2021 MISSION DECLUTTER and CLEAN

TC77

battenberg I'd probably tear or cut in half and throw out. 
Energy Shifter - impressed with morning routine, I keep meaning to do morning exercises and mediation and doesn't happen generally getting a coffee, feeding cats and bed to the news. Apparently 21 days to become a routine, I'm working on healthy eating for 21 days hoping will give me more energy - day 4 and feel abit better but could be placebo but abit more energy.
Sorted a couple of boxes in DD1's old room  (full of furniture/boxes as well as her things) packaging, unidentifiable things, including left over part from an office chair (seems to work) , notebook, broken pencil etc 614 - 626
627 Sofa taken - freegled and person chuffed so that's great. I've bought 2 half price and haven't had delivered as no space. The one taken was free to me, and have another bought 2nd hand to go as well. 
Neighbours keep putting things out - and I whatapped interest in a coat rack  - then realised it was just too big, quandry what to do - left it and apologised and hope she has someone else to take it. So difficult for me, as kept thinking it was so big and so many hooks it must be useful and able to go somewhere!
628 bowl broken (by me).
Dining room table totally covered, at one point balancing laptop of boxes! 
Few more items advertised to give away so fingers crossed!
629 unsubscribing and email deleted

bit_by_bit

@Mothernerd. I know how frustrating it can be to have to pace like you are doing. If you are doing an hour of digging in one go, that may be too much. You may need to think about  doing smaller periods and then doing something else inbetween. On my plot I do 10 minutes then swap jobs. This is the only way I can work or I am useless for days. I am amazed at how much I have got done this year despite this way of working. 

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

1. KITCHEN WILL CONTINUE TO BE LEFT CLEAN & TIDY EVERY NIGHT

2. JUST DO ONE THING EVERY DAY (courtesy of bit_by_bit) OTHER THAN DAY TO DAY CLEANING & DECLUTTERING 
3. CLEAN ONE ROOM (TOP TO BOTTOM) EVERY MONTH (hopefully 3 weekly by the end of the year)

Monday has been a lovely sunny & quite warm day 🙂 Still chilly in the shade & a chilly wind. DH replaced the bathroom sink plug fitting. I watered seeds etc - have one unknown seedling now together with the radish seedlings (DH & I didn’t label anything apart from the radishes 😱)  I cleared down a few more programmes from planner. Hm soup for lunch.
DH & I prepped vegetables etc for dinner. DH was in charge of the Jerusalem artichokes 😉 he followed the recipe that came in the veg box. Our first experience of J.a. but it will not be our last 🙂
Dinner was baked pork steaks, roasted tomatoes, roasted J.a. (DH & me), broccoli, carrots & mash. Clean plates all round. DSis even had a taste of J.a. but not particularly enamoured 🤷‍♀️ Wudupa. DSis & I are watching the Coleen Nolan interview with Piers. 

642 - 643 Kitchen detritus, cardboard packaging - recycled 
644 Kitchen detritus - binned

Now, now TC77 wagging finger emoji. Who cares what anyone else thinks 😉 the person will be there to fit a blind 😉😉 not comment on your home 😉
Great decluttering 👏 & really well done on resisting the coat rack 👏  One medal 🏅 is coming your way for the healthy eating plan - you are already 19% of the way to forming your new habit 👏👏🙂 Keep up the good work 🙂

You are welcome ilovetea 🙂

Great work vulpix 👏 but you need to amend your total to 132 😉😉
Re the adding medals to signature 1. Click on Profile (top right) 2. Select ‘Edit Profile’ 3. Far left of screen select ‘Signature Settings’ 4. Add details/make amendments then Save 5. Back out. Hope that helps (btw I use an iPad)

Great decluttering Wednesday2000 👏 Don’t worry about the ‘cleaning’ - you are probably automatically dusting as you clear shelves etc 🙂 

Wow 🤩 mothernerd you have been busy👏 I am positive we all think we are still 18 😉🙂 & remember when our bodies actually obeyed us 😉 I agree with bit_by_bit, if you break it down into smaller chunks of time you might not tire yourself out so much 🤞However, the most important thing is that you realise how much you have accomplished 👏🙂👏 just by plugging away. Don’t forget to pamper yourself occasionally 🙂 

Nice to see you battenberg 👋 sorry to hear that you have been in a funk 😒 but well done on pulling yourself out 👏🙂 Good work on the decluttering 👏 Re sticky labels my preferred method is to roll them into tubes with the sticky side out & then just bin. 

Also nice to see you OWD_nana 👋 Excellent decluttering 👏 I think we are all counting down the days to the charity shops opening - so 🤞that everyone does their bit to make it happen 🙂 My one concern is that we all donate loads of stuff & forget to buy anything ☹️ 

Keep up the good work EnergyShifter 👏 You are doing really well working through the brain fog 👏🙂 I know that you will get into the habit of ‘your new morning routine’ & this will set you up for the day 👏🙂 

Great decluttering GrannyKate 👏 especially the emails 😉 When you find a good dentist they are worth their weight in gold 🙂👏 DH & I only have to travel across London - east to west to get to our dentist but we have been with him a long time. 

bt_by_bit, Excellent advice for mothernerd 👏 As you say, it is surprising how much you can do if you truly pace yourself 🙂🙂

MrsSD  🏅🏅🏅🏅 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Decluttering Target: 2021    644/2021

2021 Savings Pot:  £41.00 to end of March

TC77

Thank you for my medal. I think I have 3 and followed your instructions to put on my signature but couldn't find a star. Listening to Andrew mellen again, we are not our stuff and the decluttering is to the means to free us up to do other things and not an end in itself - which it can seem sometimes! 

mothernerd

Thank you Mrs SD and bit-by-bit. I do do a lot of pacing (and have tried to get mum to understand how it works - she goes outside for five minutes, carries on until exhausted and then wonders why she feels ill for days). I did as much as possible sitting down. The actual 'digging' with a spade, I have to hold onto the fence with one hand, put the spade where I want it to go in and then either lift a foot and push it down or push and move it from side to side if the ground is tough. Most of the bit I'm up to is really soft and the spade goes in a full spade length quite easily. The large clods were easy to lift with both hands and throw into a large builders' bag (I spent some time arranging things so that everything is near to hand). Then I sat and either used the trowel to tackle tough bits/ toss it into several buckets I had lined up or put a bucket flat on the soil and used my claw gloves to scoop soil into it (like a dog digging which is probably closest to my natural style). I go dizzy quite quickly if I bend down so I know to stop when that happens (it's happened at appointments when I've bent to put mum's socks and shoes back on. 

I was surprised by how long I had been out there. I'm aiming for 2 buckets a day, anything extra is a bonus. I think it must have been an accumulation of things. People on other threads have said how hard the lock down is making things now. Some of us have never really been out of lock down (local ones in between national ones and high tier restrictions). Mum is extremely clinically vulnerable so I have been super vigilant and my immune system is compromised so I've followed the scientific advice rather than Bojo and chums. I've put a lot of restrictions on myself to keep mum safe - I've been to town less than 10 times this year and only been back inside my own house twice (have sat outside on a garden chair and DS3 sat on a chair by the kitchen door to chat).

Most of the time I'm very good at keeping my mental health in balance but mum is hyper critical of me (and has zero understanding of depression/ PTSD etc). I wanted to get all this work (digging/ levelling/ filling in/ painting and building raised beds) done in the autumn (clearing each patch as I harvested things I had grown. Mum put so many spanners in the works - at one point she put a 2 month moratorium on spending anything, said I should not buy paint (I did in the end because it's manufactured in the EU and wasn't sure if I'd be able to get any or how much the price would go up) and repeatedly said it 'was the wrong time of year for painting' (now I'm racing against the clematis which has started to put out shoots). I have had 'down time' - reading and watching old series on my laptop but I can't remember doing anything 'fun' for a while. 

GrannyKate

Got off to a good start today with one of loft areas.  Two sides reached by separate ladders but larger one now cleared except for a few identified things.  I like my holidays in normal times but 11 suitcases seems a bit much;
564-569 Suitcases and holdalls to go - free cycle or something
570-572 Small bags to charity pile
573 Bits added to food bank bag
574 Several inboxes and loads of emails deleted
575. Random papers to recycling
576-581 Cleared out fridge and food stores and a number of things had to go out
583-584 2 Large cardboard boxes of old papers belonging to DS1 which he says can now be disposed of - a lot will need shredding some will go over a few days.  Others can go in recycling as they are. Job related legal stuff I'm not going to read as I don't need to revisit that awful time.  Paper collection Thursday so hope I can do it for then.  
585 Easter boxes sorted out - only small scale Easter egg hunt with smaller GCs again this year - a few bits of tat thrown away.  
586 Easter Cards with money to other GCs whom I can't see again this year
587 All April cards written ready to post

TC77

mothernerd , sounds tough for you, do take care.
Up early and motivated - do think healthy eating is making me more motivated, so before settling down for work, got out boxes in a unit I keep old kids toys and craft things, and put the stack of small good quality clear bags I've collected and nearly got rid of - so have groups bouncy balls, mini toys, feathers, pastels, cars etc, still to finish but about 25 things, non bouncy ball, broken bits and pieces, old elastic bands, packaging from craft things, DD2 has lots of sports medals (school etc) which I've put in 2 tins which were empty (xmas ones) so I may find something better and repurpose these as gift tins  - original plan but never filled with goodies and given! 630 - 649.  Counting another 10 for repurposing bags, and tins and sorting out drawers. 659
Had to tidy DD1's piles of left behind things (putting in boxes) but thrown away large amount of paper clutter, salvaged a slightly used note pad, and large collapsed storage box  and ecycled packaging  660 - 664.
Off for a walk in the sun while it's out!

EnergyShifter

EnergyShifter said:

227. spare keys back to my lovely neighbour who is moving
228. bag for earphones
229. weird moisturiser - abandoned
230 & 231 - 2 x half used toiletries
232 - vest top

My brain fog cleared today  - I woke up and the world felt different and life felt more manageable !! Completed day 2 of my new morning routine - so far, so good !  It dawned on me that recording it against my target for the first 30 days would be motivating for me .  I know its not technically decluttering but my target was always meant to incorporate doing stuff (as I'm much worse at that than actual decluttering !) -
233. Sent in paperwork for Council Tax discount.
234. dead trousers
235 & 6 - 2 days of new morning routine
237 - rehung pictures in my bedroom
238 - sent info for DS to register with the Uni Medical Service
Granny Kate - It must have been so lovely to see the sea 
TC77 - Good Luck with your Healthy Eating 
Mothernerd - Sounds like things have been really tough - sending good wishes
Mrs SD - Thanks for the encouragement as always 

newlywed

Two coats now two big... earmarked for charity donation at some point. 

TC77

665-666 table top and legs picked up. 2 items as stored separately.
667-670 routers and cable in a bag to go out.