KonMari 2018 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Siebrie

I have kondoed lots yesterday! 1 car , 1 small upright freezer, 1 playstation, 150 A5 new notebooks (branded with old company logo), 7 bin liners and 5 moving boxes full of clothes, games, puzzles, and some pens. This all filled up the car . For husband's personal use while he is in his home country in August, we have added: a body lotion husband would otherwise not use, deodorant he also wouldn't otherwise use, 4 (really) old swim towels, 3 boxes of couscous (we suddenly had a small mountain; we still have 2 boxes left), some tins of fish dds don't particularly like, spelt spaghetti (where did that come from?). He will leave everything behind and come back with just some African dresses for dds

I will now vacuum the quarter of the attic where all these items were stored, and hope that it will take some time before it fills up again

ETA: husband and I completed our tax forms last night, and the website's calculation showed that we are due a €4,500 return!!!

We also had a visit from the council's energy auditor (by invitation; subsidized by council). He walked through our house, and discussed where we could save energy. To be honest, we can't save much more; we are already on a third of average gas use and a quarter of average electricity use. He suggested putting in a better ventilation system, and putting on a new roof....... I don't think we will ever recoup those costs. The kondo part: for this visit I had to have the house's paperwork at hand, so I went through all I had (lots still in piles with other paperwork) and discarded quite a bit.

Karmacat

I'm kind of hopeful of doing some kondoing - the grubby work on my kitchen is finished, and i spent a lot of yesterday tidying the plaster dust and rubble that migrated to the living room. Part of that was opening two shoeboxes sitting at the bottom of my bookcase - I knew they contained cat ornaments, but I was surprised how many I didn't actually *like*. They can definitely go, but their route out is a little unclear as yet...

Siebrie

Karmacat wrote: »

- I knew they contained cat ornaments, but I was surprised how many I didn't actually *like*. They can definitely go, but their route out is a little unclear as yet...

Outside your house with a sign 'free to a good home'?

Karmacat

Fast, but no :rotfl: there are two towns/cities close by where that gets sold for good money - so they'll be bought for rubbish money and there are also some inheritance things that need to be valued and sold/ valued and repaired. Thanks for the input, though

GreyQueen

:T Wow, Siebrie, that's an awesome amount of decluttering to get done in one lump. And well done on your energy efficiency compared with others. I'm always amused with things which apparently save X£ of energy worth per household per year. Err, nope, not here, since the 'saved' amount is actually greater than my entire gas and electicity bill. Several fold greater....



Kondo-ing has slooowed a bit here as I am in the middle of Plate Spinning Season. By which I mean that every spare moment is spent gardening. Or, in a wet week like this one, climbing the walls in the evenings after work thinking about the gardening which isn't getting done....... :rotfl:


Was on a little camping break last week in another part of the country and have decluttered all the touristy leaflets etc into the recycling. I borrowed an OS map of the area from the library and returned it, so no expense or clutter there. Although I love OS maps and could happily have the entire country's worth, if there was a bigger home to put them in.


Have sent a defective product (smallish) back to the manufacturer to see if it is covered by the warranty, so there's that gone taking some packaging materials with it.


Keep on keeping on, my lovelies. GQ xx



I also managed to lose the soft-bristle brush from my brush and pan, which went camping. The mothership thinks there is a spare at her place which I can have. Plus I shall be adding a mini brush and pan to the camping gear, have my eye on a £1.99 unit in B & M.

Siebrie

I hope you had dry weather for your camping trip!

I once calculated the payback time for solar panels, which was advertised as 10 years. It would have taken us 23 years, assuming no breakages, etc.

Working my way through the pantry, so dinner (for 4) was one huge chicken breast coated in ood chicken spices, one fennel bulb finely sliced (mandoline), and one ood packet of parsley rice from a meal kit where I threw out the spices for being too horrible. The fine leaves from the fennel were put on the table for snacking, which dds did with gusto It was lovely, and no leftovers Dessert was a ys stracciatella custard.

Harvested and frozen: 8 strawberries, 15 rhubarb stalks.

GreyQueen

The weather varied between good and so-so, very grateful it wasn't like it is this week or we would have had a miserable time.


The experience allowed me to review my camping gear and some tweaks are going to be made, are in process now. Some of these will involve making things from stuff I already own, some will involve some discreet acquistions on the 2nd hand market as and when I see the few items I had to borrow and could really do with owning.


I really must get my arris in gear about using up some slightly antiquitated food cupboard items which I decided I didn;t like enough to make a regular part of my cooking. Been thinking about it every time I open that cupboard, and forgetting it every time I close the door.


I also need to defrost the freezer and use up a few items inside to make room for the broad beans which are ready now, as I can't eat them all in real time. The ones which can't be eaten or frozen are allowed to dry on the stem and eaten as dried beans.

Siebrie

I had quite a bit of frozen fruit and rhubarb in my freezer, and am only now really eating them, since I rediscovered how easy it is to make compote, which I then have with my plain breakfast yoghurt.

I have simplefied making my own granola. I used to buy a bag of cheap muesli, pick out the fruit bits, mix with oil and honey, and pop in the oven. The picking-out bit was rather time consuming. This time,
I used oats, ood sunflower seeds, oil and honey. Popped in the oven, after 5 minutes stirred and added coconut slivers and ood sesame seeds, another 5 minutes. Removed from oven, added any dried fruit I had (raisins, pineapple, papaya, mango), and popped amaranth seeds. Mixed in nice glass container. Soooo much nicer than shopbought!

Both the compote as well as the granola spark much joy, in making and in eating.

lessonlearned

Right.....hello everyone, I am back again, for another go.

The weather is still grim and doesn't look like improving for a while yet so I am going to take this opportunity and use it as an excuse for another round of decluttering.

I too have assorted bric a brac which I have just bagged up and will take to the auction house next week. It won't make my fortune but every little helps........

Going to have a quick sweep through my wardrobe. I'm going to be ruthless......:rotfl:

Siebrie

While I was packing all the stuff for export to Africa, I refound about 50 dvd's at the bottom of the box in the attic. These are all copies, which we cannot ship over a country border. They have been in that box for at least two years, and husband has never asked after them, so I have made the executive decision that they can go in the bin. I will do this next week, when everyone is out of the house.

Used up: sample of men's face cream that I had asked husband to use up for about four months. I have now used it myself the smell only lingers for about 15 minutes.