Hoarding...not just on TV

Byatt

Well done Sybil on the binning of the cable. I can appreciate it would have been scary and tough to do, so pats on the back.

I have spent the day sorting out my little patio garden and have thrown away the little plastic pots that plants come in, straight away along with various bits and pieces I would normally have hung on to and made the garden look untidy, so thanks guys, you are all inspirational.

thriftwizard

Thanks for asking, Byatt, I'd be fine now I know he's got there safely, if I hadn't gone down with a streaming cold! So no more decluttering for mw today; I have to admit to a half-hour therapeutic doze in the sunshine instead, on the sun lounger that someone else decluttered a couple of years ago. One thing I really don't regret bringing in - I'd never have got one if I'd had to pay for it!

ETA - well done on the pot decluttering; my turn tomorrow, methinks!

Byatt

Thrift, just heard the news about the landslide. I heard the emergency vehicles belting up the A35 earlier, and thought something big must have happened.

I can put my recliner out in the garden now...:)

eta, I read this book a few years ago, and it made me want to visit Chile, not sure if I ever will, but who knows...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chile-Travels-Country-Sara-Wheeler/dp/0349120013/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343150014&sr=1-4

cyclingyorkie

wannabe_sybil wrote: »

Soolin - thank you for asking after me - I won't be able to get to the convention but I will be admiring Mr Pratchett from afar. Are you going?

Byatt - you are going on a real journey here. Sending lots of positive thoughts.

It's been heck on roller skates today. Little bear was at death's door (apparently) yesterday and missed the last day of school. Today he is bouncing around on supercharge. No declutter just at the moment.

However I want to share a moment of triumph from Sunday. It was a really tough call - but I did it. We have subscribed to Love Film on line and due to OH hitting some amazing targets at work and getting a fancy tv as a reward, we can get the internet through the tv, so theoretically can get Love Film on demand through the tv. OH spent the weekend swearing about it and trying to get it all set up. He bought some cables, and one is an audio type cable, and is not needed for the eventual solution (which I didn't understand ).

So he was there with the audio type cable, and I asked how much it cost, it was £4. We have no foreseeable use for it. I told him to put it in the bin there and then. And after some internal struggles, he did.

I can think of lots of richarding about this - it could have gone to a charity shop, we could have kept it in case it was useful, we could have ebayed it... But realistically it would have just stopped there and festered in a drawer until we weren't sure what it was for. So it is out. But actually doing it was a scary moment.

Well done you! In one of th min desk drawers are a lot of cables...well the whole drawer is full of cables... and I have no idea what they are for....

One day I am going to have to tie MR CY to the chair and get him to sort them out ( he doesn't do throwing out...)

GreyQueen

:j G'day, hoarder-peeps, I have just sat down after a hard day grafting in blazing sunshine and HEAT and am cream crackered but there has been extensive decluttering.

1. 4 sacks of potatoes harvested, 2 gone to the family and 2 for me. Which also means that my 6 potato sacks are now 4 potato sacks.

2. the 4th roll of wombled blisterpack (for insulating the glass greenhouse which I don't actually have) gone to brother for packaging online sales.

3. 8 cardboard document wallet thingies which no one on Freecycle wanted, to brother for online sales packaging.

4. 2 dozen 4 pint milk bottles formerly hanging from inside of lottie shed, gone with folks to exit via their recycling wheelie bin.

5. Three 6 foot lengths of too-thin tongue-and-groove type wood, off to the tip........a mistaken bit of wombling, and the knackered giant padded envelope they were standing in.

6 and 7 A threee foot square section of steel grid wombled from a skip and the fireguard we had as children which I thought I might use on the lottie.

8 Two books for Mum which I bought from c.s. thinking I'd give them to her as a little giftie and read anyway. She's instructed to read and c.s. them.

9. The rigid plastic lid off the food-grade barrel which I use as a water butt - no use as doesn't work around the down-pipe off the shed's guttering - tipped.

10. An 18 inch tall roll of plastic "fencing" which was donated from Nan's shed clearout.

11. A selection of large plastic bags back to Mum.

On typing this out, I can clearly see how this particular batch of clutter arrived in my life; I wombled it or accepted other people's discards. I need to think very carefully before doing either of those things in the future.

Shed is looking great. The only "in" was the wheelbarrow I bought several weeks ago at a bootsale near Mum & Dad's but couldn't fetch home on the bus. And now the shed is clear, it has room to live undercover.

I'm feeling good but soooo tired I could fall face-first into the keyboard.

At the dump a few days ago, when I had my pushbike, I saw someone chucking a wooden garden chair. It looked structurally sound albeit badly in need of a rub-down and wood treatment. I would have had 2-3 seconds to ask for it before it went over the edge (the dump guys don't let you get stuff out once it's gone over) and I bit my tongue. It's not that I'm not cheeky enough, I've done it before and been sucessful, but I'm trying not to gather up stuff.

It was hard and I thought about it since and was kicking myself a bit, then I worked thru the issues; I have 4 deckchairs at the lottie and if I had bought this wooden chair it would have lived outside. I would have had to treat it with stuff each and every year. In wet weather it would have been too damp to sit on comfortably. It would have taken up space. I would have to spend time, effort and money (wood treatment stuff) looking after it. And hey, already got 4 deckchairs, right?

I took myself from being sore at missing out on that chair to having a powerful sense of relief at not being responsible for it.

It's a brain-changer, isn't it?

Byatt

Well done GQ, you've done massively well. :T:T
And well done on not asking for the chair, although it's hard at first, when you think about it as you did, you realise it's just extra work, and takes up space. And that is very freeing. :T You must be so chuffed with your shed now. And yes, 4 deckchairs are enough.

I made a decision about some clothes, firstly I don't iron, I may iron in the future but I've managed for 7 years with barely a look at an iron (I now only have a travel iron and a teeny weeny tabletop ironing board, both look like new...in fact I'm not sure where the board is now)...anyway, why have I been getting clothes from the CS, like linen, which require ironing...so, I'm not keeping them. It's pointless. And I will be more selective in the future.

GreyQueen

Thanks, hun. I always smile to myself when I see irons/ ironing boards being given away on Freecycle. I have a vivid imagination and imagine some hard-pressed woman having an epiphany and saying to her reflection; I AM NOT EVER GOING TO IRON ANOTHER FREAKING THING SO HELP ME I'M NOT!

And off goes the iron and the ironing board on Freecycle and the liberated lady smiles, sighs and lays on the sofa eating bon-bons and reading something light and amusing............or studying astrophysics or whatever floats her boat.

Actually, I suspect it's a lot more prosaic than that, but I like to imagine it my way.:rotfl:

I do buy linen blouses at c.s. and I do wear them regularly although I wouldn't entertain linen trousers or skirts as an option, as you'd be sitting creases into them. I really like linen tops and iron them straight from the washer and don't mind ironing them, but I have an office job and am required to look relatively-smart. And I iron for about 5 mins a week so it's not exactly onerous.

I think it's every person's bounden duty to cut corners wherever she can to free up time for whatever she finds important. If you don't wanna iron, don't do it. Cotton jersey is the modern girl's best friend.

I am myself going to be looking at getting more and more technical fabrics into my wardrobe..........I feel the Rohan website calling me across the interweb, someone help meeeeee!

OMG, I knew it was calling to me; they've reduced their sale prices still further. Uh-oh!

wannabe_sybil

GreyQueen - WOW!!!!!!

As for ironing - little bear has a white shirt for school. He is five. That means a clean white shirt every day. OH works in an office, and I insist on a clean shirt every day as it prolongs the life of the shirts (he won't throw them out - I occasionally do but save the buttons), so that is another five shirts per week. Darling father lives with us, and is a very dapper retired gentleman, so several clean shirts per week. Also OH doesn't like tshirts so wears casual shirts at the weekend, and little bear is showing a strong preference for shirts over tops - so I think that if I don't iron any tops for me I still have around twenty shirts plus a martial arts kit to iron every week. I am on intimate terms with the ironing board.

We are having a day out tomorrow. Unlikely to be much decluttering, but we will see.

sjprmc01

Oh, I think I spend the majority of my life ironing! If only I could catch up with the mountain under/over my kitchen tables (which creeps across the kitchen from time to time) then I wouldn't have to devote so much time to it

Once again the 'cannot put anything away till its sorted' adds to my clutter

It's more than a weeks work, although to be fair, I don't do it solid I do a few hrs a day usually with a nosing-on-the-interweb-break

Today the sun is out but think one of my dds is a bit Ill (sounds it she won't tell me yet is still half asleep) so looks like catching up with the washing (once again, whee DOES it come from?) and MORE ironing. OH has lost his bank card somewhere in the house. He says he's looked but he can miss something in front of his face so may have to do a bit of sorting/chucking in the process of looking for that. Oh and my clothes I ordered from Mr A will probably turn up today!

HannahIOW

We do own an iron (somewhere, brand new in the box lol) but not an ironing board. I just don't buy clothes that need ironing... good job really as I have no room for an ironing pile!