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Clutterers!!! Time to check in!!
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Okay, clutterers, time to check in and let everyone in on your progress!! :yeeha: Here's mine: I was going gangbusters decluttering all my file cabinets and pulling things out willynilly to toss, and gave myself a sinus infection yet again from all the dust. :waa: Then visitors from out of the country for real showed up :eek: and for some cockamamie idea I decided to become a vegetarian, then I broke the hot water faucet on the bathtub, although i did manage to continue being mostly vegetarian, even though I have a raging sinus infection thanks to my decluttering. :waa: However, I have managed to part with two never worn pairs of fashionable trousers, a really stupid jacket that looked like a good idea about 7 years ago, and some other clothing. Plus an entire grocery sack full of electrical cords that go to a number of *somethings*, all of which I haven't had for 4-5 years. So how is everyone else's decluttering going? Or are you all hiding? :haha: |
I carried off a couple of car batteries that where no good,also some burnt oil that had been here for some time.
Umm but i found a good lawn mower trailer axle complete with bearings in the metal bend.So i ended up adding back to the pile. Oh i cleaned out my junk closest.Um but ever thing got put in the shed. :( Ok i get at least a D for making an effort right! :D |
lookslike everyone is hiding, posted this morning about the clean-up of my cousins trailer, me and the kids will be staying in this winter, she is a garage sale fanatic, if she only paid .25 cents for each thing in her kids rooms that we burned it would of been at least 5,000 dollars, the stuff could not be saved, thanks to roaches and mice, not even thinking about her dogs messes in there, took us 2 days to burn it all. if i hadn't been there, having no attachment to the things she would of kept at least 1/2, made her promise me she would only give her kids enough clothes for 6 day's and 2 sets for the weekend and a nice set for church, there is no reason for so much stuff, she is a single mom and could of spent that money else where, plus she was washing all the time, so i hope she will take my advice and save some money and have extra time.
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I've managed to clean out my linen closet (threw out 3 bags of stuff- mostly rugs), cleaned out from under the kitchen sink (also, 3 bags, mostly empty bottles and wet icky stuff), cleaned under bathroom sink (one bag, but it was HEAVY!- mostly old meds). In addition, I've cleared the kitchen table (much easier to wash, now) and the top of the dishwasher (I nearly forgot what it looked like!).
I, also, vacuumed all my books and dusted lots of things in the house (still lots to go, though). Oh, and I cleaned a shelf over my kitchen door. Hubby was impressed that it was made of wood, and not fur. Things are starting to look so much better and I've tossed out nearly 60 bags of trash! |
Wow, Lisa, you go girl! :yeeha: :yeeha:
And Gayle --- :eek: :worship: Okay, that's that. I'm back on it tomorrow morning!! :yeeha: :yeeha: Clutter can't run and clutter can't hide from me! :yeeha: |
Joined flylady - Sunday did the "crisis cleaning" 15 minutes each in Kitchen, living room, bath then repeat as needed. ;-) Piles of garbage went out plus my truck is loaded with stuff for good will.
Junk is flying around the Deberosa household. My sink is shiny, I know where the laundry is - HUNG IT ALL UP! and my shoes are on my feet. :haha: |
countrygrrrl ~
You DO realize I'm avoiding the storage room, don't you? :eek: I know I'll get a pickup load out of there. :rolleyes: I'm wishing I'd done it first and got it out of the way. |
deberosa, my shoes are in the vestibule and the laundry is on the floor (but it's sorted). Well, at least my sink is shiny. LOL
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I look at it as *a process*. :D I've been doing this over a year now, and I'm still doing it. :rolleyes: But what seems to be happening is this; I get rid of the first layer of clutter, then discover the second layer, which is composed of things I was certain I could NEVER get rid of. Then I get rid of that second layer and POOF here comes the third, which is the layer I've been certain for five years I could never get rid of!! Then that layer goes and POOF here comes more clutter! :rolleyes: It's pretty ridiculous. But it really is getting better!! :yeeha: |
Working hard at decluttering and downsizing. Hopefully we'll get this place sold for another with a considerably smaller mortgage soon (we've been on the market since the first week of June and have a really terrible agent, we'll be selling it ourselves when the contract expires this week). We already have a couple places we have our eye on but the square footage is smaller than our current place. So bye-bye to all the unused items in our lives :haha: .
Born Anew |
We did well today. Load of things taken to the garden shed and stored. Hubby put shelves in an unused shed for storage. Found some more horse things I no longer need so I priced and tagged them for sale. Called some "horse people " I know and told them about the horse stuff. Sold our finishing mower and had an offer on our pinto mare who needs to find a new home. Hubby spent 2 hours in his shop sorting, throwing out and giving away. Load of things (non-recycleable) to the dumpster. Load of things we want to keep to the storage unit (so handy @ 3 miles away). We added to the homestead: some 55 gal. plastic drums to make a floating dock for our ducks and we will put 2 on the dock for nesting shelters. Also got 3, 5 month old chickens the family did not want anymore. Did I mention the drums and chickens were free! Tomorrow hubby wants to spend another 2 hours sorting in his shop, finishing cleaning out the area where my car goes and another load to the storage unit. Yikes...we may really be ready to move by Dec.1st...Joan :eek:
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Hi All!
I got to decluttering today. I have a guest bedroom with a large closet in it. The bed hadn't been made in over a year and a half. That was the last time my sister came to visit. I had stripped it and washed it and piled the linens on top of the bed. They were buried on it with other stuff that had been dumped there. I cleaned out the closet. It was like going to a flea mkt. I found stuff I didn't remember having. A lot of clothing got recycled. Home interior that I had bought and stored is going to be put up on the wall. I cleaned up the floor and made the bed. Time for company now. :haha: |
OT..............
Has anyone seen the new show on PBS? It's called "Life Laundry", comes on here at 8PM Saturday,check local listings. Anyway, it's from England and a couple come into homes that are packed to the ceilings with clutter. The way they handle it, they take all contents of the room and put it outside. Need good weather for this. Then the owner and them go through everything and it goes in 4 piles. One..... keepers, two...... toss it, three.......... charity donations and the fourth goes to a "Car boot show" our version of flea market. It's really an eye opener to what some people keep hanging on to and why. This past week they had a couple who were old "Rockers", he had his first set of drums from 30 years ago buried, and didn't even know he still had them. She had every thing she ever bought since they married. It was pretty funny watching this. She wanted to keep all her mini skirts, (picture a 50yr old in mini skirt, unfortunitly I don't have to, I've seen them), and every pair of shoes she owned (100's). They had 3 dumpsters full of trash and made some good money at the fea market, plus finally got to see the walls and floor in their home. If you get a chance watch it. |
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AHHH, you guys make me crazy. Clutter is my anchor to the world. Without it, I would float off to deep space. I love my clutter.
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i live to clutter... but, since i have no money, i am now selling my clutter.... actually daughter and i cleaned house tuesday... and it has stayed clean so far ... my hubby is still in shock.. today while he is at job interviews i am going out and looking for some branches to make a hat rack with.. he wears cowboy hats and there is just NO great way to store them.. because the 3 he owns HAVE to be in the living room.. just incase.... so right now they sit on my rocking chair that i never get to use................... tonight... for the first time in years, we will actually be able to sit down together at the kitchen table and eat as a family... i am looking forward to that. my chore for today is to go thru a couple more boxes of things to find things to sell at the corner this weekend.. and look for all the teddy bears i have saved over the years to make some of those wax dipped bears to sell. (more info on those on the craft and recipe topic). Have a great day all.. Lynn in Texas |
Hello all! :)
We just moved in June and are still surrounded by boxes of stuff we're wondering why we even brought...Seemed like a good idea at the time. Have decided we need a large storage shed for all the things we don't use but can't live without. Don't know if anyone has heard of Freecycle~ it is a great way to get rid of stuff (and get more is you so desire...) :) http://www.freecycle.org/ Have a great day all~ :) Steph |
I attacked the bedroom and my o my the dust bunnies do enjoy themselves under the bed... ;)
I cleaned out my dresser and tossed and washed and found some clothes that I had not seen for awhile. The shops grease rag drawer is being filled again. :) Found over $30 in bills and several bucks in change. I knew the change was there but a welcome surprise for the bills. :D And socks... wow... I have somehow managed to collect enough socks tied together and they fill a chicken egg basket. A pretty yellow plastic coated one and it looks great sitting on the floor. Hmmm, I still wonder where the mates of the other socks are. :haha: Now for the other rooms. wow, had better back the wagon to the door. :yeeha: I have been known to heat the house a bit more with clutter finding it's way to the woodburner. :eek: |
I have decided to make a habit of washing dishes each and every morning while I wait for the coffee maker to do its thing. We used disposables for so long while hauling water that I got out of the habit of dishwashing. :o There is no sense in letting them pile up till there is nothing to eat off!
Thanks for the inspiration, CG et al. |
Thanks to you folks, I can see the bed in my spare bedroom! WooHoo!
You've given me the courage to admit that I AM A PACK RAT! I backed the pickup (ok it was a small Toyota pickup) up to the back door and started ridding myself of anything I haven't used or needed in the last 5 years. I had tons of books, paperback and hardbacks, an electric typewriter that I will never use again, two portable sewing machines, clothes and shoes that my daughter outgrew. I did take a lot of things to the second hand store. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for giving me the de-cluttering fever! :D |
Gosh...do we have stuff! Gave some egg cartons away, sold 8 quineas and sold some children's things. Another load to the storage unit. I have come to the conclusion that stuff left in a cool, dry, dark place multiplies...REALLY!...Joan :haha:
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Oh wow, I came to the board and saw this, I'm definately a clutterer. I've been trying to change, but it's so hard! Yesterday I went thru one of the bathrooms and tossed a bunch of old empty medicine bottles (what if you need to know what you took a couple years ago?), hotel shampoo samples, hair stuff I'll never use, etc. Today I kind of went thru the kitchen cabinets.
My problem is what to do with nice things I can't throw out but won't use? Like japanese style teapots (3), ceiling fan, even furniture? I don't want a garage sale (I don't even have space), I don't really want to take it all to goodwill, they just sell it. |
I have one room almost completely decluttered (well, except for that closet) and another room which is now completely bare and being painted (it's my soon-to-be plant room :) ).
I've gone on a couple of major decluttering bunges, but most of it's been Flylady style --- 15 minutes at a time. I got most of the walls in the new plant room painted today 15 minutes at a time. usually, I'd just go in and go to it, but I have this sinus infection wanting to happen, so am really babying myself. Still, I almost finished painting it --- 15 minutes at a time! :yeeha: As soon as the sinuses clear up, I'm finishing the file cabinets. :yeeha: |
I worked on my desk today. I sorted (literally) thousands of pages of paper. Some of them were placed in binders, some sent to my sister (stuff I printed for her), and the rest were pitched.
The bag seemed rather heavy, so I weighed it. That baby weighed 13 pounds!!! Every bit of it was from my desk, and I'm not even finished- that was just the stack of 4 trays! Still, it sure looks different- kind of empty. Today, I, also, washed 5 loads of clothes (somebody put a ton of CLEAN clothes in with the dirty ones). Like I don't have enough laundry to do. Countrygrrrl, my daughter and I are having fits with our sinuses, too. Stirring up all this dust is hard on them, but leaving it in the house is worse, in the long run. |
Gayle, if 'someone' is putting clean clothes in with the dirty ones it may be a tip off that 'someone' either a, has some clothes that don't fit anymore or b, has some clothes that he/she doesn't like anymore or c, doesn't have enough room in his/her closet because he/she prob needs to declutter said closet.
Just my experience as a former 'someone'. |
Kim, I had the kids bring me all the dirty clothes from their bedrooms. One of the kids wasn't here and, I think, the other kids thought all of his clothes were dirty (they were probably all on his bed and floor). You'd think they'd KNOW that he hasn't worn his winter coats, though.
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Kim, I was going to say something similar - when I tell my kids to bring me their dirty clothes, there's no telling what I'll get. I've gotten folded nightshirts, stacks of clean underwear, robes, blankets, even toys and shoes (not washable shoes, either, good leather dress shoes)!
I think it's a hint that I need to sit my kids down one more time and "remind" them that they will be going to school without underwear if they put all the clean underwear in the dirty clothes! |
My best friend was complaining that she always had so much laundry. I mentioned to her that I used to put things back in the laundry that I didn't know what to do with. She promptly put out a new basket and told the boys to put what ever they didn't want or didn't fit into it. In no time it was full, she emptied it and they refilled it.
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In all this clutter... By the way.. if anyone's husband does woodworking in a serious way there's a good chance they have an aircleaner in their workshop. Beg and plead and see if they'll let you put it in the house for a few days. A good woodshop air cleaner (along with being huge) sucks dust down to itty bitty microns. You can see the air getting cleaner. Turn the thing on, put on ear protection, and clean your heart out. Leave it running for a few hours after the clean and it will take a good deal of the micro particles out of the air. It ain't pretty but it works. |
I fell off the wagon. It was a crazy week at work and I ended up working extra hours (after swearing I was not going to do that this year). It sent my routines into a death spiral. I didn't get shopping done, didn't get organized in the evening (crashed early because the stress of it wore me out) and this morning left the house with the pan in the sink ARRRG! :(
I need to regroup and start back in and figure out how I can work emergencies into this picture. :confused: |
deborosa, I spend half my life crashing and burning off Flylady.
Although i did manage to go almost two months straight this summer following the routines to the t! Then I had to get ready for classes to start, meaning I had to build all kinds of lesson plans and once classes started, I had to start grading again plus I'm selling a house in another city which takes me 1 1/2 hours one way to get to plus I commute to work and that's 60 miles each way and now there's this sinus infection and people visiting and it's just neverending. Not to mention, I went on a budget and decided to stop taking those long boiling hot baths every night that Flylady wants you to take. Mind you, I have a giant bathtub but stopping that alone has knocked $12 off my monthly water bill! :eek: Plus I decided to become a vegetarian (don't ask) which requires much more complicated cooking, at least for me meaning many more dishes which has totally bunged up the kitchen sink deal. In any case, what I've found is this: even if I can't adhere to all the routines perfectly (which I can't, at least not right now) --- i do do a bit. I make sure I get all the dishes done AT LEAST ONCE A DAY! :yeeha: I do a load of laundry every day or every other day. And I keep decluttering. That really does help. Just do what you can, a bit every day, and remember the warning about perfectionism! and the saying you're not behind!! |
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My whole goal is to get the stress and overhead out of keeping the house up in order to clear my time for crafts, animals and working on the outside of my place. That part is working. I was actually getting some reading done! Thanks for the encouragement! |
If you don't have access to a shop air cleaner try this. Take a cheapy box fan (try to find one that does not have the cord plug in right in the center of the back). For about 20-25$ more go buy a 3M type filter that fits the fan. It is the kind that is blue in the middle with an alum frame and alum screen on both sides. It is intended as a washable furnace filter. Wash it once a month or so with soap and hot water. It will take particles as fine as wood ash and pollen with no problem. Run it 24/7 and do all your vacuuming with a hepa filter bag. Damp dust everything and vacuum around all the baseboards, window sills, tops of doors, etc. GET EVERYTHING dusted! You will only have to dust a couple of times a year, even using a wood stove if you do this. NEVER vacuum without the hepa filter.
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I rented a space at an indoor flea market/antique mall which I will be filling up on my weekly trips to town, and I have 2 boxes ready to go to Yard Sale Cindy. Oh yeah, my dumpster is full, too.
I tried flylady last year with my cousin. We thought she was too much of a nag so we quit. Now both my cousin and I are making money from our junk and clutter. |
Cyngbaeld, that is a great idea! I don't have a box fan, but I think I can rig something like that up on my stand fan.
I used to sell some of this stuff --- but the items of value that I was willing to part with were gone long ago. Then, I realized I'd come to the point of losing money trying to sell the stuff. :rolleyes: :D These days, it quite literally pays much better for me to give items which are still usable to charity. It pays better in terms of my time and my peace of mind --- and it pays better on a dollar to dollar measure. Now an occasional garage sale might be one thing. But trying to do it on an ongoing basis, no way! |
Well, I'm sitting here this morning instead of cleaning, so that should tell you something! But really, the living room floor is visible (except for the spot where Jacob is "reading" the newspaper), and the kitchen isn't too bad either, so I don't feel too bad.
I am going to get off of here in a few minutes and go through the boys closets again. My sister just called and she's having a garage sale next Saturday. I don't have much, but if I can make $25 bucks, I'll take it! |
Well, I have had an extremely successful day of decluttering --- although it's led me to the startling conclusion that I have only just begun decluttering.
::sigh:: Among the stuff tossed today were a trashbag {33 gallon} of tests and homework of some students of mine ... in 1997 (?????) and postcards from the sister of my boyfriend when I was 19 (???????????). I also filled another box to give to charity with things like a sander from my dad's workbench which worked about 20-30 years ago --- it's pretty questionable these days, so needs to go to a tool afficianado :D , the academic version of WordPerfect Office 2000 --- VERY used :haha: --- and some old ink for a stamp pad. |
I don't know if this counts. My idea of decluttering is to build more shelves in my shop. I have been known to throw a few things away! But it doesn't happen often and I have to be in a bad mood to throw something away. It usually comes back to haunt me. As I will need the stuff I threw away the day after the trash man comes! :waa: But I do, do a pretty good job of keeping things in an orderly way in my shop and gun room. :D At least I can find what I want when I want it most of the time.
I have to update the pictures of my shop on my homepage. But you can see it isn't to bad. I just wish I could share pictures of my gun room on the internet. :( It just wouldn't be wise to do that I don't think. Steve |
WOW you gals are AMAZING!!!!!!!! I am not a clutter person, but my sister is and so I can only imagine (but i have a very good imagination!) what you are all going through. It seems that you have each made wonderful progress and I hope you are feeling good and proud of yourselves! Cheers from Kathleen
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