's surgery and ask if they'd like a bunch of magazines, and they're normally delighted. Not the dentist; my dentist is so classy that only antiques and fishing magazines and the odd upmarket business news mag are fanned out in the waiting room.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 04:22 AM

Hmmm. Thompson, it hadn't occurred to me that my doctor might be thrilled with 10 years or so of Country Living and Country Home. I may give her a call today if I can't find someone to haul them off for recycling.

Stilly, I'm a newbie about Ebay, but there are a couple of businesses in town that say they'll sell your stuff for you, pack and ship them to the winners. That's sounding better and better for a lot of my stuff. Tonight is the night to go searching Ebay to see if "my stuff" has actually sold there; then on to calling the businesses that pack 'em for you. Has anyone else had any experience with this sort of thing? Does that kind of business work out all right?

I cleared off the dining room table today, right down to the lovely wood I hadn't seen in months. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the only flat space big enough to work on a Boy Scout flag I'm doing for my brother.... But it was sure pretty while it lasted! And the flag will go away in a couple of weeks, to be flown at the Great Southern Plains Rendezvous in Oklahoma, so there is hope I'll get to see it again soon.

Oh, an BTW, butfirstism doesn't really get too much tidying done; it's usually just a case of moving things from one place to another that's even more cluttered...sigh.

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 10:27 AM

Prior to your "butfirstism" condition you may have to kick a path through it. I cleared a path in my office a couple of weeks ago by picking things up--but now they're on my other desk. :-/

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 11:20 AM

It's the kitchen cupboard this week... I'm convinced there's a packet of custard in there somewhere and I'll need it soon.

LTS

Subject: RE: De-cluttering - and recycle and re-use
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 12:59 PM

I'm a superclutterer and I hate to throw things out
I'm looking for someone who can use old clothes that are not wearable or need repaired -- could someone use the zips and buttons, etc on the torn and worn stuff to repair the clothes that just need new zips, etc. ? I used to do patchwork, but dont have time (or space) at present. I did ring a couple of community groups that make costumes, have sewing circles, etc but got no takers.

Never got a sewing machine, but I do have two electric typewriters. Who would use them?

Do colleges and training centres have use for broken guitars and old radios and tape recorders, etc for dissection and/or repair?

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 01:07 PM

Phillipa,

Where are you?

Chances are a lot of those bits aren't being harvested any more, but I found that I can recycle the cloth for fiber (paper, etc.) if I take it to a local thrift store (in Texas in the U.S.) that has contracted with a rag broker. The thrift store sorts the donations into garments they will keep to sell, garments they will bundle to sell overseas (by the bale)--ever wonder how all of the Nike shirts and neighborhood sponsored events end up on kids in Africa? Bought from a broker. The other category is rag for fiber. Clothing that isn't wearable goes into that category and is treated as a resource for making paper and other uses. I'm not sure how they sort it (by type, I imagine, cotton, blends, acrylic, etc.). Interesting possibilities, though, and I'm content with knowing that this might come back as a phone book, not moulder in a land fill.

Not all thrift stores do this, so you'll have to check around.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 01:45 PM

Keep at it, Lin, you'll get there...one step at a time. 12 step program indeed!**bg**

If anyone has a collection of buttons they'd like to get rid of...please PM me. Maybe we could do a trade or something? I miss my mom's collection and want my grandson to know what a good button collection is all about. So much fun to play with!

SRS, I tried a block of the old cowboy fiction hardbacks on ebay and didn't get any takers. Each time I try to sell books on there it seems to be the case. I have some different genres I may try. I have about decided to list all of them on amazon, though, OR on Mudcat and just give them away!

Rog brought me home a library cart, with wheels intact and everything, that his company was throwing away.(Idiots!) I have filled it completely with books I want to seel sell or give away and there are more to come. That feels good, though, as it has been hard to have piles on my desk waiting to be entered into the computer, not getting done, then shifting the piles. At least now they can wait on the cart!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:50 PM

Kat, what kind of cowboy fiction hardbacks? Give me an author or two?

I'm green with envy that you have a library cart! How handy that would be to lug the books from our bedroom to the living room to the basement stairs! Maybe I would finally get some put away where they're "supposed" to be? There really is a certain amount of organization with books, though hardly anyone would know it except us. My hardbacks are nearly all in the living room, at least the ones I'm not presently reading; the paperbacks are in the basement (18 or so bookcases down there); songbooks on John's side of the living room; craft books in (shock) the craft room; and some (all too few!) in a box to take to my sister-in-law next time I visit.

She has a de-cluttering program going on as well...Unfortunately, it seems to involve giving most of her de-clutter to me! :>)

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:58 PM

Arrgghhhh! I've got to get a spellchecker back!

Lin, you can see some of them on THIS PAGE. Those are the pix I took for ebay.

I am now of the opinion that everyone of us should have a library cart or two. Wonder if SRS can get us a discount?!**bg**

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 04:20 PM

In the Library world those are called Book Trucks.

We value them above gold, especially at the end of the semester when everything that was checked out all comes back at once. You'd have to pry them out of the shelvers' cold dead hands. . .

A group of 21 Travis McGee mysteries just sold for $67 that I listed last week. Book lots don't always do so well, but my books sell more often than not. I studied the listings and looked at the completed listings before deciding how to sell my John D. MacDonald books. I have over 60, but for now, offered those that bring the highest price. Search on your category and author and come up with current listings, and then on the left-hand side of the results page check the box for "completed listings" and search again. Then see what those folks who sold their books did, vs those that didn't sell.

I include good clear photos, I list each book with a brief description, more detailed if it is rare or collectible, and an ISBN if it has one. You might want to break your collection out to sell in groups of specific authors or locations (all in Montana in one group, Arizona in another) or all Zane Grey in one lot by itself. The more you can make them seem like an intentional set with a relationship to each other, the easier they seem to be to sell. You have to market them.

My eBay area was a major source of eyesore and clutter until a couple of months ago. After I organized my front room and all of the books on one wall in there I decided I needed to move a separate tall but non-matching bookshelf out. I put it in the sunroom where my eBay stuff was piled and I sorted and stacked it on the shelves. Now my envelopes, flat boxes, scale, tape, pens, and such are on this shelving and it looks almost Martha Stewart-like in its efficiency. The bottom shelves are where a bunch of the books are stacked awaiting processing. I moved a table in there that my padding and library boxes sit under now, and some beside it, but it is very efficient and not in the middle of my living room any more. I have cutting boards, one for fabric I can lay out on the floor, and a smaller rotary knife cutting board for background and scale for things I photograph prior to listing. And the finish of that table has been the nice background for many of the books I've sold. I don't want a view of a messy room or a shot at floor covering or cluttered kitchen counters going on eBay. Just the object and a neutral background. I have a denim blue cotton sheet in there also that I can lay out with artful folds to set things on. This shade of blue is a great background color.

I can't afford to give it all way or donate it all. Frankly, to keep up with the price of gas and such I need to bring in some income for this stuff I'm sorting out. I keep it simple, most of the time, and sell the kinds of things that are pretty straightforward to ship.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 04:28 PM

That sounds like very good organisation, Maggie. Good for you!

I think some of my books are just too obscure/old to be of much interest. I bunched all of the Ralph Connors together, gave detaield descriptions and good pix, and got nary a bid. I don't know if it is worth listing them on amazon or not. Maybe I needed to narrow down the market and/or try them again on ebay...different day might bring different results, ya think? Maybe I should forget selling my books on there and just go for some of the other stuff I need to let go.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 09:26 PM

Kat, that link of yours won't open. Says I need authorization. Is it just me? My Netflix won't do much today either. :-/

Have you looked to see who else has those books listed? What are the low end prices on BookFinder and Amazon? Have you looked at Half.com? Sometimes running them once then waiting a couple of weeks and running them again is all it takes, and if you do it soon enough I think you get a break on the relisting fee.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 10:12 PM

I just fixed the link, thanks, Maggie. I'd forgotten I had that album on private access.

I have checked all of the books that I listed on ebay, at www.addall.com which gives a smattering of listings from various sites including amazon and individual booksellers. Maybe i do need to relist and keep at it or look at half.com. I think this time I am much more motivated and have the energy to keep at it, so...thanks for your advice.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 10:53 PM

I can see your books now. With cloth covered books, if they once had a dust jacket but don't now, they are difficult to sell (unless someone has a dust jacket lying around to put on the book, but that would be extremely rare). I think, given that set of older, attractive but not eligible for book antiquarians to collect, that you might want to sell by the lot as (for example) "Lot-10 beautifully illustrated children's classics" and mention in the body of the text who the illustrators are, etc. Adjectives aren't such a great thing to put in the subject line unless you have the room to spare, but if you do have the room, then use it. You might want to run a second line with "Twain, Irving, Stephenson, Wordsworth," etc.

I sell using Lots to save labor, but also because they tend to form their own critical mass when you've collected several together. I would sell your O'Connor books as a group.

If they don't sell, give them each a high estimate and donate them to the Goodwill. For every $100 you donate (get a receipt and keep your photos with it, along with a brief description) you realize about $30 off of your taxes. That's how to declutter. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 11:31 PM

Thanks, Maggie. I may try the Connor books as a lot, again. The other is a good idea as far as clumping some of the others together. I didn't know you could get that much off on taxes, so will do that if nothing else. There's also a library sale coming up looking for donations, so...here I go. Now I have a deadline!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 03:10 AM

Kat, your books look interesting; good luck with the sale! (And forgive me, but I had to look at your kitties, too--gorgeous!)

Stilly, I'm glad to hear you sold your John MacDonald books for a good price. I'd probably have been one of the bidders, except that I've already got all of MacDonald's books... and no way would I turn loose of any of them!

Therein lies the problem with my selling books--if I like an author, I collect everything they've written, and then keep them forever. I've collected John D. since I was a teenager (a damned LONG time ago). At least I do re-read them now and again. Love Travis McGee.

But I did manage to clear the papers off at least part of my computer desk today, and can actually see what color it is! One tiny step...

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 10:28 AM

Lin, I have 40+ John D. MacDonald books here still. Non-Travis. Are you missing any? My Dad did the same thing you do.

My evaluation at work today. I hope it helps that I decluttered my office a couple of months ago. . .

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Thompson
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 11:09 AM

Now is the time: the Discardia holiday season is here.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: LilyFestre
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 11:41 AM

I am looking forward to a long weekend at home...time to clean out more stuff and get it ready for the yard sale or eBay! :) Heave ho is right!!!!! :)

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 12:01 PM

Interesting site, but it hasn't been updated for a couple of years. I'll take time to read more later. The first page gets the point across quite clearly.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 04:36 PM

Stilly,

I don't think I'm missing any of John D.'s books; I have all the old pulp mysteries as well as all of the Travis books. John D. probably warped my attitudes more than any other author I've ever read. I loved his take on modern day life. Hope your evaluation went okay.

Some of my other authors are: Elizabeth Peters, Ellis Peters, Sharyn McCrumb, Marcia Muller, Dorothy Dunnett, Kelly Armstrong, Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris...I could go on for pages. But hey! I did manage to weed out (pun intended) a box full of gardening books to take to the used book store. Now to get them out to the truck...

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 08:09 PM

I just sold four Dorothy Dunnett, they ended up going to Australia! I never got around to reading them, and figured I never would (I was missing two from the series, also). I have a few Elizabeth Peters around here that my Mom read and I kept them, intending to read them one of these days. I enjoy the Cadfael mysteries, but at the same time, they're off-kilter for me. The modern social and detective thinking simply doesn't fit in the period in which she has her monk doing that sleuthing.

I have tomorrow off--only one day of Spring Break for university staff. Oh, well. I'll make good use of it. The evaluation did go okay, thanks! I've been doing a lot more work than my boss was aware of, it has crept into the job, and it looks like I might get a new job title out of it (a bigger paycheck would really be great, but we'll take what we can get. . .)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 05:42 AM

SRS:

The Cadfael books are good chiefly because she doesn't use modern social and detective thinking--Cadfael is very much a monk of the time, although he's a bit of a rebel too, since he came to the monastery later in life. But I think Ms. Peters does a good job of explaining him. And the videos of the PBS movies are wonderful--Derek Jacoby is absolutely Cadfael! Elizabeth Peters is just fun--I think I have all of hers, including all the Amanda Peabody books.

The final Dorothy Dunnett book in the Lymond Chronicles (Checkmate, if I remember right) is the only one I can remember ever throwing across the room because I was angry at the author--I was certain she had killed off her main protagonist, and it made so much sense it made me furious. It took me at least a week to pick the thing up and finish it. EXTREMELY good writer.

Glad the evaluation went well. Hey, a new title reuires a bigger paycheck (you can tell 'em I said so).

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,disnae
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 09:52 AM

wot?

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,Truewhite
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 09:53 AM

Yikes!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 10:02 AM

100

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 10:04 AM

Bugger !! Missed !

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 10:57 AM

SRS, congrats on the good eval. and I agree with Lin...new title, more money!

Lin, we read a lot of the same authors, though I don't care for the Peabody books by Peters. I like her other stuff. I wish McCrumb woudl come out with something new.

I REALLY love the Sister Fidelma series by Peter Tremayne, the ancient Roman mysteries by Lindsey Davis, and the other Roman sleuth, Gordianus the Finder, series by Steven Saylor. Modern thrillers include John Lescroart and Stephen White - both superb mystery craftsmen!

I am taking a couple of bags of books to the used bookstore this morning so I can bring some more home to read!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 11:34 AM

There was a thread here at Mudcat where we spoke about our favorite sleuths, and I laid out the argument for the historical philosophical questions involved in the Peters books. I'm not going to try to describe it here, but it has to do with the history of ideas and what was appropriate for the period. If I come across that thread I'll post a link.

I work for a state, so nothing moves quickly. I won't hold my breath waiting for a job title change. If it happens, it happens. If I had to compete for my own job I might be upset, but I suppose after 10 years I've become fairly entrenched in that I'm doing stuff that no one else wants to take the time to do. I suppose it's an odd kind of job security!

Today I have a tidy stack of small clutter that needs to be listed on eBay. I also have to look at the items on that table that didn't sell. Run it again or donate to Goodwill--some stuff won't sell and it isn't worth flogging on eBay more than once. This is where that clutter gene works against me--keep and sell or get rid of it? I think I'll transfer the photo from the eBay file into my "donate" file and send it to the Goodwill.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 01:55 PM

Here's that link. It was an interesting thread about Miss Marple. I enjoy Agatha Christie short stories also. Lately I've been picking these up as recorded books from the library.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 09:36 PM

I went into my teenaged son's bedroom today to add a bookcase. He has a lightweight one for DVD cases and such, but not for textbooks and some of his adult novels (they were stashed in the closet or on the floor). Whew, but it is dusty in there! I have a box of juvenile books that I'll let him take a look at before they go down to the used book store. I left his Calvin and Hobbes and Spiderman books alone. :)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 09:42 PM

Clarification!!!: adult novels for a teenager are things like Huckleberry Finn and Ray Bradbury stories!!! Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and some of the others have gone in the book store box.

There are times when I wish we could edit our posts here!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 09:57 PM

LOL!! Too funny, Maggie!

I am thinking of just boxing up all of the books and giving them to the library. I don't know if I really want to go trhough listing each one and trying to sell it. I may make just as much getting a receipt for charitable donation and taking that off on taxes as income that i'd then have to report. There is something in me that just wants to be done with some of the clutter and it is the books, first. I may still put a list on MUDcat and whoever wants to pay postage and maybe send Max a buck or two can have the ones they want. Whaddya think? Any interest?

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 10:34 PM

You ladies are being entirely too industrious for me! I've been sidetracked (another delaying tactic along with the butfirsts) on a project for my brother and haven't done any de-cluttering whatsoever in the last week. Am hoping to finish the project in the next day or so, and in trying to figure out what to get rid of next, my eye keeps falling on the stuff in my overloaded craft room. Since I'm one of those persons who never met a craft they didn't like, there's lots of "stuff" in there that could be gotten rid of, not just fabric, which apparently is here to stay forever...sigh.

Kat, I'd love to see a list of your books, but I'm very afraid of doing so. I'm bound to find some I'd want, and I've run out of floor space to put them on!

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: peregrina
Date: 22 Mar 08 - 11:36 AM

bag to charity shop this weekend and last weekend

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Mar 08 - 11:39 AM

I have a pile of clothes on the chair in the corner. The eBay pile. But I just looked up two of the pairs of pants and they go so low it really isn't worth my time. I think it's time for the fabric cutting board, some photos, and a trip to the Goodwill. They're on a love seat futon (makes into a single bed) that is near a big sunny window. Better to have it as a place to read than dump outgrown clothes.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Mar 08 - 08:15 PM

I can see that seat! It's clear (well, there is a cat on it now)! I took two black trash bags full to the Goodwill after photographing the clothes and putting the images in the file on the computer. Receipt is in hand. I kept a few clothes to sell on eBay, but if they don't go soon they'll also head to Goodwill.

This evening I took down the backboard for the basketball hoop. Tomorrow I'll dig out the pole. That will be the big part of the job. :-/

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 22 Mar 08 - 10:18 PM

Way to go Stilly! One step at a time . But if your love seat is in a sunny window, you may as well give it up to the cats right now.

Lin (nearly half-finished with brother's project--yay)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Alice
Date: 22 Mar 08 - 11:49 PM

Filled another box with clothes for the thrift store.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Mar 08 - 12:04 AM

Good going, Alice, SRS, and Lin!!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 23 Mar 08 - 03:02 AM

Failed miserably, went and bought more custard.

But I did manage to get a new net curtain for the bedroom window because the cats have shredded the old one playing chase through it.

I've got a chocolate roulade to clear up now... I'd better get on with it.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 23 Mar 08 - 04:41 AM

Liz, if you got out of the house, you're making progress--you can't say you failed! Hope you enjoyed the chocolate.

I have to make a run to the fabric store when it opens to get the rest of the "stuff" I need to finish my brother's project. Then on to the fun (not) part of it--sewing it together. Wish someone would invent fusible web that would actually hold things together without having to be sewn down. This is a flag, so it will be in the wind and weather as well; got to bite the bullet and sew it, I reckon. Yetch! Liz, chocolate is sounding better all the time! (Hmmmm, Starbuck's is sort of on the way to the fabric store, only a couple of miles off.)

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Mar 08 - 01:31 PM

Interesting piece on peace, which tangentially talks about consumerism, the way to untangle oneself from materiality, and even when nationalism is good:

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC26/Boulding.htm

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Mar 08 - 02:25 PM

Following my plan to keep sending things along in the prodigality stream, I have inventoried and set sale prices for a number of small electronic items I no longer need, and am doing a sort of rolling garage sale of them out of my van. Of course it's a non-profit arrangement.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Mar 08 - 04:19 PM

I've stayed off the thread for a while, letting other folks contribute--I think I could camp out here, but I need to spend more time decluttering and less time reporting it!

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC26/Boulding.htm Here's that link from Thompson.

Chapter 5, "The Economy of Clutter," in Clutter's Last Stand begins:

The well-known 80/20 rule of business says: If all of a given category of items
are sorted in order of value, 80 percent of the value will come from only 20 percent
of the items. Think about that in terms of clutter. Eighty percent of the space
on our shelves (and in our mind) is occupied by stuff we never need. Eighty percent
of our beauty and hygiene routine makes use of only 20 percent of the cosmetics
and potions we have stacked around. (How much of the remaining 80 percent is
junk?) Eighty percent of our family fun comes from 20 percent of the games and
equipment and puzzles we've got jammed into our closets. (How much of the
remaining 80 percent could be junked without it ever being missed?) Eighty percent
of our reading enjoyment and information comes from 20 percent of the material
in our bookcases and magazine racks. (How much of the unopened 80 percent
would we ever miss?) Eighty percent of our home maintenance and upkeep is
done with 20 percent of the accumulated paraphernalia in our cellars and garages.
(How much of the remaining 80 percent is unnecessary clutter?) Eighty percent
of the outfits we wear come from 20 percent of the clothes cramming our closets
and drawers. (How much of the remaining 80 percent could Goodwill get more
use from than we do?) Is this all just fancy business theory? Not on your life! If you
got rid of the 80 percent that's clutter you'd be more than 20 percent more efficient.

I pulled a basket of socks off of a closet shelf yesterday, and with the exception of a few pairs I've been looking for, the rest went in a rag bag (the elastic won't last long in old socks). I pulled a pretty dress that I love the color but never wear because I don't like to fool with dry cleaning and that went to the Goodwill.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 12:23 AM

Games are a source of bulk in the living room. This evening my son and I narrowed the games down to what fits on one shelf in a cabinet in the living room. There are some escaped pieces in a basket that now can probably be matched up to what they go with (or tossed). I'll have to figure out what to do with the discarded games. I can't imagine they'd sell on eBay, they're available at every garage sale in the nation. And some of the domino sets are downright heavy, who would want to ship one? I'm beginning to think a garage sale here-- but that can mean stuff sits in place waiting for the sale.

I spent the afternoon struggling with my taxes. The donations from last year went on Schedule A (cash and Goodwill-type donations) and go toward my itemized deduction. I think that 1/3 formula I mentioned is if you don't itemize. Don't quote me. (I need to find a tax person, I have a few questions about another section of my forms.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 08:08 AM

We need the cash, but we need the space more. Most of what I'm clearing out goes to Goodwill or to our local freebee magnet, the Swap Shop part of the town recycling building.

I'm hesitating on books, because our town has been talking about starting a town library, and we have many that would be appropriate, but I can't wait much longer to sort and dispose of books we no longer need.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 12:20 PM

If I had spare cash to invest I'd buy into a chain of those public lockers that are going up on every large vacant lot across America. We're all packrats. I moved boxes and furniture out of storage after I bought this house (I had stuff from the estates of both parents and from a house when I moved into an apartment after my divorce; I can see the need for the things, but it is a job to get free of them.) I think many people put stuff in them and promptly forget it is there. I've read about a popular routine for eBay and antique store folks to regularly buy the contents of these lockers when the renters default on the fees.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 06:57 PM

Maeve, we could probably stock a library with the collections of Mudcat bibliophiles. I nearly fell over laughing at a description John in Kansas wrote of Lin's system of book management and how she orders them for reading. It sounded a lot like mine was (except I got ambitious a couple of years ago and put up an entire 15' wall of bookshelves in my front room and got most of them off of the floor. This winter I got the rest out of boxes).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: freda underhill
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 04:35 AM

i've just come back from a folk festival. now my camping gear is added to the stuff in my living room that needs to be chucked.. aaaqgh!

first to go will be sleeping bags. I'm now totally sold on quilts in tents - much more comfortable.

freda

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 01:16 PM

SRS:

I didn't even know I HAD a system! John's always surprising me!

As for bookcases, we have no walls whatsoever left in this house and have debated getting rid of the windows so we can put up a couple more bookcases. The entire basement is full of bookcases too. I think John figured out once that we had something like 314 feet of bookshelves.

The ones we have are all full--again. I need to add another bookcase in the bedroom, assuming I can find part of the floor in there to do so. I'll have to ask permission of the Furry Children first; they think the bedroom belongs to them, especially when the electric blanket is turned on.

Almost finished with my brother's project. Yay!

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 11:51 PM

I guess John is "busted" now if you two haven't reached an accord over how your books are stashed. I found the thread here. Here is the germane part:

LiK has developed a new method of organization, particularly for her more recent acquisitions. The newer books are generally placed near the top of a pile on the floor, with older ones further down - unless one of the cats (or dogs) have tipped a pile over, in which cases she uses the method where the ones closest to where the pile must be rebuilt generally end up lower down and the ones that landed where they're harder to reach end up nearer the top, or occasionally remain where they landed as the start of a new pile.

An orderly sorting into sub-categories results from the tendency for the stacks of books she's read in bed (most of them) are in stacks in the bedroom, which seems quite logical to me. The books she intends to take elsewhere "to share" are generally in paper sacks (often "shopping bags" - up to 3 or 4, although rarely as many as 5) by the back door, while the ones she brought back with her (from friends who shared) are in separate sacks and/or torn up boxes in the same general vicinity (some of her friends fail to provide truly adequat packaging).

(Many of the ones she brings back, that friends insisted she "must have," go directly to the "ready to go" stashes for re-distribution. She says some of her friends have "less literate tastes" than hers.)

The "Index" that I previously kept when I was really busy seems to have terminated some time ago at 2,127 titles, mostly mine. Since my "retired" lifestyle doesn't demand as much organization, I feel I have an excuse - but I don't know what her claims might be. She has her own index but I don't think she's kept it too well up to date. I would suspect that she has at least 2,000 titles "somewhere" but I'd have to count the stacks on the floors for an update to my guess.

Ultimately, the only surviving organization really is just into two categories formally referred to as "somewhere" and "elsewhere."

I know this system!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 04:37 AM

If we could put our 7 small bookcases together I reckon we could fill a whole wall with books and regain our bedroom window, plus a whole heap of other shelf space. We just don't have a spare wall.

But the poetry stays in the bathroom.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 12:22 PM

I love my books, but no way would I give up window space for them!:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 03:25 PM

SRS: The scary part about that post you quoted from JIK is that it was a year ago, and the "system" is still the same! The piles are just higher...sigh.

When we first moved here, about 10 years or so ago, and arranged all the basement books, I had grandiose plans of taking the laptop down there and recording all of them. "Butfirst" I needed to sort them so I could separate mine from his (he had most of his on a list already, and I wasn't about to duplicate all that work!). Well, three years later, with the help of my grandson, I finally got them all sorted. Of course, by that time I had plans to hook the laptop up to my sewing machine, so the original project went off into the ether.

I do have most of my "upstairs" books on a computer list, but of course it needs to be updated rather badly.

There's no end in sight.

Our local Barnes & Noble is closing one of their stores to move into a new one a bit more "uptown." They're selling their fixtures for ridiculously low prices and there were still a couple of the round display shelves available yesterday. My suggestion that we buy a couple fell on dear ears, however. The fact that we'd have to throw out our living room furniture is entirely beside the point--it would give us another two large bookcases! One MUST get the priorities in line, don't you think?

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 04:45 PM

If you could only keep 100 books, or 10 books, what would they be? How many of those will you actually reread? Which of them will the family use? That's what I'm asking myself about my books lately. I'm going to have to leave instructions about donating them to the university, I think.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 04:55 PM

I've already asked my kids and they don't seem to have much interest in keeping any of mine except a few family keepsakes which belonged to my grandparents on both sides. There are plenty they might want to read, but all of my kids travel lighter than I do...I think they'd give most of them away. I have told one of them which ones are to go to a friend, but I should leave written instructions, too. Or, just give Mudcatters first dibs on them all!:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 06:36 PM

A friend of mine is a college professor who has worked with a lot of grad students. He has told them that when he dies, whoever is the first one to get to his office to claim them is the one who gets his books. :)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 11:56 PM

Sort of a set back this evening: the washer drain has overflowed. I guess it's time to de-clutter the laundry room tomorrow before the plumber brings the snake. I could probably rent a snake, and there may even be one out in the garage left by the last owners. But I think this is the kind of job that I'll call in someone else to do the dirty work.

Speaking of which. . . I've been digging a big new flower bed on the side of the house, and will put down some mulch and pavers when I finish. Guess where the clean-out is? Yup. Right across all of that freshly dug bed.

At least I know where to point them, I've had to do this once before. I have a son with really long curly hair, and even with an extra trap for hair, I'm sure that is what has contributed to this problem.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 03:21 PM

Looks like I will do the drain myself and only if that doesn't work will I call the plumber. I did manage a declutter slam dunk this morning, despite my home maintenance adventures. I filled a shopping bag with more books on the weekend. I also moved around some furniture in the living room. Now if my door is standing open you can look through to interestingly arranged furniture, not boxes sitting beside chairs heaped with stuff.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 11:09 AM

Garage-sale-itis is hard to resist on Friday mornings. There is a house in the neighborhood that runs an annual garage sale for a church in the area. They always have good stuff--one of my favorite chairs is a solid oak bentwood library chair that was rescued from the trash area of a library loading dock back in the 1970s. The woman who rescued it was selling it for $25. It sits in front of an antique desk in my bedroom. Last year I picked up a pretty little Delft antique planter for fifty cents. This year I picked up a shoebox with some antique and collectible cookie cutters and a NIB Mirro cookie press for $1. I'll put these on eBay, though I'm tempted to give my daughter the Mirro set. She loves spritz. :)

As a humorous cookie cutter moment: I was looking at one cutter trying to figure out what it was. Turned one way, it looked like the top of Texas, the panhandle and north portion, with the bottom of the state chopped off. Turned the other way it looked like a dolphin leaping through the state of Illinois. (WOW! Rare Rorschach non-sequitur cutter! Big eBay bucks!). Finally, turned yet another direction, I saw that it was a Santa profile with a box in the bag on his sack. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Diva
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 12:44 PM

Been working on de cluttering since before Christmas.......many bags have gone to the charity shop and many to the bin. Having been in the 'trade' (charity shops not bins!!!) until last January I'd amassed a lot of junk!!!!! The 'it needs a bit of tlc we'll never sell it give us a few quid' items

Yesterday my piano which had been used as a shelf for the past three years has gone to a very good home. I've now got two dressers to get rid of.

Garage sale...got a bath in mine....anybody want........

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Becca72
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 01:28 PM

I had a little set back, folks...

My name is Becca and I am a Bookaholic.

A local salvage/overstock store is selling a buttload of books for $.10 per pound....that's right, a friggin' DIME per POUND. I couldn't resist...(sigh) There goes all that hard work clearing out one bookcase.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 28 Mar 08 - 01:41 PM

I sorted and bagged the last of my dad's clothing this morning.
The rest of the day I've been doing laundry. Maybe I can sort through some books while the apple pies are baking.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 08:12 AM

WOW! I am impressed at all the hard work that's gone on while I've been goofing off making my brother's project! Way to go, ladies! (Have you noticed there are no gentlemen posting to this thread? Guess they don't have that "de-clutter" compulsion, huh? I know JiK certainly doesn't...re-clutter anything I've de-cluttered is more his style.

Stilly, did you get your washer drain cleared? You're a braver soul than I am; no way would I attempt that. Hope it went well and is now back to working!

The project will go to my brother on Wednesday. I've (finally) started a quilt I promised my sister-in-law before Christmas. I sorted through a BUNCH of stuff in the craft room--now to figure out what to get rid of. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go...

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Alice
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 11:21 AM

Moved a broken plastic file box full of paper trash from the back door out to the trash can.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: peregrina
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 11:43 AM

bag to charity shop

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 29 Mar 08 - 02:28 PM

We're located in an area surrounded by various Freecycles. It's a lot of fun to be able to link someone from one group to an item available in another group, without having to go pick it up and personally house it for a few days in order to help the item move along the stream of re-use, reduce, and de-clutter.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 01:31 AM

Limpit was forcibly de-cluttered this week. Three bin bags of trash - two to recycling, one to garbage and half a room to go. It's amazing how much rubbish we've disposed of just by putting it all where it belongs and sorting the rest of it into piles of things - hair things, paper things, jewellery things, craft things, etc...

Then it's turn for my bit of bedroom.... wish me luck!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 11:38 AM

I went out to the garage last evening and sorted a box of toys that are missing parts and will likely never be whole again. They went in the trash along with some other stuff I foolishly brought home from work, thinking the kids could dismantle and use for art projects (our library mounts a lot of exhibits and I sometimes bring home mylar, foamcore, and the mounting board they discard afterward). Some is useful, but not after it has been out in the garage for a while. All of this filled a large trash can for tomorrow's collection.

Yesterday our Friends of the Library went to Dallas to a tour of a private library on a gorgeous estate. Lots of objects on display in the large 2-story building, and it was clear that if you have things you really value, don't lose them in the clutter of lesser items. And group them nicely. I am looking forward to the day when I have the clear shelves and table tops for some of my precious collection to display nicely. (I could also stand to have the billions to build the colletion, but I'll start small.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 03:22 PM

Boy, this feels good! Second day of my new yearly cycle and I am on a roll! This morning, after I "allowed" my Rog and hour or two of playing on his laptop, we got busy, cleaned out old canned goods in a bottom, never-used kitchen cupboard and moved all of the small cans of paint to it. They had been on the kitchen counter and on top of the fridge. Lots of clutter!

THEN, since i had him going, I grabbed ROg, we went into my office, went through the rolling bookcart (what did you call them, Maggie, a truck?) and he helped me decided on which books to give to the library, which to research more to sell, and which to keep. We now have three boxes of books out in the car to go the library sale.

I love the things I find in books. There was an envelope addressed to Mrs. Mary E. Epolito in New London, CT, from the Dept. of Motor Vehicles. A return, addressed envelope was inside, along with a card printed as an "application for Motor Vehicle Operator's License," and a printed small note with instructions, costs, and addresses of "Branch Offices." Apparently it was for renewal of her license, which would have cost her $3.00! The permit paid postage for the State to send it to her is marked "1 1/2 c. Paid." The only date I found was her license was about to expire the last day of February 1932.

I also found an exquisite art postcard of Mount Fuji. It looks like a print of an original piece of artwork, very spare, with French and Japanese on the back. I think i will scan it in and see what you all think. The trees are raised, almost like they were embossed. It is a little treasure.

After we got done with the books, we also rearranged the office, moving the library table, an old high boy that was my dad's, and Morgan's little art table. My Rog is a champion, today. I think I'll give him the rest of the day off.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 03:59 PM

You've hit on an important point--always flip through those books to be sure there is nothing stashed or forgotten there. I was going through some of the mysteries from my Dad's house last year and found a note he had written to me tucked into one, but hadn't ever mailed it. It was so precious!

That driver's license sounds like something you could frame and hang as a curiosity in a hallway or little nook somewhere. I have a bunch of old family bills and documents that I need to get out one of these days.

In the garage today I've discarded a bag of lumber bits that I'd saved for Dylan, who when he was 10, was interested in pounding nails. That interest (at least in junk wood) has passed. But instead of the trash, our new recycle center on this side of town takes lumber. I also found an old plastic frame with strips of mirror. Left over from my bedroom when we moved in. I removed the large bevelled mirror from this frame and hung it in my bathroom, but this frame remained. Now it is at the curb.

I did a little plumbing research this morning, and while I was at it, I did a little cookie press research. Apparently those old Mirro cookie presses, manufactured for decades, are no longer in production. I decided not to keep the garage sale one because I have two cookie presses already, different types, but most of the same fittings. She can have one of these if the need arises.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 10:55 PM

Snake didn't work. I'll have to try something else and meanwhile wash small loads of laundry and stand there and lift the lid every time the drain pipe fills up to the top. Let it dribble out for a few seconds, then close the lid again. Do that a dozen times during the load and at least I have clean laundry until I figure this out (or get money for a plumber).

Oh, my aching butt! I trimmed the front yard, cleaned more in the garage, and weeded a couple of iris beds. It's just about time for the big bloom, I may have one open in a day or two. I want to get the ugly dry grass and the new tall green grass away from the flowers so they look stunning on their own.

Lots down at the curb this evening.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 09:32 AM

Stilly - thank you for that sage advice about flicking through books - I made a start on my bookshelves this morning and managed to find an address that I've been looking for for 2 years! Luckily the chap still lives there so I can send him his 2 years worth of greetings cards!

There's a whole bin bag of books waiting to go to a loving home now... duplicates mostly, out of date self help books and a pile of SciFi/TV books I've not read for 10 years and not likely to read again.... Now all I need to do is actually remove the bag before I give in to the temptation to double check them all again....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 11:48 AM

A popular concept at our place is "re-purposing." I just harvested a bagful of "clutter" into stuff I can sell. I know where to store it, where it will be seen and where I have no doubt that it will "move."

BTW, decluttering and increased activity level can and sometimes do go hand in hand-- it can be done as a walking-intensive activity, where instead of doing each segment the most effcient way, one uses a pinball approach to increase the amount and duration of activity.

(Some "weight loss" "experts" say house chores don't "count," but they absolutely do, especially in increasing metabolic rate after being injured or sedentary for a long period of time. Athletes know and apply this-- runners I know say that they count active house chores and laundry as the active-rest day between training days.

The pinball approach--my term-- is that instead of loading up a box of things all going to one area, hefting it, and unpacking it all properly when you get there, take ONE item instead that is right in front of you that you KNOW does not belong there. Pick it up, and take it where it belongs. When you get there, see what needs to be picked up there, next, and take it where IT needs to go. And so forth, an dkeep it up until just a few seconds past your perceived need to sit for a break.

If you wear your walking shoes you can build up quite a wind-building activity this way. Over time the duration of feeling able to do it increases, and the thought of firing up a CD to keep you company spontaneously occurs. (I just let my puder play me my tunes.)

Yesterday was an active-rest day here, spent on the laundry that piled up during Lent. Lots of bending, carrying, walking back and forth between main house and landry dept. (Muscle work for areas not yet up to strength.) Today is Pinball Day to get the main floor closer to ready for a potential new house-mate to visit for a summer pet-sitting interview. Before we can dust or vacuum, there's the winter's CRAP to clear up!

Before he left for work this AM, Hardi kindly unearthed the faux sunlight that had been put aside until the new dog settled down enough not to break it. By the time the real sun reappears (tomorrow) I will be ready to head out for the pool, house well in order.


These things tend to integrate.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 03:42 PM

If you wear your walking shoes you can build up quite a wind-building activity this way. Over time the duration of feeling able to do it increases, and the thought of firing up a CD to keep you company spontaneously occurs.

The only warning I would add to this strategy is that in some of our homes, especially with books piled on the floors, Watch Out for the Tripping Hazards! Kick a clear path first. ;-)

This whole decluttering process itself is interesting, but worthwhile only if I continue to make actual progress. Otherwise I'm the hamster in the wheel, still in thrall to STUFF. I have things I want to be doing, but I'm still (and will be for a while) tinkering with this clutter.

I've identified a couple of bigger things in the garage that I planned to eventually put in the house, but I don't think it is ever going to happen. And truth be told, they don't match anything in the house, so I'm going to cut them loose. The main one is a futon frame that holds a double mattress. We got rid of the mattress before bringing the frame down because I was told "people sat on it so much it will be lumpy to sleep on" (I should have kept it, all I was going to do mostly was sit on it). But that kind of mattress (it folds in thirds, not half, and is custom made) doesn't seem to be easily found here. I think the frame will go. The dogs chewed on one end of it which won't be visible if there is a mattress on it but makes it harder to sell at a garage sale. Donation to Goodwill. It still works and it is very nicely designed. The damaged planks can easily be replaced. Someone will get a bargain.

Maybe I can get that in the truck this afternoon. After my run to the recycle center. And I think I'll donate the backboard for the basketball hoop. Now to get that post out of the ground. . . I'm inspired to work outside more now. My first two irises bloomed today, a blue one and a dusky yellow. Beautiful!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 04:39 PM

I've put it off long enough but it will begin this week. Kids are back at school after the Easter holidays but as I work for a different authority I'm off this week instead. Finances have also finally forced my hand so in the next few days the Clifford essex banjo, saxophone, clarinet,1/4 size violin, hamster cage (get a good tune on that)and various toys will hit e bay. Kids clothes, my clothes etc all need sorting too. I have dresses and trousers I kept thinking I'd soon get back into but are now several sizes too small. My biggest problem is the tee shirts many of which were bought at certain events as souvenirs but since I never wear them is there any point in keeping them? I have never been good at de-cluttering but we now have run out of storage and floor so its GOT to happen.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 05:30 PM

Storage AND floor - there's posh!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 10:52 AM

Yeah well like I say at the moment we have neither lol

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:35 PM

Setback on getting rid of the futon frame. The dogs chewed on one side. It's a cosmetic thing, but the Goodwill wants stuff in perfect shape, so even more than the chews, they want it with the mattress. (If they saw the mattress they'd groan under the weight of it.)

I have a couple of options. Now that it is out of the garage, I don't want to put it back. I could take it to the recycle center and they'd put it in a stack to go in the landfill. They don't recycle other stuff than glass, plastic, the usual bin stuff. The rest of sorted solid waste.

Or, I could put it at the curb ahead of the regular trash pickup. Put it out on Saturday afternoon, trash picked up at crack of dawn Monday. If it isn't picked up by someone (who with a little effort can unscrew and replace the chewed planks and can decide if they want to put cushions or a mattress on it) I'll put it back in the truck and take it to the center. I don't think the weekly trash guys will take it. Only during our bulky waste pickup time. It's in the back of the truck until the weekend then.

Oh, well.

Pretty soon I'm going to be getting rid of several small televisions. They're not worth spending the money for the converters for HD TV in Febrary 2009. They're scattered around the house now, mostly for keeping up with weather radar in bad weather. I don't need them all, but have found a use for each of them. It hardly seems fair to give them to Goodwill--they're swamped, but at the recycle center they have a trailer where I can take the old stuff. They test it and decide if they want to use it or not. The rest they have a program for reycling electronic components (at least, I think they do. Job training.)

The room I haven't tackled much at all but really needs decluttering is the closet in my office. Where all of my old college papers and research stuff lives. Big job, and one I need to do soon. I'm trying to put this job behind me in April so I can do other stuff from here on out.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 03:10 PM

Freecycle the stuff Goodwill will not take. It will be gone inb hours, most likely. Throw a $2 piece of plastic over it if it's going to be wet the next day or so-- and leave it sit!

That's true even here in our rurla, sparsely-populated area. If you don't want to join FC, PM me your zip code and I will do it for you.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 04:02 PM

I had joined two overlapping Freecycle groups, but was inundated with email even by getting it as a digest. I might resubscribe to one for a while as I clear out some stuff.

A bit of a rant: It's amazing to read those requests from people--laundry lists of things they want, no holds barred, no matter that they're asking for big expensive things. I don't know how many people actually GET the big ticket items they request there. Maybe it is just Texas. I'm not complaining about the whole thing--there are a lot of very caring and generous people participating. But reading it for many weeks reinforces my belief that Americans have such an inflated sense of entitlement--and at the same time, such a skewed sense of the value and durability of things that so much is thrown out or given away with little thought. Just go buy more. For all of the big ticket items requested, there is likely to be someone just profligate enough to be throwing one out. I'm sure Freecycle solves a lot of problems, but it really is an eye-opener to the state of things in America. During this process I'm looking at myself also, and once again amazed at the amount of junk we generate as a culture.

My daughter is going to take the extra microwave oven, so it won't go to Goodwill. She said that the one at their house she doesn't care for--it has a dial, not a keypad, so times are not precise. I told her that if she takes this up there they should consider getting rid of the other one so they don't have the same problem I did here. Too much stuff.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 04:04 PM

BTW: Thanks for the offer. I have the logon stuff in my email still and can probably quickly reactivate the account. In the spirit of the thing they want your first communication to be an offer. I suppose this could be it.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 05:04 PM

Just do not set your account to email digest-- read is as web-only and you will not get the messages that annoy you. (Only the ones responding to your offer will arrive.)

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 05:28 PM

I didn't see a web-only offering. This is a Yahoo list--is that how your group is set up? I set it digest so I'd get only one, not a dozen or more a day.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 11:10 AM

Gotta think of some little declutter errand to add to my long list of running around today. Forward momentum. Books to the Half Price store will work. There is a shopping bag full in the living room.

My little window love seat is again stacked up with stuff. But it is different stuff, and that seems destined to be the staging area for this decluttering project. The end will be here when that lovely little futon remains clear.

I may have already mentioned it above, but I have a question for the U.S. declutterers: How many televisions do you have in your home? Big, little, emergency type, etc.? When the new HD airwaves come about, it won't make them completely obsolete because the low-power channels will still work (I think the UHF stations can stay where they are for a while). What are your plans for all of those televisions? Even with the coupon, there will still be an expense of about $20 per television, for two per home. After that you have to pay upwards of $60 per converter box for televisions, and a lot of them probably aren't worth the trouble or expense. What will you do with all of those devices? Are they units with working radios you will continue to use? Will you phase out the number in your house? Will you replace them?

I plan to eliminate several and not replace them. I'll use my couple of coupons, and though I'm switching off my satellite for a while, it should be back before the HD switch. The televisions getting the devices are little ones like in the kitchen that aren't on cable. I could end up taking four televisions to the recycle center.

What will you do?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: peregrina
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 11:52 AM

Another bag to charity shop. Current project books moved...

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 01:08 PM

Mrs. Duck, do you quilt? Or know anyone that does? Old T-shirts (concert shirts, souvenirs etc.) make wonderful memory quilts!

JiK and I go to the Winfield music festival every year, and every year I buy at least one new T-shirt. They finally reached maximum overload in my closet and dresser, so I cut them up, saving the logo and screen prints on the backs, and along with a few other Tees I'd saved, I had enough for one large bed-size quilt and a lap quilt. Some of JiK's went back 20-odd years, since he first started going to the festival.

You can find instructions for T-shirt quilts online if you want to do one yourself. The hardest part, IMHO, is getting them all cut to the same size.

Box of books packed to take to my sister-in-law next time I go for a home town visit. Also have several "miscellaneous" things to go with the books--a jar of old marbles, a mini-lunch box, a denim shirt... it would be great if I didn't know she will send me back with another box just as full, since she's de-cluttering also. Maybe I can lock the truck while I'm there and sneak off when I leave???

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 01:17 PM

Lin, you are braver than I. I could never, ever give away my old jar of marbles! Some of them were my brother's from WWII era.:-)

I dropped off the three boxes of book to the library on Monday. That felt good. I told her there would be more.

I am going to the office supply store today, I think, to see about some small organiser for my desk. I cut up all of my used office paper into fourths and use them for note paper. I have a pile of notes in front of my monitor. I need some way to organise them and to keep them from piling up!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:08 PM

Its certainly worth a thought, Lin. I don't quilt but am a good needlewoman so see no reason not to and to make a quilt for use in the caravan when we go to festivals would be a great idea. Failing that I could just square them up and make cushions.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 08:51 PM

Ten years ago now when the principal at my childrens' elementary moved to a new school the teachers and staff pooled their old school t-shirts and made her a quilt like that. It was marvelous. I had a pile of the kids' outgrown shirts and couldn't send them to Goodwill after seeing that quilt, so I went by the school a few weeks back with a dozen shirts on the off chance they had a use for them--it turned out they were planning an exhibit with old shirts but hadn't started gathering them yet! Maybe taking the logo and framing them. They were quite excited--and I felt so much better about culling these favorite shirts.

I think if you're concerned about the stretching of the jersey shirts you could add a lightweight muslin backer and either use an iron on (between) adhesive or baste them together around the outer edge.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 11:32 PM

SRS, yes the ones I am in are all Yahoo, and all have a web-only option. ???

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 11:50 PM

I probably wasn't patient enough with it when I set it up. I'll go check it out again this weekend.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 11:51 AM

A few books to the bookstore yesterday. Looks like rain today, but the weekend will get better. I have a couple of kid-free days (son decided to spend an extra night at his Dad's house since they both seem to have a Friday holiday but I don't). I'll putter indoors and make a big eBay push. If it clears I have to make a declutter-the-garden push (it dawned on me that I have a lot of things out there that need to be moved, so I should move them along to another location or to the compost heap).

We did a little sock drawer decluttering today. Once again at the breakfast table my son's "I don't have any socks to wear!" cry was met by "you have a drawer full of socks!" I took a plastic bag and emptied the entire drawer into it, leaving only a couple of slipper sox. "Which of these can't you wear?" He picked out some of his sister's socks (she wears a size 10, I can't tell their socks apart any more) and the rest are apparently too old and scratchy to be tolerated. So out they go and I'll buy some new ones this weekend.

I think this time I really will put a couple of ink dots on the toes of each of his socks so I can sort them more easily.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 12:14 PM

Why bother squaring them up Mrs D? Why not just sew up the neck and arm holes with a contrasting thread in blanket stitch (or invisilby, what ever takes your fancy), stuff the arms with old tights or socks and put a cushion filler in the body. Sew up the bottom to match and you've got a whole heap of memorable torsos to fill your sofas with.

Great for hallowe'en parties and threatening the children with decapitation!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 07:21 PM

Okay. I know I'm not a candidate for Clean House, I can see the floors in all of my rooms. I can sit on most of the furniture. But as I haul two big trash bags of clothing and rags out to the pickup for tomorrow (the Thrift Town store for recycling both clothing and rag is on the way to work) I can still hardly tell.

I can walk through the house more easily, but the closets and drawers and boxes around here are still crammed full. I'd still be embarrassed to have someone I wanted to impress come in. (My friends and family know that organization comes and goes, we all manage to clear enough space for events, but I'd like it so I don't have to do so much of that clearing any time I am having someone over!)

I seem to have reached a time in my life when this has finally drifted to the top of my list of things to do, because I finally see it will make the other things I want to do much easier. The thread has been very helpful. Enumerating the progress is a good way to tell myself "attagirl."

I think I'm in a funk because it is a dark muggy overcast day. It wants to rain but it isn't. I can see and almost taste the things I want to do, but I'm not there yet.

Blehhh

SRS, fuming in Fort Worth

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 11:35 AM

It's Gone!!!!

The Futon Frame took a hike overnight!!!

Yesss!!!

I put it out at the curb before dark, and it was still there at bedtime. But today it has left the building. Gone to a new home.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 11:45 AM

Ask them if they want a sofa bed, there's one in our front yard that they're welcome to.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 12:02 PM

Whoo-Hoo, SRS!!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 09:54 PM

Rags and clothes went to the thrift store in Arlington this afternoon, and I hatched a more than a kernel of an idea for a long article or even a book. I had some business over at the campus print shop also, and though it is part of the campus it is also a full-service printing press. While I was there I asked the manager about what goes into paper and about recycling fiber. It's amazing! And so much is apparently wasted, into landfills.

Now for the weekend. I spent a little time this morning pulling the really obvious stuff out of closets--outgrown jackets and fashion non-statements that no one will wear. I found a couple of things I would have been using if I'd remembered they were there. Some of this will go on eBay, some to Goodwill.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 01:38 PM

More has been launched on eBay, and several packages are at the door ready to go in the post. Time to fill another shopping bag with paper to take to the recycle bin. I have several square feet of office space I'll clear up if I do that this morning.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:35 PM

We mailed off two small boxes of books this morning. Bought a couple of organiser bins for the top of my desk and now have a clear area on it which has been filled by a cat.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:48 PM

The bag of books has gone, the sofabed is still out there and I got Limpit to declutter one corner of the sitting room today. We've also evicted a CD rack that wasn't necessary, so we now have half a bookshelf back. Filled that of course, but at least now we don't have a pile of books in the window.

Still have the bedrooms to sort... ho hum.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 11:28 AM

Yard decluttering today, after I mow. My focus: those plants that are growing perfectly well but have gotten too big or I've decided are in the wrong place. I've trimmed some and dug some up in the last couple of weeks. Today is more of the same, with the emphasis on a bed by my front door. I have a lovely salvia greggi (bright crimson red) that I want to save but it needs to be moved. It'll be "oh my aching back!" tonight because I'll prepare the landing site before I dig up the shrub. And keep my fingers crossed. It has a daughter in the same bed that I'll leave there for a the time being, but it needs to be moved soon also.

I'll find some little something to list on eBay while I drink my morning cup of tea. This almost amounts to a symbolic gesture, but it helps me see the forward momentum to have several things listed at once.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 11:41 AM

We sold some plants and baked goods at the monthly flea market yesterday, along with clocks, LP albums (sob!) and various other things. Most of what didn't sell we left there for the thrift shop.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 01:53 PM

YAY, SRS, on the futon, and listings on Ebay, and gearing up to de-clutter your yard! Wow, what energy you ladies are showing--way to go!

I've been illish the last couple of days, so haven't done a darned thing but sleep, read, and lie in bed with the electric blanket turned on high. It did give me lots of time to make mental lists of what needs to be done, though, so I'm hopeful my energy level will start coming up a bit more soon and I can get back to it.

Kat, good for you, to get some of the books off to a new home. That's the hardest part for me, I think. I can gleefully toss papers and clothing, but books...well, that's another thing entirely.

Maeve, a monthly flea market would be a great place to get rid of things. Wish we had something like that around here that didn't cost an arm and a leg to get into.

Liz, I like the idea of "decapitated persons" on my couch--may have to get rid of some more T-shirts! And Kat, I have the same problem with any flat surface being instantly inhabited by a cat...Vincent is keeping my computer table clear of any paperwork in a small cat-shaped area to the left of my keyboard, bless his little evil heart. What a lot of company they are!

Keep up the good work, ladies. You've encouraged me tremendously to keep at this seemingly endless chore!

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 03:22 PM

Lin-in-Kansas: I hope you feel better and more energetic as the next few days pass. We have found that this particulat flea market is a good idea, but not many lookers are actually buying. We made enough to cover gas for the trip and materials for the plants and the baked goods.

Most of what we took we left there, and what we left at home this trip (good pottery and china, antiques, furniture) were nice things that didn't sell the last couple of times. If we didn't need the money I'd just take it all to our swap shop, Goodwill, Salvation Army, and Freecycle. One more try at the antique shop nearby; after that anything that hasn't sold will end up at one of the places in that list.

I think a clothing clearout is next. Anything I'm not able to or willing to wash in the kitchen sink or the bathtub must go, reserving only warm winter woolens that fit me and look good. I already have somewhere close to forty pieces of children's and infants' clothing ready to iron and sell or give away.

After that, it's back to the childrens' room for a final clearout and transformation to guest room. I'll only keep special clothing, books, and handmade toys.

We love books too, and we must have a couple thousand volumes, but the time has come. If our town doesn't decide to start a library (decision due in a couple of weeks I think) I'm getting rid of the bulk of my library. I'll sell what I can sell quickly and donate the rest to an area library.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 05:17 PM

I've tried not to hog the thread too much, I need to spend time doing the work, not only reporting on it. But you bring up a point that I have a question about.

I have some Asian cups and saucers that were my mother's. My sister mailed them ages ago and they've sat unused in a cupboard ever since. One set broke, but there are three sets still. They are very very thin, and elegantly painted, so I am guessing they are porcelain, not bone china. How would I tell? There isn't anything written or stamped on the bottom, but Mom spent time in Japan after WWII and made a couple of trips back in later years. I think she bought them there.

Maeve, do you have any sources you can recommend before I drift into Google land? I'll probably put them on eBay, but I need to know some history first.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 06:21 PM

If you don't mind spending the money, for ten dollars the folks at What's It Worth To You dot com will give you a written appraisal with as much detail as they can tell from the best, detailed photos you send them. They've done a couple of pieces for me which were really good. I learned how far back one of my antique chairs go, farther than I thought, mid-1800s, and what would be fair selling and insurance replacement values.

Lin, to the left of my keyboard is exactly where Trystan demands a spot. If I don't watch out, he starts hanging his head on my hand, then works his way over to lying on the keyboard IF I don't support him. Then he winds up draped across my arm at which point I usually have to heave-ho because he is TOO heavy!:-)

Because the weed guy is coming on Thursday, I was able to get Rog to help clean up his BIG mess in the backyard. Morgan-the 4yr old came over to help. He did okay picking up beer cans for a little while, then he played straw boss, saying to us, "You guys are doing a REALLY good job. Good, Mama. Good, Papa. Keep going. That looks good!" I told him not to patronise me, but, of course, being 4 he wasn't; he really did mean it. It's pretty funny, to a point, when they turn the tables on you. He helped a bit later and filled the birdbath.

Rog was not a neat smoker/drinker of beer. No matter how many times we'd clean up, he'd still drop his butts on the ground and toss the beer cans near the right bin in the backyard...ruminating. It's my theory, being a broadcast engineer, he's got so much precision and order to be mindful of at work and working out in his head, he subconsciously balances it out by being a bit of a chaotic slob at home, BUT not that much, anymore. He's doing well on the chantix and hardly ever stands around out back, anymore, with a cig and beer.

So, we cleaned up a ton of debris from the yard, moved a few things around, generally tidied it up a bit. Rog pulled off all of the dead weeds which were up against the grape vines on the other side of the fence and did a good job in general.

THEN, I was charged up, SO I opened up my little Shasta caravan. This thing has been used for storage all winter, with things getting tossed in it, literally, from the door. Rog does not stack, neatly, or at all, so by now, one could barely, literally, get inside the door. Morgan went in ahead of me and crawled over mountains of stuff, saying, "This is cool, Mama!" I groused around, able to only shuffle my feet in a circle and started slinging. After I'd put a couple of bins on the counter, I was able to start shifting the rest of it. A lot of it was empty boxes. I like to save them for re-use in shipping, but they'd just been flung in there. So, I started heaving them out the door with orders to Rog to break them down for recycling. Morgan promptly went out the door, climbed in the biggest one, sat down and started making noises, calling to me, to ask if I liked his spaceship! I am still in there slinging and flinging and muttering imprecations of doom and gloom to the idjit who made a mess of my stuff!:-)

Anyway, got all of the empty boxes out, can see the floor. Sent two bins into the house to be gone through for treasures and packed it in. It was a good start and there's not that much left to do, mostly organising the space and stuff; what to keep, what to heave, what to see, etc.

When I backed out of there, I found the boxes still lying on the ground; not broken down, not stacked. SO, warming up my lungs, again, I hollered at Rog, for about the 5th time, we weren't done to get back out there!:-) Morgan and I broke them down, Rog packed them away to his truck and THEN we all went inside. Done with the back yard for now. Whew!

The BIG deal of it all was I did it all without the supplemental O2, for the first time since last winter when I got pneumonia!! (I also went to dinner without it last night. WHOO_HOO!)

Oh, and {{{{Linn}}}}}, I love sending my books on to new homes of approved people...it's hard to just let them go among the unwashed public! That's why I may still list some here at the Mudcat! And, feel better, will ya? But take the time to do so, too!**bg**

{{{{maeve}}}}}}I know letting go is difficult, but you are doing well. So are the rest of us. Ladies, give yourselves a good pat on the back!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 06:22 PM

Hi SRS. I think I'd simply take the delicate china to my favorite antiques dealer or auctioneer. They tend to have the reference books. If you're wanting to sell them anyway, start with the experts! I'd love to hear what you learn about them. Most of what I have is Maine made pottery.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 07:57 PM

I've been trimming and mowing the back yard all afternoon, came in to pee and take a drink and rest and read here, but Kat, I'm tired just reading all of the stuff you've been doing!

I cut a bunch of branches out of the way (decluttering in a different fashion!) and relocated a gorgeous healthy tarantula who had resided in a stack of bricks that was in the lawn at the back of the house. I've been needing to add the bricks to the edge of a patio I built several years ago but they just get moved around, last time by the roofers. In this form they are clutter, so in this instance I'll have to make the time to finish the job, I don't want to toss out my bricks! They are now stacked on the patio.

From there I did all of the trimming of the perimeter, and now I'm mowing. This way when I finish the heavy pushing of the mower I won't look up and see the ragged edges still needing work. I don't always do it this way, but I do when I know I'll want to crash after I finish the mowing. The back yard is about 1/4 acre, not huge, but the tall grass is thick and moist and the mower lugs if I try to go very fast. It's hard work.

I used to have an old Kovel's guide to antiques, I'll probably read up in a new one in the bookstore. I was surprised there were only a dozen listings at eBay for antique porcelain cup and saucer. In my experience, this means I must be spelling something wrong. ;-D

I've come in a couple of times to check on dinner; beans are simmering and the bread finished baking and is now cooling on a rack. One more trip out to finish mowing, then I'm finished. Busy day!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 08:05 PM

I filled up a couple of garbage bags this past week. Even got rid of stuff I was "maybe gonna use someday."

But my happiest project of this sort of late is the second closet I reorganized. In place of a dark, unused, dusty, not-deep-enough closet in our bedroom now is a series of cheerily white dress bags that hold out of season and dressy stuff where dust and pet hair cannot go. I can even see what's IN em. And stuff that didn't fit that system WENT, including the two trash bags full of naked wire and wooden hangers I Freecycled to an appreciative lady.

Freecyclers PICK UP! :~)

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 09:06 PM

LOL...look out, Maggie. I was getting tired thinking of all that mowing and moving of heavy stuff YOU were doing. We don't watch out, we'll get so tired reading we won't get anything else done!:-) I wish I had your energy for digging, planting, and moving!

BTW, have you ever looked at items at Ruby Lane?. It seems a good place to get an idea of worth and things do sell on there.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 09:11 PM

I need a closet that looks like that. We all need closets that look like that.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 09:24 PM

I'd settle for a closet. Sigh.

Sounds lovely!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 09:58 PM

I need a closet that looks like that. We all need closets that look like that.

Well, if you mean mine, it's not that hard to have.

The dress bags are about 15" wide and have a lightweight, ingeniously-designed frame inside (top) that holds the hangers and keeps the hangers from sagging together into the middle. I got 6 lightweight blazers into one, for example. Hooks poke out of the fabric top. to hang on the clothes pole. What had me stuck were the &^&*()(* closet doors-- sliders that were so thinck they took up more inches of depth than the closet had to spare. As soon as I could SEE the solution-- remove doors and replace with curtain rod standing 4" off the frame-- I began to price dress bags. I came up with easy to find, cheap ones. They zip down the center and have a clear pastic window near the top so you can see the contents. I guesstimated how many would fit on the rod and got 'em (two at a time as I could afford them out of the grocery bucks). After I got over how impossible the directions seemed (which took a few weeks), one night I put them together one at a time, hung 'em up as I went, till the available space was nicely full. Then I went and fetched the stuff waiting to go into them-- and the amount of clothes was PERFECT.

That's the overflow closet. Formal and funeral garb goes in there, as well as offseason stuff. Luggage lives on the shelf up top.

The MAIN closet (near my getting-ready-to-go-out bathroom) is a different kettle of fish. It's very small, but it holds an incredible amount of stuff. Imagine a typical coat closet, deep but not too wide. This is a tad wider, with double doors hinged along the side. I guess the doors are about 18" each. Inside, there's another couple of inches of width on each side, alongside the frame.

OK, open the closet and the two doors are now wings on either side of you. On your left, on the inside of the open door is a pair of showere caddies serving as racks, holding costume jewelry; there are several hanging heights there, and it's taking up the whole door-inside. On the right there is an over-door thingie on the inside of the door that holds a dozen skirts (or trousers), with holes for the hangers to keep them from sliding together (or off). Below that is another set of hooks for hanging jewelry, purses, store bags with the latest purchase waiting to be hung up, etc. These two doors, now, hold a dresser-full of stuff, visibly accessible. All on the inner surface of the doors.

Now the inside. To your left is the side edge of a tall bookcase, with the shelves facing into the center of the closet. On that edge facing the doors is a rack holding 7 million :~) colorful scarves for "instant pastor-wife uniform." On the shelves: sweaters, shoes in boxes, handbags, etc., all neatly folded/stowed on the shelves. The shelf unit only takes up 9" of floor space because it's in there sideways.

Above/in back of that is the clothes pole with hanging dresses, blouses, raincoat etc.; the pole is as high as I can reach.

That leaves a nice open piece of floor, large enough to stand in there comfortably to access the shelf. Large enough for ME.

On the floor is a nice thick bathroom-type rug to stand on when I have to walk all the way in there to get at the shelves; some boxed fabric stacked in the back (remnants from clothes that my seamstress has remade); a smallish hamper with a removable bag, for things that need to go to the dry cleaners.

On a very high shelf above the clothes pole are summer seasonal things like hats and picnic hampers, camera bag....


And it's all in there, an amazing amount of stuff, all easily accessible. On the cheap, a piece at a time.


On the outer surface of the doors are a few over-door hooks for coat, things waiting to be re-hung, etc.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 12:53 AM

When we lived in an apartment after the divorce my son had one bedroom and my daughter the other, and I slept on a futon on the living room. They went to bed earlier so I wasn't bothered during the night. I shared a large walk-in closet with Moonglow, but didn't have a dresser top. We shared a bathroom counter, but that wasn't the same.

There was a coat closet right inside the front door, but most of what we hung up in there was short. So I reworked the closet, put a shelf all the way to the door jamb at waist height and put the hanger rod under it. I put shallow shelves up the back of the closet above the waist-high shelf, but I spaced them high enough that I could prop a very pretty mirror at the back. There was a plug nearby so I had a small lamp in there and all of my hairbrush and various dresser items on that shelf and above. The kids still hung jackets in the bottom of the closet. Anything long went in the bedroom closets.

I was quite pleased with the resulting look of that little space and it was very efficient.

Geez, but I'm tired. I'll sleep tonight! I think I spent a full 3 hours pushing the mower and toting the trimmer. I never use the self-propelled feature so I get more of a workout.

SRS

P.S. I've since learned that this kids-in-the-bedrooms Mom-on-the-futon arrangement is commonplace when divorced-moms move into apartments. Giving the kids a space of their own (they always shared a room until then) and getting more thorough use of the space by turning the entire thing into a nighttime sleeping space wasn't an original idea. It was crowded but well-designed, and I had two of those big Public Storage pods plus a storage locker in New Mexico in a town I almost moved to, packed away until I moved into this house. Once I got everything out of storage I swore I'd never have so much stuff here that I'd have to use it while I lived in a house. If I had extra money, I'd invest in those storage lockers. People are packrats and the folks who build those must make a killing.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: freda underhill
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 04:01 AM

well, i have finalled cleared all the boxes out of my living room. on the weekend i got rid of more books,magazines and more clothes!for those who don't know my house was renovated and i moved back in in january.

I still have to sort a lot of things, but they are not in my living room any more. it feels almost normal in there - except i still have to get some artwork back up on the walls.
freda

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 09:58 AM

SRS,

Pods, yes, cool... one REALLY cool use I have seen for them is to have one as a 30-day sorting space outside the house-- out of the weather!!!-- where you can tote out all the crap that needs to be sorted/culled and shut the door on it when you've done "enough" for the day. What you keep comes back in the house, and what you don't keep you can always send to storage for however long you want to pay the bill! :~) Or it can go to the nearby curb.

I love the description of your mini-dressing room.

~Former mom on futon (double bed cushy couch)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 10:50 AM

Funny story about those pods. I had two delivered and they were supposed to wait until I called them before they picked them up. I came home from work after three days and they were both gone. I called, very annoyed, and told them to bring one back, that I hadn't called because I hadn't finished. They are supposed to be loaded with up to 2,000 pounds each. The clerk asked which one I wanted--the one that was 1,500 or the one that was 3,000? Ooops. That was the books, and it wasn't full, but I decided I'd better finish my work with the lighter pod and rearrange the stuff in it to make space for the remaining items to store.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 11:42 AM

LOL-- maybe that is why several comapnies are now competing with the Pod People-- sounds like they're vulnerable to it! :~)

[singing] Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my poddie to me, to me....

Er, no....

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 01:13 PM

I took a little coffee break this morning and evicted the contents of two boxes of seasonal decor. They'll go to Goodwill. Halloween pumpkin shapes and various oddball xmas ornaments. Candle holders, etc. I tossed some old decorations (tattered foil garland, boxes of "silver rain"--that stuff is bad for kids and pets). Some of this was mine, some came from my mother's house.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 03:53 PM

Half the stuff I get rid of I got from other family members. Isn't it funny how glad they are for me, when I tell them I'm de-cluttering? My sister says, when I get rid of stuff she passed along to me, that I am clearly the stronger person! :~) So I bet your mom would be proud of you.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 01:45 AM

In amongst the holiday detritus I found a good eBay item--a "Candle Chime" with a couple of boxes of candles to go with it. It came from Mom's house, another hint of her first-generation Scandianvian upbringing, but something I'll never use it. It is easy to pack, easy to ship, and there have been a few selling on eBay lately. Pop a few photos on Photobucket and whip up a table in Front Page to post on the auction page and I'm set. (Note to self--it is GOOD to set aside the guilt every time some little item speaks to you. Choose carefully. I kept her Daughters of Norway cookbook that I found the other day--it's less likely to be a fire hazard.)

I moved more paper off of my office floor, and not to a new resting place, but actually into files where they belong or (mostly) into the shredder or recycling bag. Those papers were in three bulky boxes I cleared from the floor in here today.

The many many film packets are in a box on the shelf in my office closet. I need this new slide scanner repaired (long story, but it ran once then died. At least there is a warranty. . . ) and I'll put a lot of my slides from over the years to work, hopefully earning a little income. There is a silver lining associated with all of this dusty work!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 01:53 AM

I thought I'd throw out a number now. . .

200

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 12:08 PM

Dropped off a smallish box of Halloween and Christmas ornamental objects at the Goodwill this morning. It's interesting, how when the most obvious clutter is moved out of an area you can see that the underlying material isn't necessary either. Or that the underlying stuff really has good bones and now needs to come into its own.

A couple of years back there was a program on one of the DIY or Discovery channels that had people fishing around in basements and attics to find forgotten treasures and things to move or re-purpose and then decorate a room in the same house that needed it. It was sometimes a little odd (like the white picket fence they installed in an attic bedroom) but usually quite interesting. Does anyone have plans for that kind of work once you finish decluttering?

SRS (who needs to get back to the newsletter she's writing)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 02:39 PM

SRS--

I'm one of those people who ALWAYS has plans like that for stuff. White picket fence pieces make great headboards for a bed that doesn't have one. It's fun to try to figure out what you can do to use things differently than they are "purposed" for. A lot of the magazines I like give ideas along those lines, and being a crafty sort, I like to try them out.

A major problem with de-cluttering around this place is JiK. He appears to be convinced that if I move anything that belongs to him, I'm either going to sell it for nothing, give it away, or throw it in the trash, and he may NEED it someday. This is a man who still, in 1997, had a speaker set from his 20-year-gone Volkswagen, knew where it was in the garage, and had the RECEIPT in the bag! So I try to work around his stuff, and sometimes the piles are too big to see over. If I can get him motivated, he will occasionally re-arrange a spot or two, but it simply means finding a new place to put the stuff--usually a place that I just got cleared off.

As you can tell, I'm feeling better today, although cranky. Coffee even tasted good this morning, so I suspect I'm on the mend.

Speaking of empty boxes, Kat, there are two huge ones in the living room that held our flat-screen monitors last year. You dare not throw them, you know, because you might have to send them back to the company for repair or warranty replacement, and they want the original boxes of course!

SRS, I know all about putting guilt aside to get rid of things. When my mother died, I apparently was the designated receptacle of all things of Mom's that no one else had room for or wanted to keep. It's been difficult to decide what I can get rid of without regretting it down the way. Fortunately, her clothes didn't fit any of us, so my niece, bless her heart, took them to a consignment shop and split the money among us all. We didn't even have to try to go through them, which would have been a very hard job for me, at least. I gave a 1910 coffee maker (that still had all the pieces and would have worked if we'd filled the kerosene tank) to the museum in our little home town because it came originally from my grandparents' hotel in that town. They were thrilled to get it, and it is a piece of the town's history.

Today I'm going to try to get my sister-in-law's quilt finished, so that will be one more project out the door when I go visit her. There is a huge stack of genealogy paperwork my cousin sent my brother a while back, which he immediately passed to me (of course) that needs going through and filed. Yard? What yard? We have a yard?

Too much fun...

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 02:49 PM

Oops, SRS, meant to add:

Was your mother a craftsperson? Around the turn of the 20th century, painting porcelain was a widespread hobby for young women. They used quite a lot of Oriental styles and subjects for their painting. That might explain why there are no marks on the cups/saucers. Try Googling "Saturday Evening Girls" and you should see lots of info about this phenomenon.

Kat, no supplemental oxygen sounds great! Way to go, and keep getting better, hear?

Back to (sort of) work.

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 03:09 PM

Thanks, Linn, you, too!

More than half of the boxes I got rid of were exactly that: original manufacturers' boxes in which we might have to send back something under warranty...NOT! Out they went...I love taking risks!**bg**

So instead of JinK...maybe it should be JunK?**bg**

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: LilyFestre
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 03:11 PM

I cleaned out the pants section of my closet today and found 10 pairs of pants that I can no longer wear, they are too big! I found a couple skirts too! DH pulled out about 12 flannel shirts that are going too!

A little bit at a time. :)

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 04:09 PM

Kat, I LIKE it--JunK is perfect! (Hope he's not reading this thread...) ah, well, if the shoe fits...

Michelle, congrats. It sounds like you're making progress. Flannel shirts in my house would stay when everything else went, though--I'm a tomboy from WAY back and I love my flannel shirts!

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 04:17 PM

LOL...so, welcome to our new member: JohnunKansas!**BG**

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 04:29 PM

JunK--whoa, I bet that hits close to home! But come to think of it, I may still have the timing light that I bought for tuning up MY 1967 beetle. . . and that's been gone since about 1976.

Mom sewed, crocheted and knitted, but never, as far as I know, did any painting or drawing. Cup and Saucer. Not a Saturday Evening Girl. This is a raised pattern like an embossed finish, so it is something added to the original cup and put in a kiln. There are five (were six, but one set broke in the mail on the way here) cup and saucer sets. Interesting that they just matched the Starbucks ad that had fallen out of the morning newspaper, so I set them on top of it. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: LilyFestre
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 07:37 PM

I didn't get rid of ALL my flannel shirts or his but a decent sized pile....ones that the sleeves shrank or we shrank!

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 12:57 AM

My dad saved the boxes and the Styrofoam for every appliance he bought. He also filed the owner's manuals, so when I did his estate I put all of this stuff back together again. It wasn't necessary. They make boxes and stuff you can use to pad things. Go buy a new one if you ever actually need it.

I attacked two hall closets tonight. Whew! Coats I didn't know I had, my old NPS uniform jackets, and things my sister sent I'd forgotten all about. A couple of Mom's WAC uniforms, and stuff that she bought at the opening of the Women's War Memorial in Washington, D.C. in the early 1990s. Old uniforms sound interesting, but think about the millions of them out there. So I'll look around to see if museums are interested but in the end may donate them to a local theater group. I did that with some old fur coats years ago. I have one of those I should get rid of also, come to think of it.

One shelf had a gazillion duffels and cloth bags. I sorted them by type (I've been meaning to take them shopping with me and not bring home so much plastic) and organized what I'm keeping (3/4 of them--they do get used off and on, when I remember they're there). Some will go in the truck for shopping, others will just go in the truck for that bag you sometimes need for some durable or scuzzy reason. Throw aways if need be.

I have a fibre trash bag going now for the thrift store. The stuff that I'm dedicating to the rag brokers. Old cotton sweat pants, old airline Dacron pillows. Into the sack.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: mg
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 02:25 AM

Hold the presses. THe WAC museum or something else might be interested in the uniforms. I will ask around. mg

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 11:33 AM

Thanks, Mary! They're very nicely made and Mom had quite a good figure back then.

Before starting work this morning I emptied a Xerox paper box full of papers that was sitting on the office floor, recycling most, shredding some, and putting only a few for further consideration on the one remaining floor stack. I pulled out an accordian file folder for some of the kid art that has drifted to the top of the stack. Now that is pretty important stuff!

I hadn't noticed the Google ads on this page before, but right now there is one for "Hoarder Clean Up" (Free information about hoarding. You are not alone.) and "New: Organize Yourself" - Your personalized system is here - With expert guidance, it's simple!

They have us pegged! But this is DIY thread, thank you very much!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 03:00 PM

One of the things that JunK will do that I don't is shred papers. The only problem with that is that our Vinnie cat LOVES to play in the shredded paper, so it winds up in strings all over the office floor. But I have to admit he's very cute sitting in the shredded paper box!

I can't find my laundry room today. We have our son and daughter-in-law living with us, and apparently she had a LOT of laundry to do yesterday. I didn't notice what a zoo it was until I tried to get in there to get the cats' food this morning. It may be better if I just stay away from that end of the house for a couple of days!

Back to my sister-in-law's quilt. Keep up the good work, ladies!

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 03:27 PM

I have finally decluttered somewhat - three large shelves' worth of books, and more outgrown clothes than I can carry... Whoo hoo! I actually fit back into my bookshelves, closets and dressers! Don't quite know what came over me... packrat that I usually am...

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 04:40 PM

I'm still trying to raise courage to do the clothes thing....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 05:50 PM

Inspiration came come one small space at a time. Once I took the old coats and uniforms out of the closet in the old hall (as contrasted to the new hall that intersects with it that also has a closet. When I moved in I converted the original garage to two rooms, a hall, and four storage or equipment areas and put a new doorway into the front of the house, and built a new garage in the back yard. See Janie's townhouse/condo thread for links to photos). Anyway, that old closet is where I reorganized luggage and shopping bags and found the uniforms and other unused stuff.

The new hall closet around the corner is much like the apartment closet I described--shelves on top with a rod at waist height for short jackets below.

It dawned on me during lunch that I could now fit (consolidate) the stuff from the new hall closet into the old hall closet. And that allowed me to take the upright vacuum that gets stuffed in the old hall closet and set it in the new one. And the two-wheeled shopping cart. And the new little canister vacuum that hasn't been put away anywhere so far. It works out great! I can see the stuff in the new closet (there is also a cot and a telescope and some paint cans I must address pretty soon.) The old closet isn't too crowded now.

It took longer to describe the job than to do it, but the results are wonderful.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 08:53 PM

I made 850 plant labels from 2 sets of Venetian blinds today. Four more sets to do, and I'll have saved $75 or more I'd have had to pay for labels for this year's seedlings and plants for the farm stand.

It took about an hour to disassemble the blinds, cut the sections to the desired sizes, and wrap a rubber band around each set of 50. The labels I cut today all fit into a single gallon-sized zip bag.

To sweeten the deal, I will no longer have to store the bag of blinds.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 10:51 PM

What a clever use of those old blinds, maeve! Good for you!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 12:24 AM

Two more of these items are listed on eBay. And one that ends tomorrow has a little flurry of activity (lots of watchers and a bunch of hits today). It's nice when my clutter becomes someone else's tool or treasure! To keep shipping costs as low as possible I always recycle boxes, but keeping shipping boxes is a major source of clutter. A lot of them are flat, and quite a few of various sizes are nested. My eBay area is shaping up to be one of the more organized areas of the house. I set up a table in the living room for my son to do a poster for school this evening. He needed materials to measure, cut (x-acto), etc., and I ended up retrieving materials from my eBay table. I wasn't ready to clear that deck for him to work in there, so the system isn't perfect. But at least I knew where everything was (and it's going back as soon as he finishes).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 11:36 AM

I realized with the poster project last night that I don't need to keep my art stuff in separate areas any more. I had a separate bin of things that were specialized or sharp kept where the kids couldn't hurt themselves with it, everything else is in a craft cupboard in the sun (eBay) room. But now that isn't a problem. Compressing materials into one place is part of this decluttering process. I can also put the school supplies in there, get them out of my office.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 07:44 PM

Me again. . .

It's a slow process to push these things out via eBay, but I'm determined to meet my target of $100 a month. I was able to ship another box today.

Paper is such a killer for me, and is often what jumps out at me when seeing the house through someone else's eyes, as when people come here for the first time. I realize it has also killed my social life, because there are a lot of people I haven't invited because of the clutter. That needs to change.

Still no end in sight, but a little more floor space.

(Google is touting "Gain 3 hours, for life-" and "Declutter Made Easy.")

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 11:21 AM

Okay, so it's me four times in a row.

I stopped by two garage sales this morning.

Garage sales! you're thinking? She's trying to declutter, not add to the mess.

You're right. But I only spent $2. A lot of clutter CAN come into the house $2 at a time, but I think I chose wisely. I've been looking for a six-muffin tin that will fit into my convection oven, but they don't seem to make them any more. I found one.

I also found a box of felt squares and one big chunk for my daughter the theater arts minor who says she will use it right away for a project that needs to be completed by the end of May.

And two books. One is a decluttering book (Aslett really is quite a philosopher) because it is one I haven't seen and might offer a little more encouragement, and will probably read and give away (I gave away another one last week). The other is a book that will start me on my research to my fibre recycling article. It's Kirk Douglas' autobiography The Ragman's Son. I won't necessarily read the whole thing, but I want his spin on that life at that time of the century as background for my article. I could check it out from the library and get rid of it later, or I could buy this copy (reuse) and then donate it somewhere when I finish.

Finally, a note about the garage sale from two weeks ago: I bought a shoe box of cookie cutters and a cookie press for $1. I sold the cookie press on eBay for $12.50 and the cookie cutters that end tomorrow have a couple of watchers at 89 cents.

This weekend I have plans to clear out some of the stuff that I accumulated in the front of the house (like clearing off my love seat again!) I think donation rather than garage sale is the easier way to go, as long as I am able to use the itemized deduction form for my income taxes. It means this stuff is just out of here, I don't have to advertise and sell it in the driveway over a whole day, after the work of cleaning and sorting and tagging. If I want to sell a few larger pieces later I'll go in with the ladies up the street who do a sale a couple of times a year.

Has anyone else been weighing the "donate vs. take it completely out of circulation" question? I look at a lot of this childish clutter an think no one could possibly use it, maybe I should send it to the landfill. I don't think a lot of these plastic toys are recyclable, they don't have any symbols. Does anyone know anything about that?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 11:28 AM

Ragpickers Son is an excellent read!

As to the toys. Are they usable? We have a center here for migrant families and they are always open to good, clean, usable donations including toys.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 12:11 PM

Mostly these are those little giveaway things from drivein restaurants and cheap party favors from over the years.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 03:44 PM

This afternoon I walked out back to see what the dogs were barking at. It was a good natured "come over here and talk to me" wagging bark, and beyond where the cyclone fence meets the stockade fence I saw the neighbor and her two-year-old visiting grandson pushing a fire truck. I commented to her on all of the toys I still have in my garage, and arranged to meet her out front. I pulled out my son's Fisher Price (I think) gray crenellated castle with lots of towers and cannonballs and knights and things that open and move and blast. The boy was with her when I set it on the grass, opened a door to let the balls roll out, then fired one from the cannon. That kid was fully engaged, said "thank you!" and they trotted off around the corner for an afternoon of play. And I have one less thing in there.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 01:58 AM

Way to carpe' diem, SRS!

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 08:17 PM

I scored a three-pointer this evening. I finally got a bit of yard clutter out--I dug up the basketball hoop. What a job. You know how small (relatively) the hole is that you pour the concrete in to put it in place? It's an open pit mine to loosen it, then if you're doing it by yourself, you have to wiggle and roll and add the dirt back to a point where you have the thing level with the top of the hole and can roll it out. It's down at the bottom of the driveway now. I didn't put the backstop down there, but I'm tempted to tape a sign on that says "knock at the door for the backstop" or it'll go without the pole.

Any thoughts? I want to get rid of them both. I suppose the backstop could go to Goodwill, but if someone wants this pole, they might as well have the rest of it. It's a nice adjustable one.

I think I earned a beer this evening.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 08:34 PM

You certainly DID earn a beer, or two, even! Phew! I'd put the backstop down there with a free sign for both.:->

We got things cleaned up and moved around in my office, so the library table is cleaned off and ready for all of my jewellery making supplies! I can't believe how excited I am about getting back into that. My StonePeople Designs is c-a-l-l-i-n-g me!

Morgan knew we were moving his art easel and little table out to the living room. So he called up this morning, announced that he'd had a bath and was clean AND that he was coming over. He was gung-ho when he got here. Before we turned around he had carried his heavy easel out and went back for the table, which he also carried out all by himself. He did a great job until he got the mop. I didn't know what he was doing, but saw him go into the bathroom with the mop. Heard the water running. I had to go outside for a moment. When I came back, he had the mop on top of his table, pushing it around! He wanted his table to be clean! I got him a cloth and he put the mop away. A few minutes later when I went to use the bathroom, I sat down on a wet seat! There was water all over from the sink, to the toilet and the floor. I could just see him dragging that long mop handle and mop out of the sink and slinging it across the toilet to head out the door! Next time I look before I sit!

Ah, well, the office is much less cluttered and even Morgan's area in the living room looks less messy!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 11:59 PM

You have reached a point that I want to--a workspace for beading.

As to the mop action, that's a great image. A little scary, but a great image!

I'm still reading Clutter's Last Stand and seeing new things all of the time. The latest chapter is talking about all of those "perfectly good" things that don't go with anything else any more. Is the appliance gone but the attachments still hanging around? Did you get rid of a warped table but keep the barely-used leaf because it was in great shape (but you can't use it for anything)? I went through a hardware and catch-all drawer in the kitchen and tossed all of the old replaced watch bands, the bits from broken flaslights, the pieces of things that might some day get used if some other thing around the house breaks. I have a tin in the cupboard for screws and washers and I'll drop a few things in there (that is a lifesaver, I've gone to it many times, so it isn't like everything you're not using right this minute is clutter. But if you can't find it when you need it, then that is a problem.)

My office is looking so much better. Tomorrow I'm taking aim at a cabinet in the corner that is full of computer stuff--but it's the kind of thing you need rarely and usually I just toss the extra stuff in there. How many phone cords do I think I'll ever need in a lifetime? I have a lot of cable and cord adapters and at this point quite a few USB cords. Those come in handy, but most of the rest is unnecessary. This cabinet could go out to the garage to hold tools. And I need to decide where stuff will go. I counted--I have four separate places around the house for cable and cords. One will do.

For now, my butt and my back are singing out

♪♪Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight!♪

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 03:34 AM

Aw Kat - look at it this way - a clean table top AND a clean bum!

Stilly - we had one of those 'places'... we called it ERIC. The Electricity Related Items Container. It started out as a shoebox and ended up as a big red crate. Now it has 'Son of ERIC' and 'ERIC's love child' scattered about the house.

Of course, all the original ERIC stuff is in the loft and hasn't been touched for years. I suspect we could throw it out and start again by now.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 01:29 PM

Liz, I love it--son of ERIC, indeed! I think we have several of his love children around here.

I've been busily earning money the last few days proofreading a book for a client, but John did a BIG de-clutter for me last night: he replaced a leaking faucet in the bathroom that's needed to go for ages, and in the process even mopped the floor! Sometimes it's easy to remember why I married that man. The new faucet looks great and will save us a bit on the water bill, and the environment a bit on water, too. Way to go, John!

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 05:16 PM

Does this mean we have to quit calling him JunK?:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 07:34 PM

I pulled all of ERIC's geeky first cousin's collection out of that cabinet to take a look at it and see if I want to keep it all. I'd forgotten a lot of that was there.

I like that name JunK--I think we are bound to let it creep into our discourse. You'd better alert him to it's presence if you haven't already.

The big news today is that I did take the sledge hammer out and after about 20-30 minutes chipped off the concrete. It was cheap and coarse fencepost concrete so it crumbled. It does help that I've had a lot of years of chopping wood, the technique is the same. I had lots of people drive past but no manly-men stopped to offer to help me with the job. I suspect they decided to stay clear of that 5-lb hammer. ;-D

At the curb (sans concrete boot). The hoop and backboard are set on top of the pole but they aren't actually attached to it. The pole is quite reasonable to move around without the base.

The corner where the hoop stood. I would like to put permanent bird attracting shrubs and plants on this corner, but I'm tempted to put veggies in here this year. I'm working on a couple of other beds, but this is probably going to be the biggest. I tossed on compost, green sand, and lava sand and tomorrow I'm going to run the tiller through it to mix it thoroughly and deeply. My neighbor gave me the tiller and I had it repaired, but I'm not expert using it, so I'll have him help me (and use it himself if he wants to till his yard. He's in his 70s and said he's tired of tilling and may have someone else do it. Who knows--maybe that 'someone' will be me!)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 08:23 PM

Maggie, you are so industrious! And, I love that you provide us pix of the updates. The only thing lacking is a FREE sign on the pole and backboard.:-)

Rog and I went to the hardware store, today,and found the neatest little plastic parts boxes, just perfect for my jewellery supplies. He attached a new lamp with magnifying glass on the table for me and drug out the bin which all of my parts were in. I've been separating them, putting the beads etc. in their own little boxes and it feels SO good, so organised and READY to create again. It's been a long time coming!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 09:12 PM

Kat, around here if it is at the curb, it is free. The exception is to put something out with a price sign on it. I don't know how well that actually works, if people actually offer to pay (or maybe it assures that things go away faster by stealth! Maybe I should go slap a $50 sign on the pole!)

I have a couple of fly-tying magnifiers that are handy for close bead work and such. Hands free. One has a couple of alligator clamps.

I've contemplated this process of decluttering and enumerating the steps as I work. The list is very helpful (I haven't posted over on the diet accountability thread, but you can guess that I'm burning a few calories with all of this work.) It occurred to me that it might be a public list of stuff at the house, but to the contrary, I think we're all mostly listing stuff that ISN'T in the house any more. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 11:28 AM

The basketball hoop is gone! History!

I heard a pickup stop and a neighbor was putting it in the back. I went out and thanked him and asked if he needed a rope to attach it. He was driving two blocks up our quiet street, so was okay and his son has a larger pickup. It's for his grandson. Good! It needs to go where it will get used. It's not that none of us enjoy shooting hoops, it was the bad locations. We could get one of those portable ones and use it on the other side of the drive. Or maybe I should send my son two doors up the street and ask if he can shoot hoops there.

I have sorted the contents of the ERIC cabinet into telephony, computer, and audio/video baskets and will thin those down. And then there is the "where did this come from?" category and the "well, shoot, I thought I already got rid of all of this stuff" stack. I don't need this many printer cables or other cables, so I think they're bound for eBay, as is an old Zip drive.

Maybe at lunch I can start putting some of the slides and photo books and boxes in the former ERIC cabinet. I've decided it needs to be a dedicated camera and film spot. It's where the slide scanner can sit and reach the computer. This is a much better use.

Later on I need to . . . gulp . . . approach the plastic in the Tupperware cupboard . . .

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 12:12 AM

YeeHaw! Good for you, Maggie!

I have spent the past two days going through all of my jewellery supplies, mostly beads. I had put them all in baggies and a bin when we moved over six years ago. Made a couple of half-hearted attempts to use them over those years with no energy to do so. I *thought* I'd gotten rid of a lot of inventory. No way! I have sorted almost all of them, now, by shape, size, and colour/type. I have filled over 100 little plastic boxes, actually about 139...I lost count! Now, I cna hardly wait to start designing.

A dear friend found out what I do and liked the jewellery pix I sent her, so she sent some bits she's collected over the years. All of them have a story and meaning to them, which she has shared and which makes them that more precious to me. She has asked me to design a couple of special necklaces from them. I am honoured and so ready to get started, esp. now that most of my things are sorted! The rest of my clutter may not get shifted soon, but I am going to have fun. There is also an art show coming up which I may design one for, for display and sale.

I love this thread! Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 12:44 AM

Kat, I hope you'll start a special design album over at photobucket or flickr, wherever you keep your photos.

I just sent this to a friend, but since it is so germane to this thread, I'll post it here also. I've been cranky the last couple of days and I think it is because there is so much I want to be doing, but I have to force myself to get this extra stuff out of here. Like Kat getting to her beading now. Case in point:

Tonight I was going to run the tiller over this new bed, but I couldn't find the spark plug wrench I needed for starting it. The trick to these old garden machines is to remove the spark plug, spray a little starter fluid into the hole, then put the plug back. None of my crescent wrenches would fit. This is one of the reasons I've been decluttering--I knew perfectly well I had the wrench SOMEWHERE, but after wasting time looking for it I took a hoe out and worked the dirt to mix in the amendments I scattered yesterday.

Tonight I decided to see what I could do about that lost wrench, and I attacked the cupboards in my utility room. A tall one, two doors opening onto two shelves, over each side of the room. I mostly needed to do the dryer side, and along with a gazillion lightbulbs I found things I didn't remember I had that came from my Dad's house (switches for the halogen pole lamps, at least four of them), the rounded halogen bulbs on bought on a great sale ($1.99 for four bulbs when the store discontinued them), lots of bug spray, painters hats, solvents, and garden chemicals. Shelf liner, night lights, one-to-three wall plugs, and three sets of garden pruners! I didn't know I had all of those (and I still didn't find the pair I was looking for the last couple of days. I'd left it in my back pocket and took it out somewhere not-typical, and can't remember where that was.)

The coup-de-grace was over the washer. I pulled out a basket with extension cords and found lots of phone cords. Then I pulled out another container full of phone cords. I must have 1000 feet of phone cords. How on earth did I do that? I think some came from my Dad's house, because he had his computer way across the room from his phone, and used a couple of those. And when I was in the apartment before moving here I think I had to run a long one for the computer. But this many? They all were neatly wound and dropped into a bag for the Goodwill.

And guess what? I found my spark plug wrench. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 03:43 PM

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, but this company make Really Useful Boxes!

They have little tiny ones for beads and paper cutouts, bigger ones for tools and bits, huge ones for boots, shoes and small children, even long thin ones for rolls of wrapping paper!

Their 4ltr thin boxes are perfect for keeping documents flat and clean, the lids clip on securely and they stack. They also come in groovy rainbow colours.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 04:49 PM

And they are finally opening in the USA! Yes, love the pretty colours, too!:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 10:06 PM

Target and Sam's Club and Dollar stores and (for the high end) The Container Store and places like Office Depot have lots of those kinds of boxes. I have quite a few here, especially the ones that have hanging files.

A big trash bag of mostly stuff pulled from my linen cupboards went to the thrift store today. Some of those old twin sheet sets had been on my bed when I was a child. But no one is going to use them now, and someone might pick them up and give them new life. Or maybe they're interesting in 40 year old patterns. . . Also took out some old mattress pads and some old pillows. They can recycle the Dacron fibre.

My laundry room cupboards are so tidy now--but I have a couple of boxes of useful stuff that isn't used often that needs to go in some bins on a set of shelves out in the garage. So I have to clean up those shelves before these go out. It's the child's party favor all over again--you know those little puzzles with 36 spots and 35 tiles? You have to move them into the blank spot and move the next one into the new blank spot and eventually they're in order.

SRS (who won't be online too much this evening--I have a sty in my eye that feels almost like a sinus infection because it's on a pressure point and I lobbed a stink bomb on another thread this morning before I left for work and don't feel like going back to see where the shrapnel landed. . . it's put the laundry in the dryer and an early night with Harry Potter 6. I want to finish this one before the film comes out.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 10:39 PM

Well, maybe the sty doesn't want you reading too much, tonight?**bg**

I am down to sorting my findings: chain, clasps, crimps,jump rings, etc. Aarrghhh...tedious, tiny....time-consuming, but still feels good. This afternoon, Morgan christened my new bead board by stringing his very own, first necklace. It is an eclectic mix.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:09 PM

I am still far away from having the place ready to sit down and sort my beads and findings. I've been moving things forward in the house, but my son tends to dump things out of his way without asking why they are where they are. I asked him not to do that, it slows down my ability to get this out of the house if I have to sort it again, and I would like to press him into service one evening if he isn't loaded down with homework.

I found an interesting article in the April 2008 Martha Stewart Living on page 170. The Healthy Living/Wellness feature this month is "The Curse of Clutter." How timely. Mary Duenwald wrote this piece that discusses the process of hoarding and how it contributes to clutter and how it may even have a genetic marker. I checked, this article isn't online.

I would hasten to add that a lot of what I think she is talking about is the kind of stuff that gets houses condemned and emptied with back hoes, but that might not be the case. She starts with an example I hadn't heard of, the Collyer brothers in Harlem, from a well-to-do family but with reclusive and hoarding behavior that is amazing to read about. And when I did a search I found a site for the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation. The Duenwald article says the two, obsessive/compulsive disease and hoarding aren't necessarily related, but the web site claims they are. Here is the link.

My house isn't like that house. No way. Pack rat isn't the same as hoarding, but if you read the Martha Stewart article, you may well notice tendencies that, when amplified, escalate into hoarding.

I learned something new!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 03:29 PM

Oh dear.... oh deary dear...

My name is Liz and I'm a hoard-a-holic.....


LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 09:11 PM

I just bagged 20 bags of newspapers for recycling. Some of them went back to 2003. When I finish going through my LPs, I'll know I'm home free.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 09:40 PM

Saulgoldie, good to see a new face here! 20 paper grocery bags? You've had a tripping hazard around for a while, it sounds like!

When I was a child and going to elementary school in West Seattle, Washington, the school would do a paper drive every year, and families saved up for that. We lugged so much paper to school in those couple of weeks that they stacked them high in these "play courts" that we used in cold and wet weather. They just about filled them.

I try not to let more than a couple of bags of paper pile up, though this time of year I keep at least one bag out in the garage to use in the garden, where it is sometimes handy to put under the mulch to keep weeds down.

I've put more on eBay, and I'm targeting a bunch of kids clothes this evening. I'll photograph, list, and bag them, and drop them off at Goodwill tomorrow morning. It's going slow, but it's going. Did anyone else read the story about the Collyer brothers? I looked a bit further, there was a book written about them in 2003. They had the defective gene in spades, but through their madness they took themselves out of the gene pool.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Diva
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 07:07 AM

1 and a half welsh dressers so far......a piano to a very good home. A manky carpet.....and a massive pile of junk from the kitchen which is out in the garden awaiting uplift to the dump but can't bear to get rid of books

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 09:10 AM

That's why I asked Manitas to take our bag of books to the charity shop or recycling centre.. I knew that if it were still here I'd be poking around in it and changing my mind about which ones to dispose of...

Trouble is, there is a bag in the porch that looks suspiciously like a bag of books that never made it to the charity shop.....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 09:35 AM

Diva, is this what you mean by a Welsh dresser? Are you getting rid of the contents or the dressers? Those are beautiful display pieces (I'd love to have one for my china and crystal). I know. More to dust. . .

I took several unused duffel bags and a bunch of plastic baskets and containers down to Goodwill this morning. Also a perfectly good computer keyboard, except that for this touch typist, once the little bumps on F and J wear down, I get lost on the thing. I even taped on the installation disk to go with it. I try to differentiate between useful donatable stuff and things that simply must go to the recycle bin or the dump. When I look at the stack that piles up overnight by the Goodwill trailer, I can't say everyone uses the same discrimination. I think they're trying to avoid being charged for an extra bulky waste pickup by the city.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 12:13 AM

I photographed those phone cords this evening so I can drop them off in the morning at the Goodwill trailer. This is about 3/4 of them, with the rest being tucked neatly away in the cupboard for in case I need to sling phone cords around the house for some reason. All of the rest of these are overkill. What I kept is probably overkill. The seven on the right hand side are at least 50' long. The rest are anywhere from 7 to 15 feet. The ones I kept were for their length and interesting colors. (Great reasons, right?)

There are some china platters that my sister sent from my Mom's house that have made it from storage into my eBay room. We ended up with them when my parents bought a sideboard at an estate auction in about 1967 and it came with the contents, including a set of Warwick china. We used some of it, but mostly the big platters and such stayed in there. I looked them up on eBay and after figuring out the name of the pattern I figure I have a couple hundred dollars of plates here that I wasn't planning to keep. Looks like its time to dig out some of the packing materials and make some really safe shipping packages and let these seek their own level in the auction world.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 07:29 AM

Such progress you're making! Well done, everyone!

We're decluttering outside this week, with such good weather at hand.

Gardens cleaned, brush cut and hauled to the compost piles, fruit tree pruning, scion cutting for grafting in a few days... I emptied many pots of good soil (from overwintered plants that gave in to the ice this winter) into various garden beds.

We'll be hauling and spreading compost for a while, too. The aim is to get the 30 x 100 veggie garden covered with several inches of compost before tilling it in. I need to start planting in the next week. We're expecting this next year to be a hard one, with food costs rising fast. We'll need to raise most of our food, and neighbors will likely need extra help as well.

TL cleaned out the birdhouses too, just in time for the swallows' and bluebirds' spring arrival. I painted the old metal loveseat swing out on the lawn. Greenhouse frames are assembled. Moving the greenhouse bench parts out from the veggie garden and out back to the greenhouses this morning.

When the rain returns this weekend I'll return to the decluttering in the house.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 01:25 AM

maeve, you've identified some chores that indicate you have a much larger garden operation than I have. The luxury of a greenhouse—it's on my "one of these days" list.

I do have "decluttering" to do in the yard this weekend, jusch as to finish with bags of mulch and soil that I bought last year (before the plastic breaks down and I can't move it without a shovel).

Here is a blurb from Aslett:

Page 94

sub chapter Blue Ribbon Junkees

Talks about farmers having the space to park things farther and farther back, and if they have a welder, then everything is "repairable."

He concludes:

Brethren of the soil, I've struggled with this myself through two generations of farms and ranches and most of it is clutter! Haul if off and plant something—you'll reduce the rattlesnake breeding grounds and help prevent injuries and divorces, as well as the profanities you utter every time you're looking through it for a part.

I love farm women—they're the real class and beauty of the world's womanhood, so I won't mention the fact that they are also the champion bottle collectors of the world, the garden junk accumulators of all time, the sewing scrap savers supreme, queens of the recipe collectors, and of course the cellar shelf fillers without equal. Farm folk, de-junk—and the junkyard won't know what hit it!

This could explain some of my clutter/packrat genes. My mother grew up on a farm.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 07:31 PM

Greetings to all you de-junkers. I've let things get out of hand the last few years and need to do a major purge around my house. Too many projects and interests, too many files, too many rocks and fossils and minerals and shells, not enough good storage space....yada yada.   I actually have read Aslett and done a lot of that stuff in the past, but it requires a certain vigilance to keep up which has been lost.

Recently I was agonizing about how we NEED to have a garage sale and start e-baying, since we are no longer flush enough with cash to just freely donate everything which of course is much faster and easier, but not really as rewarding, especially when you see the clerks at the goodwill grabbing your good suit for themselves rather than leaving it for a job-hunter to find on the rack.

From the blue, a neighbor we don't see much asked if we wanted to help with a garage sale in two weeks and bring some stuff. YES!! A window of hope has opened. We can bring some stuff, yet not have to kill ourselves getting every possible thing out there, or do the advertising, etc. Heaven-sent help.

Now, if I could just get started with one corner of the place.....lost hours today just getting a bunch of stuff filed away and laundry caught up. Never mind starting to really box stuff up and get it out...and then suddenly another meal needs preparing and we're out of milk and then...oh sheesh. Then it'll be time for work again.

Anyway, I've enjoyed reading the progress that's being made and deriving some inspiration from. So give 'em hell, declutterers.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 08:30 PM

Me, too, pattty! My daughter told me today they want to have a yard sale soon and would I do the money bit AND bring some stuff. They live four doors down from us. Would I!!??Heck yes!

Rog had to go in to work this morning and I was mad. I channelled it like a good dooby and painted another shutter. They've been stacked in the kitchen all winter waiting for me to get each one done. I have two layers of paint on this one, add another two and I will only have five more shutters to go! That's a good bit of clutter to get done and out!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 08:56 PM

That's good, Kat--shutter clutter. :)

I dug a flower bed this afternoon. My aching body will attest to this. Before the new roof last fall every time it rained there was the granular stuff from the old roof landing in a few drainage areas. This new bed is away from that, so tomorrow I will dig up and transplant a bunch of cannas from one of the tar areas. I may have to start by carefully scraping up several inches of granular stuff first.

The foundation soaker hose is the occasion for this new bed. Since I water it during the summer I might as well have some beds all of the way around. That side of the house is plain brick with grass and a heat pump. I don't want hedges, I'll put various height annuals. These cannas are a good start. My neighbor tells me she had good luck with asperagus out in that area of her yard (until her husband dug it up because he was afraid it would hurt his foundation. Asperagus hurt a foundation! I think what might have hurt was the frying pan on his head!)

I have a lot of yard rearranging to do, and another thing I think I need to dejunk out there is one of the silverado sages. It was supposed to be a dwarf, but I have to keep pruning it back below five feet. It is lovely when it blooms out lavendar, but it didn't live up (down!) to the tag that said it was dwarf. Or if this is a dwarf, the regulars must be trees!

It's good to see that others are reading through and being inspired by this activity. My daughter took a microwave up to school today and a box of felt I bought for her at a garage sale. For all of this work, the living room and dining room are still very cluttered as I bring it forward from the rest of the house. I have a long way to go!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 11:58 PM

Thanks, Maggie...I like rhyming.**bg**

You are so full of energy and seem to be getting so much done! Phew!

I have done ALL of my jewellery findings, beads, bit and pieces save on small baggie of misc. that I will sort tomorrow. All of my split rings, jump rings, both top and side openings, were mixed in together along with some head pins and other small stuff. I separated them all out. If I never see another split ring/jump ring I will be happy! It does feel good to get it done. I am eager to start designing now.

Thanks everyone for participating in this thread. It has really helped.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 02:40 AM

I was going to start decluttering the garden this week, but as the blackbirds are nesting in the butterfly busy (where the pigeons were last year and the bluetits the year before), I can't cut that down. I can't cut the top out of the tree next to it, because that's providing cover for them and they're feeding young at the moment so pottering around clearing up the rubbish that's accumulated isn't really fair on them either. I just go out occasionally to shoo away a new cat to the neighbourhood. He's a big, pale tabby bully, who sits under the butterfly bush, drooling and looking up suggestively.

So instead, I'm indoors, making a start on scanning a crate of photographs to the external drive, in hopes of storing the real pictures somewhere other than the bedroom.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 08:38 AM

That should be a butterfly busH in the first sentence.

At least I got the loose photos sorted into envelopes and scanned about 50 in... only another 300+ to go!

How on earth did I end up with so many photographs of such a cute baby? You'd never believe the long-haired, hormonal pre-teen that's slugging around the house in a blanket today is the same girl...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 04:55 PM

I'm working on garden clutter also today. I took a breather to come eat a little late lunch, get a drink of water, and cool off. The cannas are coming out, but they're really dug in. I'm about to where the tar layer is worst, so I'll be scraping up the top and trashing it. I hate to be disturbing irises that haven't bloomed yet, mixed in where the cannas are, but if I wait any longer these lilies will be too big to move at all this year.

When I finish in the garden I'm going to load some stuff in the pickup to take over to Thrift Town when I head to the office tomorrow. I have a few more things to photograph and add to the bag. I also have a couple of things to put on eBay. Whether it leaves via the pickup, the trash, a passer-by, or the postal carrier, this place needs more emptying!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 08:34 PM

Last night I did gather up garage sale stuff from one room, and put it in The Box For That. Not a big pile but feels good to have a start.

Found a long-lost Delorme atlas I thought was gone for good, with lots of important (to me) notes in it. By really LOOKING at the contents of the shelves for once.   

Also walked around making lists of likely things for the sale, a little list for each room.   Breaking it into little pieces I can grasp.

I have a closet full of archive boxes full of writing and stuff, boy has that stuff created a bottleneck preventing normal stuff from being stored. A closet should be for stuff that needs to be at hand, not an archive.   So it's time to take those, one at a time, and start purging them down to a manageable one or two if I can, bound for Deep Storage.

It was another splendid lovely day, another one I am sorry to have spent too much indoors. Think of all those organized souls who finished doing all this stuff in dreary February and now they are free to wander around looking at flowers and listening to birds.   Well, no, they're probably not--not only working hard in the garden, but wildly overcommitting themselves to garden additions and whatnot. The seductive cool days of spring will do that, lure you into making insane commitments to your yard. Luckily I am largely immune to this lure.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 09:51 PM

*smile* I am immune to it, too, because our yard if SO large and so raw...too much to commit to at once.:-)

Boy, we did a lot today and it feels great. Little things, but they add up. OUr closet is a disaster. We can hang clothes and reach them, but in the middle sits Rog's highboy with a tv on it which we rarely use and the drawers are full of storage stuff he never uses. We didn't have time or energy, today, but sometime we are going to pull that out, build a shelving unit for the tv and pull out baskets for socks, pjs, etc.

Today we went to Walgreens where I found three nesting, collapsible canvas "baskets" (only five bucks!) which I lined up on a built-in shelf over by my side of the bed in which I sorted all of my undies, socks, tees, and pjs which have been living in a basket on grandma's trunk at the foot of our bed. Rog put all of the other clothes on hangers. These clothes have been circulating from the basket, to us, to the washer and dryer, to the basket for months and months. My dresser is in the office used for other things and the old buffet which I use for all of my jewellery boxes, etc. in our bedroom is full of other *stuff* and I don't like digging through drawers for clothes anyway, so I think the canvas thingies are going to work well and our room looks so much neater. Plus we switched out granddad's chair from the bedroom to living room and put the one from the living room into the bedroom.

In between, I did 5 loads of laundry, plus we both put them away.

We cleaned up the driveway. It was a mess from a high wind which blew around some broken down boxes and bags of water bottles destined for recycling. And, we picked up a few other things which have been needing taking care of, plus Rog turned the water on for me in the front yard so I could water my ornamental grasses planted last year and the other stuff which is coming up.

I also worked on a little bit of sorting of jewellery supplies for the new necklace design and planned and made an order for new parts.

Moved some houseplants off of a table in the dining room, cleaned them up, rearranged them and had Rog take the table out to storage.

Changed the plastic tablecloth on the cat feeding station table...something I've been meaning to do since i bought a enw one last summer.:-)

FOund a new use for one of the old clothes baskets (a rectangular wicker one with handles): put my fav. paperbacks in it, from the shelf where i put the new clothes baskets, and slid it under my bedside table...fits perfectly and the clutter is out of sight!

Hung up a windchime which has been cluttering up the bedroom on a shelf.:-)

And, we did all of our usual household chores, too. Phew! A great, full day and ROg still had time off for most of the afternoon to do whatever he wanted.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 11:08 PM

You all are doing great! Keep up the good work, there are flat surfaces under there somewhere...

Okay, it will be a BIG de-clutter when I get it done, but it's probably going to take me an unconscionable amount of time to do it--I've been reading ideas about how to "organize" all my genealogy files (back to the beginning, no?) and have decided I want to set up my rolltop desk drawers to keep those records in. That m3eans, first of all, that I need to clean out what's already in them, most of which can be shredded, I think, and another place found for the remains. Then I will have to sort all the papers, etc., that are presently in several different places in several rooms, and consolidate them into some sort of filing system. The ultimate result I hope will be my computer table cleared, a bookshelf mostly cleared, some more storage in the craft room, and the ability to find facts, papers, etc. about the ancestors, all in one place.

Wish me luck! Don't know if my stamina is up to it, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

Thanks for all the inspiration this thread has given me. Now, one piece at a time, eh?

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 12:52 AM

there are flat surfaces under there somewhere...

And they look so good when they are revealed!

Those surfaces come and go here. And the love seat in the corner of the living room is a staging area that sees light of day every couple of weeks. My eBay room is also a staging area. But my hallway outside my office is now clear (if you don't count the upright freezer and my son's arcade game--the rest of the stuff is gone.)

There is a book I found (I can't say which shelf it is on right now, but I'm tired so am not going to look for it) called something like "Chop Wood Carry Water." It's a 70s natural living kind of manifesto, suggesting finding the sacred in the mundane is good for us. I think they were onto something, actually, even if it has the classic look of a 70s environmental Buddhist style manifesto. Enjoy what you're doing, enjoy the space you're improving, send the clutter onto the next home with good will and good feelings. Some things are meant to be kept, but a lot of it is too much. And when you get it down to those really important things, like the atlas that Patty described, then you're onto something.

She's also right about "insane commitments to your yard." But that is an untreatable disease. It gets pretty bad every spring. But even there, I am trying to bring this decluttering into play. How often have you bought bedding plants, only to have they die or become horribly root bound waiting for you to prepare the beds? I'm simply not letting myself buy any new stuff until I dispatch or move or use up the stuff that I have here. I cleared out some old bags of top soil (falling apart and had to be shoveled into the wheelbarrow) to fill in at the basketball hoop hole, and today I used 2 1/2 of the 3 bags of cedar mulch I still had out there from last year.

Decide which plants simply aren't working and how much work you're willing to go to to remedy the problem. I have a couple of those quandaries I'm working on now. And as soon as I find the saw I use for limbs, one of those problems, a Dawn redwood that has never done well, is coming out. (I think the saw must be keeping company with the missing pair of pruning shears.)

I moved the cannas today and there are a few roots and plants left over. I have a bunch of iris that came out of the ground. In the next week I'll find homes in the yard or give them away. The bed is finished and now I need to water it well. I'm sure it will look worse before it looks better. I took a photo this evening but the flash came on and it looks odd. I'll wait till daylight.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 05:38 AM

"there are flat surfaces under there somewhere..."

"And they look so good when they are revealed! "


No they don't. They are covered in cat prints, cup rings, dust, dirt, fur and stains. I want to put something over it to cover up the dirt, so's I don't have to get a scrubbing brush to it.... so what do I do? Move the clutter from another room onto it!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: maeve
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 06:47 AM

Nice progress made by several folks here!

We're decluttering outside still, with more compost moved to the veggie garden yesterday and a layer of old maple leaves spread over the end with poor soil. The leaves came from the lowbush blueberry patch we burned over last night.

Today I'll fill and apread several more cartloads of compost on the same area ready for tilling, and start digging out the rest of the raspberries, keeping a few of the Fallgold to plant in another area along with the Purple Royalty starts we'll be picking up next month.

I'll plant the Meader persimmon over by the fence, move the highbush blueberries over in front of it, then the cranberry starts down in front as edging. I'll tuck in some snowdrops before covering the cranberries with an inch of sand from the bag in the chickenhouse. They'll need water, and all of the potted plants do too, with the lovely warm May weather we've had this week. I need to build a frame for netting over the blueberries, but that can wait a little longer.

Hmmm. Better soak some laundry after noon dinner and then sort out giveaway clothes. I'll see how much I can get washed, rinsed, and hung outside before we need the sink and tub after supper.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 11:04 AM

Berries berries berries! About the only berries I see here are the wild mustang grapes. I miss the blueberries and huckleberries and strawberries (and wild thimbleberries and salmonberries) of my childhood. And those wild long rare blackberries, not the Himalaya, but the succulent super sweet super tasty forest floor ones that grownups will club each other over the head for . . .

I have to work this week. But I'll be doing donation runs when I head to the office, and I'm going to take old fence boards out to the curb for the trash this week (next pickup, Thursday). Our bulky waste pickup is in June, so until then I have to blend my bulk in with the regular stuff. It will be nice to get that pile of fence panels out of the back yard. Yes, the dogs do run around and over it with charming grace and speed, and they're funny when they're playing two-dog tag, but I'm afraid they'll hit nails and hurt themselves. It's time for that to go.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: LilyFestre
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 12:10 PM

I heaved some kayak gear on Saturday. I was cleaning out my boat and the box of gear I keep in my car all season long and decided I didn't need all of that stuff.....it's now tucked away for the annual yard sale!!

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:41 PM

I need some kind of a little boat for the creek behind my house. I can't reach the trash along the bank because it is too steep. No one around here has anything small enough for this area (and no boat ramp). Future project--creek declutter.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 10:55 PM

Okay . . . I'm going in . . . wish me luck . . .

The office closet has shelves stuffed-full and a four-drawer file cabinet. It needs a lot of attention. I have a shredder handy.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:45 AM

Me again. Sipping my cup of Sleepytime tea to wind down from the excitement of that closet.

Ho, boy, was there some good stuff in there. That I haven't seen in years and don't possibly need any more.

Does anyone still use tractor feed dot matrix paper? I have a couple of reams. Lots of steno pads and some old bond from the university with the seal (no longer in use) but no department information. The print shop binds up various sizes of this extra paper for people to pick up free. Good way to recycle. Maybe I can slip these pads back in there and let someone else have a go at them.

Christmas cards (the extras, plus some I never got around to mailing over a few years) are now all in one cubby in the inexpensive white MDF and Formica shelves (from our days in a small apartment when we needed shelves. They may go if I can get rid of everything that is on them.) Forgotten rechargeable batteries so old I don't want to tempt a fire, so I'll take them to school to recycle.

I found the remainder of the expensive ream of paper I had to buy to print out my thesis back in 1999. And those hanging file folders I KNEW I had but couldn't ever find them. Old RAM from an ancient notebook computer and some adaptors that I haven't a clue as to what they might power. A few oddball gadgets of my father's.

Envelopes full of old grocery receipts (it made sense to keep them for a year, for tax purposes, but not all of these this long).

Etc. etc. etc. I have to sneeze from all of the dust in there.

Good work! And I have at least a cubic foot of unused paper to donate somewhere (or toss in the recycle bin, whichever seems appropriate at the time.) I stacked some backpacks and a courier bag on the luggage shelf of the wire shelves in there (you may recall that I got rid of a bunch of duffels and old packs a few weeks ago). One use for the closet will eventually be to store some of my travel and camping gear.

I haven't opened the file cabinet, and my school essays and papers are still in there, now all on one shelf. They need a good look next. There is a typewriter on the floor. It also needs a good look.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 02:41 AM

I knew it... I knew that if I cleared a space it would be filled again.

I cleared my sewing table yesterday. Today it's full of cats.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 04:31 AM

Liz--LOL. Of course your sewing table is full of cats! But isn't that the case whether it's cleared of other things or not? My furbabies will perch on top of whatever's on the sewing table, so I've given up on the idea that it will ever be a "cleared space."

They're such wonderful seamstress assistants...

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 03:37 PM

Stilly, how deep is that creek?   If only a few feet or less at low water times of the year, you might borrow some hipwaders or chestwaders and walk the creek rather than try to boat it. Or, if the water is reasonably clean, just walk it wearing shorts and Teva sandals this summer when it's hot. Creekwalking can be lovely sport in a clear stream. Course if it's deep and murky, never mind!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 08:56 PM

I considered and passed on hip-waders as an option. I think it's about 4 feet, possibly deeper in places. There is a pool behind my property. It has crawdads and fish and turtles and snakes and birds, to start with, and large freshwater clams in the mud. I'm a naturalist in good standing, but I don't think I want to wade around back there, the mud on the bottom is liable to be gooey. It's also an urban creek so there is a lot of runoff that passes through there. The banks have poison ivy in places.

I dropped off lots of stuff today. Clothes at Thrift Town, paper at the print shop (they were amused at how old that printer paper was. They will toss it in the recycle bin there.) CD and DVD disks and floppies to the media cruncher, until it jammed. They said they'd run the rest through for me, and maybe reformat a few of the old floppies to use around there.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 09:59 PM

Oooohhhh, I just found an ad in the paper that my favorite used book store is starting a new store and needs inventory. Have I got a deal for them! Wonder how many it would take to get them to come pick them up? I think I'll give them a call tomorrow. I have several shelves worth of gardening and herb books that are nearly new, and I'd like to put them out there for someone who will use them, since I'm not able to do much gardening work any more. Also a lot of quilting books that I know darn well I'm never going to use. And a bunch of hardback fiction that I doubt I'll read again since I wasn't that impressed the first time through.

Hmmmm. Maybe if I tell them just to bring a truck....?

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 11:57 PM

Lin, since Max is moving and the Mudcat connection is going to cost him about $40 more a month, consider putting a couple of those good gardening books in the Mudcat auction. You may have noticed that along with politics and food and (occasionally) music, we also talk about gardening a lot here.

Also a lot of quilting books that I know darn well

I know it wasn't intentional, but it was a tidy little pun!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 04:41 PM

Took a little detour through a box that weighs a ton emotional baggage-wise and is probably one that needs to go straight to the recycle bin unexamined. Lots of old beaus stuff in there. There's a major "yuck" factor attached to much of it now. Long (but probably not unique) story.

The stuff we get up to when Mudcat is down.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:36 PM

Hmmm. some of those quilting books might do well in the auctions too.... : )

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Apr 08 - 12:34 AM

I priced a couple of books from my "baggage" box--one of them is a scarce modern book that lists for $450 on Amazon. One hates to put a price on heartache, but this goes a way toward soothing it. Trouble is, this is one of his better books. I'll see how much the others are going for. . .

Shredded old grocery receipts tonight. They didn't take up a lot of space, but because I kept them for tax purposes they couldn't be simply tossed in the trash with the amount of personal and account information they contained. I didn't burn them this evening, it was pouring down rain.

You'd think after all of this work there would be less to trip over around here. I think the result of decluttering is that at this point there is still too much stuff but it isn't packed as tightly. As space clears the other clutter expands out into it. I'll eventually reach bottom, but I'm only about half-way there yet.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Apr 08 - 07:24 PM

Darn, I set my little digital camera down somewhere and now I can't find it. Lost in the clutter. I cleared out a cupboard in the living room and now I need to fill it with stuff we intend to keep. I think yesterday's book examination has cast a pall--today I'm ready to keep the empty cupboard and toss the rest of the house. :-/

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 12:08 PM

The camera turned up, photos were taken. More stuff was taken to Goodwill.

I'm at work all day and into the evening, so you'll have to talk among yourselves and keep up the good work. I may do more of a gardening break this weekend, decluttering by pruning shrubs that have not performed as required. I try to put in plants that will fit the space, and I try to let plants hold their organic forms as they grow (I don't like boxy hedges, etc.) but a couple that were supposed to be much smaller have required constant trimming to keep them out of the way. Maybe it is time for them to go.

Big move today--I contacted a specialty bookstore about possibly selling them one special subject area I collected for a few years that I don't think I'll be using any more. Of course they want a reasonable markup, so the question arises--sell them myself, over time, or get it over with all at once.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 05:16 PM

Maggie, you continue to inspire!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 02:18 AM

You know you really want to sell them over time, because you'll have that 'last chance' to look over them and maybe decide they're too good to sell on.....

DO IT NOW, IN ONE GO!!!

The space you gain will soon be filled with the new stuff you'll buy with the nice pile of cash you'll get!

LTS (who is fab at decluttering other peoples things but not her own... maybe we should do a house swap? All swap houses and declutter each other!)

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Becca72
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 06:33 AM

I brought a grocery bag of misc. crap to work and set it out on the "please take this free shit" table in the kitchen. Slow but steady!

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 04:28 PM

In the interest of de-cluttering, including here at Mudcat, why don't we go ahead and let this thread go for a month at a time? Then Liz won't have to start a separate de-clutter thread for other stuff and it won't be so long as to be too intimidating to new readers. Leave the first post or two to explain it and drop the rest, like the weight-loss thread.

Invite Liz's computer clutter into the fold--because I have a fair amount of that also, and along with the house de-clutter I have been copying, distilling, and discarding old computer disks.

If there are things we want to keep links to then we can post them in other places also and link from here. I use that News of Note (was 'I Read it . . . ') thread for those kinds of things, and a couple of the gardening threads, etc.

Any thoughts? Shall we let Katlaughing take a whack at our ponderous clutter thread and trim it to a tidy amount of debris here at the 'cat?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 05:03 PM

Oh sure, leave it for me to clean up! I still have five shutters to paint and the kitchen walls and a kitchen floor to finish and a backyard of weeds to say nothing of the empty flowerbed...sheesh! **BG**

How about I start a new thread on May Day and we let this one hide out on some dark shelf in the back of the closet? Or one of you could start it and we could have just one per month so they don't get to unwieldy. I was dumping extra stuff from the weight loss accountability thread, but it's a lot easier just to start a new one each month.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 07:27 PM

okay.

I cleaned a set of shelves by the back door today. Guess what? The limb saw that was lost wasn't--it was where it belonged, but buried under clutter on the shelf. [sigh]

More eBay stuff out the door with the mail carrier today. Amazing-- one woman's trash IS another woman's treasure!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 10:18 PM

Did you all see the link dulcimer42 listed in the read a good book thread? Paperbackswap dot com. You list ten, get two points, choose your first two books. Whoever has them, which you've chosen from a list, then mails them to you, they pay the postage. Then others ordered the ones you've listed and you pay the postage. They even have a wrapper you can print out and mail the books right from your home. Seems a pretty neat and easy idea. And, it's not just paperbacks. They also have a site for CD and DVD swapping.

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 03:24 AM

#Sniff... so you don't want my shiny, new, uncluttered thread then....

Just as I thought, we'd all rather look at the old cluttery stuff than see the bare table underneath!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: De-cluttering accountability - heave ho!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 11:59 AM

Liz, I thought that maybe on May 1 we could switch over there, and post a link back to this one, like Kat suggested, but we can shift over there now instead. Who's watching the calendar, anyway?

That thread is here.

One last remark, and I'll post it over there also:

Rainy day out so I'm kind of house-bound. It's time to re-assign some of these newly empty cupboards with things that 1) are worth keeping and that 2) I'll remember how to find once they're in these new cupboards.

SRS