2021 MISSION DECLUTTER and CLEAN

elsien

I have had a quick look at my food stockpile. This is an ongoing thing, and not covid related.
There may be one or two (or lots) of out of date things in there.
 My main learning however is that I will have enough tins and pasta to keep me alive for a few weeks, but unless wine counts I will be coming down with scurvy in fairly short order. 

mothernerd

2Scratters said:

Morning Peeps,
lovely and sunny here, just caught up from a few days with you all. Steady progress going on here (ok maybe slow might be accurate) moved my utilities again due to my previous companies being taken over, been able to leave without penalty so both will be with same provider with cheaper payments. So taking a declutter and another tidy for the savings
Does anyone else get excited about the prospect when an item is coming to and end getting ready to throw it out? or is this just me?? I have my home stores I am still working on from 5 years (and more).
Does bringing home stuff  from work to recycle properly count? They were going to throw batteries into the general waste!!
Enjoy the winter sunshine, off to do some more.

2Scratters x

It can get out of hand. I once worked in a building that was being closed down by the govt department using it. Individual workers or even whole sections would move out as vacancies or office space became available elsewhere. The majority of them just dumped all the contents of their desks by the bins. I 'saved' as much as I could and have been trying to find good homes for the majority of it ever since. A couple of years ago I donated about 150 part used pens to an organisation called 'Pens for kids' which sends school basics (found a small assortment of notebooks, rulers, pencils and rubbers for them too). I've worked for far too many local charities and organisations who have struggled to pay for these sort of items (let alone desks, chairs and a cabinet or two) to just let them be thrown out.
My biggest haul was plastic pockets - someone had filled many confidential waste sacks with documents, each of them in it's own plastic pocket. Sending them with the plastic pockets would have jammed up the machine which deals with it so I spent over a week sorting through as many sacks as I could in odd moments, separating the paper and plastic. About five years ago I set my mother up with two lever arch files and 'bagged' as many recipes as I could from her vast collection of newspaper and magazine cuttings, old cookery cards etc. I am down to the last few plastic pockets (rehoused all my embroidery patterns about 10 years ago) all looking the worse for wear. Two weeks ago I was looking for some photographs mum has mislaid (of course 'I' had done something with them). Brought out the brown box she insisted they were in (she had 'slipped them in the front' before Christmas). Well the box in question has been at the far side of my room for the past six months, but I brought it out anyway. Then searched the cupboard where most of the photographs are - not the ones she wanted. However I did find the lever arch file full of good as new plastic pockets (have culled the recipes several times ) so threw out all the old ones.

I do want to join you but not just yet. I have been taking note of items cleared from the house but I have a lot of things that I'm working on (including just being able to get out of bed some days) and I want to have my sleeping pattern, healthy eating, some exercise (on good days), housework and other routines in place before I officially start 'clearing'. I don't want to overwhelm myself with too many targets atm.

To clarify, I am my mother's main carer. I moved into her bungalow at the beginning of the lockdown (sleeping there from 18th March, in residence from the 20th) and am still there. Mum is clinically very vulnerable and has no immune system (pills that keep her alive suppress the bit she had). My immune system is compromised. I was already spending several days a week here (roughly dinner time to 7 pm - 9 pm - tends to be earlier in winter when it's dark earlier) with the occasional overnight stay when she had an early morning appointment. In between I organised all mum's shopping (deliveries and trawling round various shops) and went with her to all her appointments, stayed when she was particularly unwell and did all paperwork/ phone calls.

I brought most of my things with me (clothes, my own medication, CPAP machine, mine and mum's paperwork, all my embroidery stuff (was still running my small business at the start of the pandemic), toiletries, craft stuff and any food from home that would not be used by my youngest son and his Beloved (both aged 30 and living with me along with the 3 grand-chinchillas) and most of it is stuffed in the back bedroom with me + lots of charity shop books and a few jigsaws bought to see me through because the library closed (I did go back the week they opened with the books I took out at the start). 

In addition, since the lock down I have filled in for the district nurses (changing the dressings on a leg ulcer every week until I fixed it), mum's cleaner (but she's not paying me for it), nearly the window cleaner (think he was breaking the rules by starting his round again but I unlock the gate when he gets in the street, put his money in a jar outside and we stay in), all gardening and diy (I have four bags/ boxes of tools in the shed + 1 bag each of tools/ gardening stuff in my room) and ordering and dealing with all deliveries and she even got desperate enough to ask me to trim her hair.

Anyway I have taken too much of your valuable time already. I will continue to read along and keep my own total and 'join in' when I have more control over some of the other aspects of my life. Due to my age and decrepitude I seem to have more bad days than good atm so am working on simplifying everything so that things run smoothly in difficult times. Keep up the good work.

balabooberlies

Hello Mothernerd

Your post bowled me over.  Incredible daughter.  It can only follow through that equally you are an incredible mother and grandmother.   The world exists and moves along because of people like you.  The hidden heroes.

One size does not fit all............sometimes nothing fits me at all...........on here creating a system that works for you will be fully supported.  There are some really lovely people in the world.  A tremendous amount of them visit here.

Huge hug

bala

X

Viking_mfw

Welcome @mothernerd ! 

leelad

Afternoon MrsSD and fellow declutterers, well it's day 1 on project 'Declutter the attic once and for all'. Managed an hour and a half before I had to fill in as supply teacher. My wife is struggling with fatigue & tiredness (a lot of this we think is Covid related). Cleared a lot of paper & cardboard recycling and now have separate piles for junk, charity and recycling. Found a space for my wife's back copies of knitting magazine. All the gift wrap is now in one place, 15 rolls of it! 😄 So a promising start, downstairs looks tidier. More to be done, but will have to do a bit at a time. Bought a haggis before I went into self isolation, so am now going to make something creative from it (no neeps though). Cheers 🙂

OWD_nana

Thank you balabooberlies and Mrs SD for you nice comments. Have slowed right down now but still keeping on maintaing de-clutter. Everyone is doing so well and it is so inspiring.
Beautiful sky here tonight. Deep pink and the brilliant white from the snow Gorgeous.We had a heavy fall yesterday here in Surrey.
44. Old Scaes finally bit the dust. Even tape to hold the batteries in didnt work. Recycled to small electrical bin.
45. UU biro - bin
46. Book read and returned to owner.
 47.- 49. Three old mascara brushes.Binned.  Bought a new one. (Dont wear make up often- especially now) and realised i had all these old ones and no idea how long i have had them. I understand it should only be 3 months. eek! 
Obviously another area missed and in need of action.
Mothernerd please pop in and share, There are lovely people on here. Hugs all

nannywindow

Another clumsy day yesterday as I had to declutter some roast potatoes after they fell on the floor whilst I was taking the roasting tin from the oven, luckily I managed to save the lamb joint and miss myself with the hot fat splash ( insert sigh of relief here ) Then I tried juggling with the coffee tin, think I'll have to take lessons as I failed to catch that too, seems my bad luck is still ongoing On the other hand my kitchen floor is lovely and clean

Today in the recycling several tins, a milk carton, a coffee jar and a large coffee-mate one. Several leaflets and booklets dumped left by the postman went straight in the recycling, most of them doublers too I have been waiting for some plums to ripen, which they finally did, but they were so sharp they were inedible, so I made a crumble but with lots of sweetener, therefore does that count as decluttering or recluttering ? 

nan

EnergyShifter

EnergyShifter said:

136. Fixed doors on DS' wardrobe
137. bunch of flowers someone bought me passed on to neighbour (yet another thing I'm allergic to   nowadays )
138.  Did prep for my accreditation mentoring session tomorrow - involves making a recording of a session and marking it

139. Paid some cheques in
140. Bag to CS
141. Got some photos done that I needed for work - a selfie wouldn't suffice so I had a socially distranced photo session with kind neighbour.... 
142. repaired skirt

Ms_W

20/01/2021

5 bath towels, 6 paper pads, 1 pair of tights, 4 books, 2 snowglobes, 8 toilteries, 7 plastic boxes and lids, 1 mini perfume, 1 set drawer scents, 1 dishcloth, 1 tea towel, 1 bread bin, 5 games, 1 lot of cardboard = 37

25/01/2021

18 gift bags, 1 pair of boots, 1 pair of shorts, 2 coats, 2 plastic tubs,  2 coat hangers, 1 cloth, 1 hand towel, 1 shopping bag, 1 sleep mask = 30

total so far 352 / 2021

TC77

Soup better with additions 
Used up red rice use by March 20, yummy salad 174
Items sold, all wrapped out tomorrow but counting, stationery and glass jug and 6 glasses, lots of packaging and box etc 175-185
Sock in draught excluder  186
Comb 187
Shirt in Cs bag 188
Colured pencils 189-197