2021 MISSION DECLUTTER and CLEAN

GrannyKate

Got through a few jobs today.  Another car load of prunings to tip.  I did a walk round house not expecting to find much but I managed to fill a large beach bag with stuff for CS.  First CS I went to not taking donations today and then I went in the R***e to look for something.  They had totally rearranged and I couldn't find anything.  Irritated so I went over the road to their rivals D****M and they had special offer on bacon bap so I treated myself to that with a pot of tea and slice of lemon meringue.  All under £6 - what diet was that I mentioned last time.  

1441 - Insulated cup which doesn't keep things warm - I have a nice one which works well
1442 - Unwanted Beach bag to CS - filled up
1443 - Bush pruning to tip
1444 - Pink jumper worn for a wedding but not really my thing (sad memories as well as wedding brought forward in sad circumstances) - to CS
1445 - Children's dresses in craft stash - not sure why they were here - to CS
1446 - Book to CS
1447 - Metal mugs to CS
1448 - 4 children's armband floats to CS
1449 - Children's painting pots and brushes to CS
1450 - Some baking stuff late DH used to CS
1451 - Plums blanched and in freezer (this autocorrected to plums balanced and I had a vision of myself juggling plums which was actually quite accurate as I forgot to take a container out with me to pick them) 
1452 - Beetroots from DGS1's allotment cooked and in fridge
1453 - Bag of mixed plastics to recycling at small Mr T - discovered they had a place for this which I hadn't seen before. 

I did buy a couple of oddments which were needed, a Christmas stocking gift from Mr T Back to school range, some fresh veggies for tomorrow and a newspaper.  I sometimes indulge myself on a Saturday as I like the puzzles and I can catch up on news. I had a voucher which covered the cost anyway. 

njk1012

After several weeks of feeling progressively worse illness wise , I actually woke up this morning feeling very well in comparison. The 26 hours plus sleep in the previous 48 seem to have helped. The consultant appointment this week wasn't very productive, waited 2 and a half hours to be told the consultant wasn't there, with a registrar covering who couldn't offer any advice or answers to any of my questions. Back again next week to try again. so frustrating as I have to take another day off work and the driving an hour each way causes pain in itself. But I'm trying to be positive, today was a good day. The first in a while.

 Due to this I have been quite a productive. Even making a steak pie from scratch for dinner which the OH and DS's enjoyed. 

A trip to the recycling centre with the cardboard, plastic, glass and cans. Trip to the charity shop taking 7 more items of clothing and 6 children's learning activity books that were never started. I only purchased one thing for DS 1 who is house hunting currently and stockpiling home wares in our conservatory. He now has a blender which will be well used I'm sure for his smoothies. 

I threw away one item of clothing that wouldn't be wearable anymore. 

Thanks for the advice regarding counting the unsubscribing from emails. I'll start counting them too as 5 as 1 item. 

Fingers crossed the meds are working and it isn't a fluke day. 

So 19 for today and 66 total.

TC77

1536 from earlier
1537 emails deleted
1538 emails sent

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. ONCE A WEEK LEAVE THE HOUSE (e.g. Go into city centre for bank & butcher;  go to local town for cs dropping off or buying; visit the pub with DH 😉

4. CLEAN & EMPTY SURFACE AREAS - DAILY

Plumber turned up at 11:30, changed the cold water tank ballcock, was paid 😱 & gone by 11:57 🙂 I washed 2 more loads, 1st & 2nd load put on whirligig. 3rd load in td. Still have 2 wash loads to do. Wrote menu plan & then shopping list for DH who went to MrS. Still no milk for DSis - apparently A*la are one of the companies who cannot get drivers 😔 Rotated & vacuumed mattress. Made up bed with new bedlinen. Managed to kill a house plant so binned it & the container. Went off list & had another go at thinning out my personal/financial paperwork - about 90 minutes resulting in 0.5” recycling & a 2” pile of shredding 🙂 Still needs work but I am getting there slowly. Made a Bolognese sauce from scratch & had with spaghetti. Wudupa. I will try to get back on list tomorrow 😉

1667 - 1672 Kitchen recycling, glass bottle, plastic pot & metal lid, drinks cans, magazine, 0.5” paperwork - recycled 

1673 - 1676 Kitchen detritus, plant & rotting basket, 2” shredding - binned

Great work Happy_Kitties 👏 I owe you a Gold Star ⭐️ re so many neutral items 👏

Emm-in-a-pickle, well done on dealing with all those frogs 👏 & sorting/dealing with electronic clutter 👏 Congratulations to your friend & I love that she is too busy decluttering to join us 😉😂 and I absolutely adore the “Glance at the past but don’t stare” One medal 🏅 for your friend & one medal 🏅 for you for sharing 🙂 Excellent garden decluttering 👏 You are completely forgiven for buying new clothes 🙂 especially as you decluttered almost as many items as you bought 👏 Sunshine - you lucky thing 🙂 enjoy the glass of wine 😉

Well done Rootle 👏 you tackled a financial frog 👏

elsien it still counts as it was all in your shed 👏 Excellent work in the garden, one medal 🏅 coming your way 🙂 As to finally making a financial decision, one Gold Star ⭐️ is on its way 🙂

GrannyKate, I am not a fan of shops rearranging their shelves & like you if I cannot find what I want I leave 😉 Surely they must realise that most people get annoyed & don’t want to spend loads of time looking for stuff 😖 or maybe they have done it this time to hide the fact that lots of stuff is missing from the shelves 😔 Excellent decluttering 👏 and the cs bag must be full by now 🙂

njk1012, great news that you are feeling so much better 🙂👏 Hopefully you haven’t overdone the decluttering & will have another good day on Sunday 🤞

Good work TC77 👏

MrsSD🏅🏅🏅🏅🏅🏅🏅🥇⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

Decluttering Target: 2021    1676/2021

2021 Savings Pot:  £376.45 to end of September

3secondmemory

Thank you everyone – I’m still not over it but I’m trying not to think about it until tomorrow. I started building a good habit of not dealing with anything like that on the weekend. Trying to pace my week. 

I will have a proper catch up later today. I’ve managed to cut quite a bit of the lawn over the last few days, just doing a few bits out of time and it looks incredible. I’m keen to get out and potter around but it’s a bit early yet. 

The main reason that I wanted to post was to let a couple of people know that Kristine T Gardeberg is repeating her free Art History is Fun/ Intro to Art History on Thursday 9th Sept from 5.00 - 6.30 pm. If you search her on FB you’ll find links 😃 I really enjoyed it and she answered questions for more than an hour and a half after. That was my first zoom lecture and I found it really enjoyable (even if I couldn’t keep up with the comments underneath, I could easily keep up with the commentary of the lecture) 😃

hope that gives one or two people something to look forward to 😃

mothernerd

Hugs bala and 3secondmemory, lots and lots of hugs.

Was last here on the 25th August. Had started the week well but got dragged down by the cough etc that mum had gifted me. Had intended doing an afternoon tea for mum and her Saturday visitor but by Friday felt the need to scale back (no home baked stuff, I could barely stand up, had to sit down twice when I was trying to brush my teeth. I did an small overnight food order, then gathered all the bits from the fridge and went to my bed, armed with the bread board, paring knife and some foil platters (we reuse until they collapse).

 As the stuff I'd made the previous weekend was all made from things 'on their last legs' which had done us several good meals, I didn't feel guilty about binning bits that were beyond the point of no return, so I sat chopping food into bite sized pieces and arranging them on platters. Savoury platter had mini pork pies quartered, an individual quiche and one scotch egg (8 pieces out of both of those), some slices of chicken, 2 sorts of cheese (1 has been in the freezer for months), peppers, tomatoes and a few grapes. Sweet platter had watermelon, strawberries and blueberries with scones, walnut cake and toffee cheesecake.

A couple of extra people called with cards or presents (mum left it too late to say she didn't need anything, some people had already bought things). One of the callers was our tip tripper and mum asked him about something else to go. I said I could find him some things and picked up 6 items in a quick wander round the yard. I had a go at the old dining table but it wasn't budging (or I was too weak) so that will stay a while longer.

My niece came on the Sunday evening, we temporarily acquired two chairs (unwanted items someone had put out) but she came back with her car the day after and took them. We'd also found out that my brother likes tomato soup and liquorice allsorts so several of each were handed over (I buy mum a selection of soups - usually bulk bought in autumn - but she's trying not to eat bread and only likes tomato soup with lots of bread). Mum's partner liked liquorice allsorts, mum likes liquorice (tablets, hard and soft spanish etc). Members of his family keep buying liquorice allsorts and she's let it go on for too long to say anything now. Neither of us can stand them (except for the pure liquorice ones) so that's one problem solved (will just save them for my brother). He's feeling much better (was recently hospitalised, admitted to intensive Care via A & E) and is now trying to gain weight.

Mum volunteered to fold up raffle tickets for the Church stalls (instead of a church Fair they had several stalls at the local park for a special Bank Holiday weekend event) and was trying to give the lady who came to collect them a 'gadgety thing" for the tombola. I pointed out that it didn't have all the bits (I'd dragged it out because I wanted a lemon squeezer which was missing) but then handed it over and asked the lady to take it and bin it (there are advantages to mum not wearing her hearing aids).   

DS2 and his gf called after work this week - the rock roses I'd sent them the link for had arrived. I sat chatting with his gf and DS2 started sweeping and complained about the brush - needed a soft brush to get the last layer of dust up. I explained the old one had given up the ghost (it was at least 7 years old, the metal handle had lost all its paint and then it just folded in the middle). After discussion, it was agreed he would come back on Saturday (yesterday) and put a few hours in.

Gf had to work (she's a doctor so got called in although it was originally a weekend off) so it was just DS2 (he brought a soft brush with him, the one I'd ordered came in the afternoon). I made a start before he arrived, I emptied the water butt into various receptacles and moved them to the other side of the yard and carried on sifting the last bits of soil (had put together a raised bed from bits, put the last bag of seed potatoes along the base and moved soil from various places to fill it). The tip tripper had moved the last of the heavy stones to one side for me, so I could get at the the stone and soil in between them.

DS2 partly did what I asked (moved the newly emptied water butt, trashed the old chair and two bits of wood it was standing on, moved the large pots and other things out of the way and started to clear and sweep the space behind and alongside the shed but then got obsessed with my water bottle collection (he said it was hoarding, he may have a point but I do use them a lot - cut into plant pots and water drippers and I saved all the snow melt water in them last year which saw me through the early dry spells without having to use metered tap water).

We compromised on him bagging them in bin bags (some were already bagged) - he thinks they're going to the tip. In reality I'll have to take back some of the ones he put in the brown bin as It's still 10 days to collection day and we will have genuine recycling (soup cans etc) which need the space. Then he found the actual rubbish I'd hidden behind the shed so we have quite a lot for the tip. He wanted to get rid of several things I know mum won't part with (all the leftover bits of bathroom cladding). Meanwhile I sorted and sifted the last few containers of soil (they were ripped ones so had been backed against the fencing in case they split) and encouraged him to add any sweepings (I extracted any weeds and rubbish).

After a break to eat (2 pm?) he emptied the shed, swept that and put some things back. He asked several times what various things were (frame for new polytunnel - I bought the new one exactly the same size, hoping I could slip the new cover over the old frame and sort the remaining bits out later, but the old frame is stronger, has thicker poles and that made the new cover just too tight to go on), either agreed with how I'd stored them (just added any stray bits) or suggested something else (polytunnel will not get assembled until next year so the poles are in the small space behind the cabinet - can be seen but won't fall over).

I wanted the old dining table frame moved into the space behind the shed (I'd measured before he arrived) so the water butt and some planter could go on it and the covers and tarpaulins could be hidden underneath (they're bulky even when I've done my best squashing and folding). He said it should be broken up (I don't want to have a huge tip pile and have the tip tripper running away in horror) but did what I asked in the end. 

He gave me all the bags and boxes of tools (diy/ garden/ decorating) and screws and oddbobs) and I sat for a couple of hours, sorting, binning what was beyond saving or things I would no longer use. I have a wooden cutlery drawer of items that still need categorising (one drawer fell over shortly after I started on the opposite side to me and couldn't find any reserve energy after wading through the rest, some things I have an inkling what they might be for and will try them before making a decision and various hooks etc have been left out on top of the 'screws and fixings' box, as I'm hoping to use them in my pursuit of more shed storage. The 15 or so bin bags will have to be gone through - some can be added to the bin when there is space, some require a tip trip, some may be repurposed.

We ate at 8 pm last night and DS2 was picked up in the car by his gf at 10pm (she'd have been home before him otherwise). I was exhausted by lunchtime but kept going - the boy kept hanging the chairs up on the hooks (my idea) behind the shed. He doesn't understand the need to sit down between or even during tasks. So I'm claiming 20 for bits done over the past two weeks and 50 for yesterday - it does make an enormous difference and I have somewhere clean and clear to work. I harvested all the cooking tomatoes from one bed earlier in the week (will add rows of carrots and beetroot and a few more lettuce). The tomatoes are in large mushroom boxes all across my window sill, to ripen. The remaining broad beans, more dwarf beans (still some left to grow a little more) and 2 outdoor cucumbers were harvested on Friday. I have a few space to plant a few more things - a bit late but with luck we should have 8 more mostly good growing weeks, even if i have to bring some bits inside to finish off. I have an all year round cauli that should be started in September and herbs and things that are any time with sufficient help or protection.            

Rootle

7/52 - bag emptied and the various items inside binned, recycled or put away

8 + 9/52 - 2 very very OOD cereals used up and boxes recycled 

threepenny_bit

Just catching up and everyone is doing great, I love to read what everyone is doing and it prompts me to go find more to declutter ! It is a bank holiday weekend here in Canada and so I have been trying to get a few bits tidied and organized. Back to work next week too. 

101 - chopped back large pine tree in garden and cut pieces small enough to fit in and fill the garden waste bin
102 - 120 collected and moved all small/medium size tumbled rocks to back garden to put on the fence line and made it look better (probably about 50 rocks twice size of a house brick)
121 -130  picked all crab apples from tree and have them in slow cooked making apple puree, collected windfalls and those that I couldn't stew went on garden waste
131 - 135  tidied freezer, threw out some really old veggies, inventoried what I had and will make a meal plan
136 - 142 donated 6 pairs shoes and 1 pair roller blades
143 - 147 shredded old mail, receipt, invoices, letters etc. 4 large bags to paper recycling, 
148 - 150 sold 2 stamp sets
151 - tidied main pantry cupboard and threw out old boxes/packaging. Consolidated what we had into less space.


took car for new front brakes yesterday, needs some other work that I hadn't expected and so will be changing my budget to pay for it lol! 

ilovetea

Hello you all seem to have been busy again. Few bits to add.
5 items sold on e-bay.
Packaging for above will count as one.
Old cardboard box Recycled.
2 mags to a neighbour.
Not much but 8 in total.

Finstickle

A fairly productive weekend here at Chez Finstickle, my mu had DD for a few hours on Sunday so I could get on top of things.  Coming back from 9 days away into a hectic week meant I still felt really behind come the weekend and hadn't even finished putting away the air beds etc.  Anyway, 3 solid hours later, everything was put away and the house mostly fully clean (i might have skipped dusting the sitting room and when i went to reload the dishwasher found it hadn't been put on  , so i still have a large pile of dishes o the side as by the time it had then done a clean I really couldn't be bothered).

a few items declare, mostly from the sorting and organising that went on yesterday

141 - old tights and socks into material recycling

142 - a top of DD's which I'd made, was good enough for her but I'd stretched the neckline in the sewing so not good enough to pass on

143-45 3 coats to the CS, all quite heavy wool left over from when i lived in London and walked everywhere.  I'm on the outskirts of a small town now so either have to drive or use my bike - which does not go well with heavy coats

146 - a pair of work trousers to the CS, these had been EBay for a couple of weeks but failed to attract any attentions at all.  I still have another couple of items listed on their 3rd and final week so we'll see what happens

147 - a successful sale of a Zara top I'm not sure I ever wore (I bought it from EBay myself).  (I sold it last week but the buyer requested I hold it for a week as she was away).

Current total: 147/365

I have a massive box of toddler clothes to go through and either list for sale or put in the CS bag.  That is the target for this week.  I run the box until it's full and then deal with it all in one go.  Well, it's overflowing and she seems to be on another growth spurt so time to deal with it.