2020 - banish the clutter

TC77

1439 - 1441 2 parcels posted and I lot of packaging.

Waiting for someone to take hula hoops! and going to have converted effort over weekend to get towards 1500

TC77

1442 - 1448 - 2 beach towels and small travel bottles to DD1

1449 broken earplugs

1450 top of a travel mug never used

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

1. WRITE AND USE “TO DO LISTS” - MINIMUM 30 MINUTE BURSTS OF ACTIVITY AT LEAST TWICE EVERY DAY

2. KITCHEN WILL BE LEFT CLEAN & TIDY EVERY NIGHT

3. I WILL ENDEAVOUR TO BE NICE TO EVERYONE & TRY TO SEE THE FUNNY OR PECULIAR SIDE TO AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
4. DAY TO DAY DECLUTTERING WILL CONTINUE

It never did rain so had to give the vegetables a really good watering. Nine pairs of knitted hearts have been stuffed, sewn up & bagged ready for posting. Cleared down more TV programmes from the planner. DH did some more bicycle maintenance for one of our neighbours & she has made us a meal - Bobotie (the national dish of South Africa) & provided us with a bottle of sauce (brought back from her last trip home) - apparently all I need to do is warm it up then add to rice & peas. Really looking forward to it - something new & different. Friday’s Dinner was salad again.

1371 Drinks cans - Recycled
1372 - 1373 Coffee tin full of kitchen detritus, large bag of office detritus - Binned

Sounds good boazu 🙂 I am getting very excited about your Great Kitchen Rearrange 😆

Great work TC77 👏


BE KIND. STAY SAFE. BREAK THE CHAIN. SAVE LIVES.

MrsSD ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️  🏅

1373/2020

Willowtree222

When clearing out the garage, I found some lose flavoured tea leaves in bags from 2016. They went into the bin as they only have a 2 year life! I had no idea they were there. Slowly getting rid of all the stuff in there ready for the new shed as well as some things going into the loft. 
Got a few things listed on ebay so hoping they go.
Posted one item on ebay yesterday. x

nannywindow

Hello, been MIA for a while as I had some bad news about my DH's cancer, so had a wobble and fell of the wagon a bit.

Anyway now binned 2 old solar lights, but replaced by 5 smaller ones, does that count ? Whilst digging in the garden I found a small metal door from something, several lengths of metal wire and bits of plastic, it's the garden that keeps on giving , now all binned. Lots of day to day jars, bottles and containers recycled. Cardboard packaging in the recycling bag.

boazu never thought of ordering multi packs, Doh !! Thanks for that.

Everyone seems to be doing a sterling job, keep it up folks ! Well done to all.

nan

[Deleted User]

We have bookcases, one is built and my shelves are securely strapped to the kitchen wall.  The great Kitchen Rearrange is started and this after noon I shall sort out the big cupboard that holds the jars of decanted things and consider where to move equipment so I have what I need in reach in the area round the range.  Most stuff is where we put it the day we moved in so this is going to make me much happier for not having to unpack cupboards and shelves for ingredients or equipment every time I cook.

Niknak the 2 year shelf life might only have been the best before date, tea bags are packed in foil inners in the main and stay airtight and do not deteriorate all that happens is they loose a little of the 'brightness' of flavour.  They'd certainly still be viable after the 2 year shelf life advice.  I've been ignoring best before dates on sealed packets and tins for years.  Tins if they get bowed ends go in the bin but if they don't I've always found the contents to be absolutely normal.  Best before is a re-ordering mechanism for the supermarket not indication that the contents of the product will be unfit to use.

Happy_Kitties

Thank u for the gold star MrsSD. If the charity organiser raises lots of pennies from the neutral items i shall be very happy. Last year the items i sent did really well so here's hoping

Im on a roll in general
287-299  items dropped on to CS. Mostly clothes with a couple of odd bits like a tennis racket holder
300    mattress topper completely trashed by the cats-binned
301    lumpy cushion insert-binned
302-303   cables x 2  binned
304    wonky compass- recycling
305-306   laundry container and storage box (also trashed by the cats)outside ready for the tip
307   tin of fruit cocktail given to me-foodbank
308    repurposed lavender bags that DD didnt want for christmas shoeboxes
I will reach 500 by the end of the year

winspiration

Apologies, I have been AWOL for a few months, no particular reason, it's just been a funny old time.

I have continued to declutter and have made a start on my garage of doom, it's all very gradual and there is still a long way to go, but there is visible progress which is good.

On the business front, I had a stock clearance sale which was planned to last until the end of March, which I extended to the end of April. Last couple of months there was 50% off everything, much of which had already been reduced, so it was very busy and I got rid of a lot of stuff, which was excellent. By the end of April though I'd had more than enough of all the packing of so many individual items, so it was time to move onto the next stage, which is bundling everything that's left into bigger kits, which will mainly sell on ebay. I have made a bit of progress with that, but do need to get on with it. Total post despatched so far this year - 524 kilos, not bad going since I mainly sell individual sheets of card and paper and it has cleared a noticeable amount of space.

I did a bit of decluttering of my craft work table and found a much better worktop storage solution for regularly used bits and pieces, using things that I already had. A relatively small change, but it looks far better and is much more practical too. However my card making mojo disappeared with the lockdown, partly because usual charity sources obviously wouldn't be able to sell them. I will get back to it in my own time though. 259 cards made so far this year.

On the other hand - my knitting mojo resurfaced, after being AWOL for well over 20 years. I've been in this house for 23 years and pretty sure I hadn't knitted since moving in. I still haven't found my knitting needles yet (most of which belonged to my mum), but I'll probably donate them to a knitting charity when I do, in any case. I've bought circular needles which are a lot better as they are so much lighter, part of the reason I stopped was that I had RSI at one point. Since May I've knitted four cat blankets (for local Cats Protection branch), two lap blankets and a single bed sized blanket (destined for a knitting charity). I'm about a third of the way through the next single bed blanket, but have had an order in for a 'Dennis the Menace' style stripey jumper which is apparently an object of desire for one of my great nephews.

This led me to go through my rather large stash of knitting yarn, which was stored on top of racking in the garage of doom (doors & walls are plaster boarded, so effectively it's another internal room). I have weeded out some of it to donate to Cats Protection and also given some to a friend. Some of the specialist and mohair type yarns I really doubt that I'll use, so they may end up for sale on either ebay or facebook. Still have a bit to finish going through, but most of it is sorted now into different plys and some ready for potential projects. I did chuck some of it in the bin - some very nylon-ny stuff or yarn that had been unwound, which I couldn't imagine would be any good even for cat blankets. My hoarder friend fished it back out, and when challenged said he would be giving it to local allotment people to use as string, which I suppose is fine as long as it doesn't just disappear into his hoard. I do have to confess to buying quite a bit of new yarn to add to my stash, ahem!

I have made a point of filling the recycling bin as full as I can before the fortnightly collection and that has cleared a lot of, mainly cardboard type, junk from the garage. Some other junk has also been sneaked into the other bin without being fished back out. There is actually a little more room to move around in the garage now and organise. Also, my friend got round to fitting the water butt that I bought cheap from the council several years ago, so that made quite a bit of room and is of course very useful for watering the plant pots!

I have formulated a plan for a whole wall of shelving / really useful box tower units down one wall of the garage, for my craft storage. The garage door is directly opposite my craft / dining room door, so easily accessible. Most of the components I already have in my office, craft room & garage, so just need relocating / rebuilding but it will take me a while to clear all the junk along that wall, and to remove some of the existing wall shelves. I did get the extra components & boxes that will be needed this week, as an incentive to get on with it (and managed to get rid of the very large cardboard boxes that they came in & vast amount of bubblewrap, within a very short time of posting their availability on Facebook!). The next stage of the plan will be to replace the colourful tower units that are currently in my craft room with a Kallax unit similar to (but smaller than) the one on the opposite wall, which will look a lot better on the occasions that it is used as a dining room.

Sorry about the lengthy post - clearly I need to come back and update on a much more regular basis!

TC77

1451 - 1452 2 x hula hoops

1453-1454 2 hoover accessories for vacuum i no longer have

1455 -1459 CS bag taken with bag and trainers added, bag looked abit empty so found 2 pairs of work trousers I'm not keen on and as working at home prob until next year decided they could go

1460 electronic declutter

things that haven't sold on f/bay will go in CS bag.

Michellelh

After sorting my winter hats, gloves and scarfs I was able to add one scarf to the charity bag and the rest is now far more organised. 
That then motivated me to look at my tshirts and shirts again. Some of them I couldn’t remember the last time I wore them. I have a small pile to put in fabric recycling (including some too small bras and a pair of shorts) and now have one and a half bags for the charity shop again. It will probably be next weekend that I drop the off.