2023 DECLUTTERING CAMPAIGN Mrs SD

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

1. Write a daily To Do list - only 3 tasks to include MMiM - do this before I go to bed

2. Commence ‘Operation Frog Tickling’ I have an acronym - I.R.I.S. being Identify, Research, Implement, Sign Off 

3. Implement a new sleep/wake up regime - start going to bed earlier (target before 2:00 a.m.) get up earlier (target by 9:00 a.m.)

4. Deal with ‘Urgent’ daily mail immediately & the rest at the weekend

5. Don’t put it down, put it away

6. If I spot a mini task deal with it immediately e.g. refill olive oil pourer or salt cellar, stitch up a hole in a garment etc

7. Continue to keep kitchen clean & tidy - before going to bed

Wednesday started overcast. Buffet breakfast @ 09:00 - DH didn’t finish his breakfast - left his Lorne sausage & most of the half a slice of toast I gave him & I just had a slice & a half of toast & marmalade. DH paid the bill & we crossed the road & packed the bike in the drizzle. Left at 10:15 & headed to Redpoint, West Highlands to take a photo of a postbox 🤣 First stop was for petrol in Kinlochew - a rather plump robin let us take photos. Then onto Redpoint with one 50 minute period of rain. From Redpoint we headed north to Durness but stopped at Corrieshalloch Gorge for a comfort break & refreshments i.e. coffee & cake. Petrol at Scourie then onto Durness - a Millennium Cairn. Then back tracked to Kylesku & checked into our hotel at 18:50. A bit of a comedown from yesterdays room as we are in an attic room up a steep flight of stairs, with our bathroom on the floor below 😔Pictures to follow. However this slight disappointment was more than made up for by the quality of the food & the excellent waitress service 🥳🤩 The Cullen skink & venison that I had were both to die for 🤤 see pics. DH’s crab salad followed by halibut with mussels in a mussel butter sauce with celeriac fondant & spinach was almost as good 😉😉

The last picture is the view from the front of the hotel. How lucky are we 😊 Another highlight for me was that I saw a weasel whilst I was outside being naughty 😉 Overall the weather wasn’t too bad (apart from the one prolonged bout of rain) although a tad chilly. From 19:00 the weather improved considerably- lots of blue sky & even some sunshine 🥳 Tomorrow we have one last place to visit in the north & then we will be heading south on our homeward leg 😔 Back in our room by 21:30 & DH is waiting to take a photo at 22:55 to compare how light it is to a photo he took when we weren’t quite so far north 😅

Next pic - looking down the stairs - bathroom is through the door at the bottom 

Robin, view from front of hotel, Cullen skink & venison

Hope everyone has had a lovely Wednesday.

I will attempt a bit of cheerleading now before trekking to the bathroom 🤣

Siebrie, sounds like your Mum lives in a marvellous location especially with all those charity shops 😊 What a great idea for the local government to run the charity shops (with subsidies) & for the cs to then become so successful that they no longer need subsidies 🤩 I do love that you restricted your purchases so that you only had to leave one daughter behind 🤣 Only joking 🙃 Fingers crossed that your Mum can sort out the insurances now that you have helped out 🤞 Also crossing everything that your Dad’s bread-maker makes good bread & that your sis will have no objections to you keeping it 🤞Have a lovely couple of weeks at your mum’s 😊

Moorviews, good luck making your pantie liners 🍀 Thanks for the kind wishes - so far apart from DH’s clumsiness we are thoroughly enjoying Scotland even with the rain 😊 Hopefully the bag for cs will leave your car soon - once it gets bored of being driven around 😉 Hope you were brave on Sunday & decluttered the fridge 🤞 Laboratory experiments in fungal growth whilst interesting have no practical use unless you are writing a Paper to be published in a science journal 😉Wishing you continued success in your mission to declutter emails, FB groups etc 🍀 which will hopefully lead to you feeling less overwhelmed 🤞

Muddy_Walker, so sorry to hear that you were ill over the weekend 😔 So flippin’ typical that you couldn’t enjoy your weekend but will probably be well enough to go to work 😖 Are you going anywhere nice in September? 

Great decluttering short_bird 👏 Hmm, ‘disorganised tax’ not heard of that one before 🤞 I must owe thousands 🤣

Gers, yippee to finding a couple of fivers 🥳 I must say I am rather pleased that you checked the rucksack before donating to the cs 😊 otherwise someone else would have had the best charity shop purchase ever 😉

QueenJess, pleased to hear that DH took the kids out on Sunday 😊 Although not convinced that all the decluttering & tidying you did constitutes ‘resting’ 🧐 Not withstanding my observation, excellent decluttering 👏

Lovely post Florenceem 😊 It might have rained on Sunday but I hope the garden party was well attended for such a good cause 🤞 Not even a plaster to dish out as part of your First Aider duties - must have seemed like a long afternoon 😔

Deni_debt-free_dreamer, sounds like a great weekend 👏 Gadgets off - apart from skim reading 150 posts 😅 Excellent decluttering re the letters & the fridge 👏 + very well done on purging emails back below 11k 🥳 Well done to DD1 for selling more of your clothes on V*nted 👏 

stellata, good luck with your tech recycling 🍀 Great work decluttering shoes👏 You are so right, shoes take up so much space 😔

QueenJess, at the rate you are decluttering you will hit 25,000 before the end of July 😅 Excellent decluttering 👏 Wouldn’t matter how much of “your allergic reaction to doing nothing” you send my way, I would still probably have no trouble relaxing 😉 

Will you look at that a whole page of cheerleading 🥳 - only 5 pages behind 😉

MrsSD (a superwoman) 😇 🎖💐🤩🏅🦸🏅💐🏆 💐🍰🍾🌟⭐️🌟 💐🏅💐🏅💐💐💐🏅💐 ⭐️ ❤️🏅🍾🏅 📣🦸‍♀️💐 ⭐️ 🏅 

DH Awards: 🥇🏅⭐️💐,  perseverance medal 🎖️, 🥇 🏅🏅 😇

Decluttering Target 2023: 1628/2023

1p Savings Challenge Running Total: £228.00

Liverpool_Anne

Hi all, slow decluttering day but I have been tidying a corner which houses my yarn. I was on the hunt for my darning needle to sew in the ends on the blanket. Various bits of carp in the bin and recycling, lots of time spent sorting out the yarn and thinking about what I can make with the odd bits left. I am contemplating a lap blanket for ln as she admired the big blanket I made.  I also sorted my embroidery threads into a large empty sweety tin as I came across a couple of balls of thread that wouldn't fit in the sewing basket.  By the time I found the needle I was too tired to do it . I collected my meds from the chemist and sorted them into the bedside draw, so much packaging I had to empty the bedroom recycling. i have sorted the washing ready to get it going first thing in the morning

@Mrs SD I am not sure I could cope with steep stairs to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I am usually only half awake and would probably fall down them . I hope Mr SD is ok with them with his knee.
Ok, off to bed, hugs to anybody who would like one

973 meds collected and sorted
974 bedroom recycling emptied
Take care everyone
974/2023

Moorviews

Mrs SD - Thank you, it’s great to hear that you are enjoying yourselves and that Mr SD is getting by with his painful knee. The food sounds amazing!

@dND - welcome home 😊 That’s quite a feat you pulled off getting yourself, your belongings and the cats organised for the return! Well done to you and your son. Good luck with the search for your new home. In the meantime you can perhaps enjoy a little relaxation?

Bag of books dropped off to the charity shop. Two large 🐸🐸s down. I have gathered up another large bag for the charity shop and one for the clothing bank. It would be great if they could go today 🤞

Moorviews

@Liverpool_Anne - I now keep my darning needle, one sewing needle, my needle threaders, my thimble and a reel of white cotton in a clear plastic pot placed in a prominent position. It’s been a game changer for me being able to lay my my hands on those items so easily rather than having to go through my sewing basket or box for them. 

Florenceem

MrsSD - very steep stairs to negotiate in the night.
I didn't post yesterday - busy at SA plus I had my oven door repaired so can bake.
Mr F fell on the stairs yesterday - he was only holding on with one hand as he was carrying items that I had put on the stairs to be taken up - naughty man - I have told him not to carry stuff on the stairs.
I have an optician's appointment this morning.
I did some sewing yesterday afternoon - made a mistake - will try again today.
DGd's graduation is tomorrow.

QueenJess

Another almost 700 photos to report as gone.  I've exhausted the useful apps that identify similar photos to easily delete and it's a slow slog through the remaining ones now.  I am attacking all the photos post kids on my phone first and going through a random month at a time. 

I have a rough rule of thumb of getting to 8-10 photos per month, although it's not an enforced rule, so some I have more (especially if we were on holiday or something) and some I may have less.  It's just something to aim for to keep me focused.  The aim of 8-10 is because I only want the photos that really summarise the month for me and are the ones I love and want to see again and again.

So the approach is two fold.  If I search for a month and there aren't too many in there - say less than 100 - I will scroll through and think about the ones I really "have" to keep because I love them and they summarise it all for me.  I then organise into simple folders once decluttered and tick off that month on the temporary list I am keeping.  If I search and find I actually have tons in there and it's overwhelming, I instead think about the ones I could delete as they are still similar, blurry, I don't like them etc.  For these I usually get overwhelmed quickly, so I delete what I can and then move onto a different month.  I will come back again and do it in another wave.

Once everything is done (will be taking quite a while...) I will probably have a another look through, but looking at them album by album instead.  This should help weed out where I've taken 100 photos of the kids asleep and then keep my favourites of those.  I do also need to look through DH's photos (his are organised by month on his laptop) and save off any I love and want in my collection.  The aim is to have a curated collection that has all the photos I love and can then put onto a digital photo frame as well as cycle through on a widget on my phone so I can genuinely enjoy them all.

It is hard going and I am glad this is one of the last things I'm tackling after getting very good at decluttering elsewhere.  Sometimes I feel bad about deleting photos, but the thing is for me is that as soon as I am overwhelmed by the number of photos, I know from experience I will never look at them because there are too many there and I know I won't like every photo.  It's a waste and I want to enjoy them.  If I curate them carefully into just the ones I love, I know I will look at them again and again.  I'm sure others will keep way more than me and that's fine.  Hopefully me going through my process here though will help others/give people ideas on how they want to deal with their photos.

Digital:
26,118-26,789 - photos/videos deleted
26,790-26,792 - apps deleted

Slidebox says I've organised 13% of my photos, so there is definitely a very long way to go!  Another 3,182 photos, 584 videos and then I have to tackle the photos on my laptop which may well be a different approach as they are mostly holiday photos pre kids.

dND

Thank you @daisy_1571 and @Moorviews.

I’m doing my best to relax and to help out my son and daughter-in-law as much as I can.  They both are out of the house for a minimum of 12 hours a day and longer if the trains mess them about. 😱

Along with the car payment I’ve decluttered rather a lot of money on the insurance – I have an overseas no-claims and can only claim 2 weeks of living in the UK on the application form!  Hopefully, next year I can get a substantial reduction. 

However, being a MSE follower I did my application through a cashback site and am re-cluttering £50.  I need to hold my hand up now and say that I’ve also re-cluttered 3 babycham glasses I found at a local charity shop.  I’ve always lusted after them since childhood and since the brand is back as a family owned firm I though it was time to get some vintage ones.

Today I’m off to visit the fruit and veg store in the weekly market.  Their produce is so much fresher than the supermarket over the road. My Ds and DDil both work in retail and can’t get there so my aim is to get them more fresh produce whilst I’m living here – plus I support a local business. 

I’m also going to visit the GPs surgery and start the process of getting registered there – and find out what proof of residency paperwork I have that they will accept.

Apart from that I’ll probably de-clutter a bit more time on the competition site site I’ve signed up to.  I’m trying to limit my entries to comps that close in the next 3 months as with a bit of luck I’ll have a moving date by then.

@Mrs_Salad_Dodger: Real Cullen skink – yummy. 😋😋 The last time I had that was many, many years ago near Cape Wrath.

@QueenJess: Thank you for the info on the photo apps.  I really should do that.

@Florenceem: I hope Mr F is OK after his fall and that he'll think twice before trying anything like that again.

Hugs to all who would like one and a big congratulations to all the frog eaters and declutterers on the thread.

Dxxx

~FlowerPot~

Morning Mrs SD so pleased to hear you are having a fab time. I am loving hearing all about it and the food you are both enjoying sounds fabulous. I do hope Mr SDs knee is improving.

Can't believe its Thursday again already. I did manage to clean and tidy the kitchen which led to the aprons being put back into their proper place. We have 1 each (so thats 5!) as I try and encourage them to help in the kitchen!! But i had 3. 1 was a xmas gift last year, but its got a frilly edge that i relly dont like, so thats gone out and another has been attacked by the dog. Very unusually for him, but its been hanging there unuseable because I didnt want to throw it away !! So yesterday i took it down and said to my DS2 (whos just finished Alevel textiles) this material is too nice to throw away what could you do with it?!!! Anyway cue about 6 hours later!! hes made a tote bag, spent hours and hours on it as never made any actual useful items on his course, think textiles art, rtaher than textiles useful skills !!!!

So that 2 items gone whoop whoop  and plus a clear away of the cluttered windowsill and a mountain of crumbs from the biscuit drawer!

Lets see what today will bring DS2 is off on a long bike ride. DD is getting up. SHe didnt get into the school, so we have no school for September AGAIN! and this will be her last year, so, I do not know what we will do. She is trying to learn a bit in her room, but thats not proving very easy for her or me !! She has lost years of education and is still really wanting to sit her GCSEs next summer.

QueenJess

@Dfw38 just noticed that your kitten pic is on the forum homepage! It is a very cute kitten 😊

QueenJess

Struggling to concentrate on work today as I seem to be in the midst of a major decluttering spree.  Will have to prise myself away to get some work stuff done now though.

More photos decluttered and I am tackling DD's clothes, which aren't quite as bad as I'd imagined as I have done them recently.  Bit more to do on her clothes front, but hopefully will get that done today when I take breaks.  Wanted to get to 15% of photos organised, but still on 13.8%, so may not make that one today.

It does feel like something significant has changed recently with the amount of stuff I've got rid of.  DS's room since the purge and rearrangement is largely under control.  My bedroom is also pretty tidy (and would be perfectly so if I ever get round to sewing up those jeans...) and even the library looks better despite barely starting the decluttering in there yet.  Even DH took it upon himself to arrange his new cupboard in the garage and take a car load of stuff to the tip.  He even tidied up all his car cleaning products that I said looked messy and he should arrange into boxes.  Still lots to do in there, but the house is so much better now.  I haven't tidied anything for days and it still looks ok.  I mean no room is perfect as there is always something on the side etc (except that sideboard which remains gloriously empty and gives me joy every time I walk into the kitchen), but I'm hoping that will eventually go away once this decluttering round is pretty much dealt with.  I'm looking forward to being less stressed and actually achieving everything on my lists rather than things piling up.  Fingers crossed I can get there by the end of the year as planned and then I just need to keep on top of it.

Digital:
26,793-26,992 - photos/videos deleted
26,993-26,995 - wish list items deleted

Physical:
26,996-26,997 - paper (reused, then recycled)
26,998-27,025 - kids clothes too small/too many/don’t wear (charity bag)