KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Siebrie

Hurray, the living room has been wallpapered! And we treated ourselves to a lovely sunny afternoon in Breda, a Dutch city about an hour's drive from where we live. We'd both never been, and it was lovely!

DH is on late shifts this week (noon - 8pm), and has started painting the living room this morning; I will continue when I get home from work, and maybe our longterm guest will be back and help out as well. We need to be finished by Thursday, then we can put the furniture back in, and I need to sort through dds' things and decide which toys and books go back into the living room.

DH told me yesterday that he wants to get rid of the Exped1t 4x4, so that he has a bare wall to watch 3D movies from a beamer! I'm not sure it qualifies, because we live with 4 in this house, and claiming a whole wall to himself at the cost of dds seems selfish to me. After summer, dd2 will start primary school, which means that we need a place for both girls to make homework. Some serious thinking and re-arranging to do!

3 more CD's to 'Africa', wintercoat washed and stored for next year, dd1's wintercoat washed and in ragbag, 2 cotton hankies in ragbag, hard corner on new bra's strap fixed by cutting it away (it was painfully digging into area between b00b and armpit - not sparking joy in spite of good fit, cheerful colour and nice fabric).

I was planning to start the shade flower bed and had looked up suitable plants. It all seemed quite expensive, when I found that (woo warning!) A1d1 is selling 6 hosta bulbs for €1,80; I bought the last 2 packs and now have 12 bulbs for GBP 3! I will put them in small pots after Easter, and then plant them out as soon as they have some leaves. It will take longer than readybought plants, but I don't mind.

maddiemay

Another one who has been sorting through make up, 1 liquid lipstick thrown away, colour wrong on me now and 3 gwp lipsticks to the bag I am collecting together for the womens' refuge.

It is very cold here today so concentrating on indoor stuff, but need to toughen up ad get out there to begin the assault on the rampant alpine strawberries and more sedges:(

Siebrie

maddiemay wrote: »

to begin the assault on the rampant alpine strawberries:(

I wish I lived closer to you, for I would love to have helped out with the rampant alpine strawberries!

greenbee

maddiemay wrote: »

begin the assault on the rampant alpine strawberries

i have to do mine too. I plan to move them all round near the compost heap.

GreyQueen

Afternoon all.

Frogletina, would the solution to the sliding sofa be something like putting rubber under the feet? You can get sheets of rubbery textured 'cloth' in the poundstores and it's very useful because stuff doesn't slide around on it.

I use it on top of my microwave, and on top of the freezer, and it also protects them from wings and dings as they're inclined to be used as temporary storage in my tiny kitchen.

You can also use those rubber gaskets from kilner type jars to sew under rugs to stop them creeping and I suspect one each under the wooden feet of the sofa would give traction and stop them sliding on the laminate.

However, unless you have some which you're not using or some which have perished a bit and need to be replaced, I reckon it would be a lot more economical to look for that anti-slip rubbery stuff I just mentioned above. Anyway, HTH.

mila, glad to 'see' you again, I was wondering where you'd got to. Heh, you've got more tea-kettles than us Brits and we're supposed to be the infamous tea-drinking country........ :rotfl:

Been to w*rk and, although I fell into bed at 9 pm last night, have been exhausted all day. I am grounding myself tonight and will do some kondo-ing by watching a DVD from the pile and then that can be offered at the weekend's bootsale - I do so hope the weather is kind as I seriously want to shift some Stuff from the parental home. Prices will be keen as I don't want to be bringing it back home again!

Because of charging about at the weekend, my grocery buying is a little bit at sixes-and-sevens. I won't have enough to last the week and will probably head up to the shop at YS time, but will aim to use as much already-bought as will be away from home for 4 days over the Easter weekend.

I quite like a deadline as it stops me drifting and I become little miss efficiency as I aim to use everything up and get everything put away.;)

Igamogam

maddiemay wrote: »

the assault on the rampant alpine strawberries

Rampant here too... if your definition of a weed is "a plant in the wrong place" then its weed in my garden - I try and limit it to the decking which in summer it is great to sit on the edge of it and feast on the tiny strawberries

Cleared out the conservatory after its winter hibernation - its unheated so in the winter we only use it on sunny days. Found a couple of boxes dumped in there back in October - remnants of the big kitchen clear out which is stuff too good to fr**gle or donate so I am going to have a go a selling - new/hardly used expensive pans and stuff which I cant use cos changed to induction hob. If they dont go then I will give away - no intention have keeping pans for Justin:D

Bin day tomorrow - garden waste is full of stuff we cant compost easily. Recycle trolley almost full - dont have much plastic/tins/glass. No food waste - compost bins coming into their own again. The 3 weekly collection of non recyclable wheelie is out - just about full but then it was 28th Feb when we last put it out:eek: I dont see the point of dragging the bin up to the lane and back if its barely got any thing in it. We hardly have non recyclable waste these days and yes I do feel proud/smug about that and its mainly because we make a conscious effort as much as possible, not to bring it in the house in the first place.

GreyQueen

:T Well done for reducing the amount of stuff you have to throw, it's something I'm very passionate about. Funnily enough, I have Bea Johnson's Zero Waste Home out of the library again at the moment, gotta admire that woman for making what could seem a boring subject fun and sexy and doing it in heels as opposed to hempen sandals.

Have just processed the tub of eggshells which the parents bought up with them ready to be added to the allotment soil. I don't like them in the compost bin as they come through the process in large pieces and make the garden soil look like a tip (yes, I admit to being a control freak about certain things, including soil).

Got a neat little system set up with a pyrex casserole dish which lives semi-permanantly inside the microwave. I add eggshells to it when I peeled boiled eggs, rinsing eggs which have been shelled for other cooking methods. About one a week, I nuke a spud sitting on a nest of eggshells (they don't adhere) and then grind up the cooled eggshells in the pestle and mortar.

It sounds a faff but it isn't really, the grinding bit is fast enough to do while boiling a pint of water for my teapot, and then the ground shells are added into a L&L with the tea-leaves and these go straight into the lottie soil as an amendment.

I persuaded the parents to save the shells from the hazel and walnuts over Xmas and I've got them too, for burning, the potash does wonders for the soil. It's not waste, it's a resource, she cried.:rotfl:

whiteguineapig

Grey queen its just a thought , could you get it in writing, anything that does't sell is donated to a good cause charity shop
otherwise you may end up hanging on to a load of stuff, i tend to think that if its going up for sale then its not really needed, so donating it could be their easter good deed

silvasava

LBM this morning - we have a lovely second hand emporium in the next village - not like GQ's as the lady who runs it believes in pricing stuff to sell so there is always a good turnover. I decided to see if she would be interested in my garden furniture and she's coming tomorrow to take a look. So hopefully will get some Dosh towards the new set.
Generally just sorting and tidying the garden in this lovely weather. Garden bin is rammed full but the bin men come on Thursday.
I've used alpine strawberries in the past as edging plants - pretty and productive.

GreyQueen

Some of the things are not really chazzer-appropriate but have already been tried on freegle without success. We shall see, any smaller stuff which doesn't go with definately go to the chazzzers, I'm not about to set up as a semi-pro carbooter (been there, done that, got the tee-shirt).

Just kondo'd a migraine aura with paracetamol, unfortunately not before I sliced into my finger when opening a tin......... glad I could drop my hands on both plasters and painkillers without a problem.