2024 DECLUTTERING CAMPAIGN MrsSD

nannywindow

Wow MrsSD think you need to keep MrSD he's a gem 💎 ! Glad you enjoyed yesterday, I'm sure it will be something you'll always remember. 
nan 

Crazycatlady2

Hope salad dodger and sister continue to get better, glad you enjoyed your suprise outing

I'm making a list of outings for when my husband is off work in march....so far it's Aldi, b and q and youngest has dentist which is a 2 person job 😱

No decluttering but I'm making a list to f jobs I need to do next week when youngest back at school on Tuesday but I won't overdo it as I'll need time to recover as it's exhausting having him home 24/7 which I feel bad for saying but having a child with severe special needs is definitely exhausting 

Wednesday2000

Mrs_Salad_Dodger said:

I forgot to mention that we had a surprise visitor in the garden - a lesser spotted woodpecker graced us with its presence 😊 My surprise outing turned out to be absolutely splendid & amazing 🤩 I was so happy & excited that I cried tears of joy 🥲 DH & I left the house at 13:00 - DSis was up & still wouldn’t reveal where I was going 😉 - bus, DLR, Circle Line to South Kensington which was positively packed (DH hadn’t realised it was half-term). I thought we were going to a museum 🤔 Sat outside a cafe & had a cappuccino each & shared a club sandwich whilst listening to a chap playing Rodrigo’s Orange Juice Concierto on an electric guitar. Then walked down Exhibition Road turning off to The Royal Albert Hall.  As we were going inside, the penny finally dropped - DH had got tickets for Cirque du Soleil ‘Alegria’

What a lovely surprise for you. It isn't my type of thing, but it is nice that he would buy something that meant so much for you.

My brother bought his girlfriend tickets for The Lion King as a surprise and they both said it was really good.

I saw a very unusual bird on my garden fence a couple of days ago. It had black and white wings and had red on it. I called my husband to see it, but then my dog started barking and it flew off. I have no idea what it was. I tried to google, but couldn't find it.

Siebrie

@Wednesday2000 that sounds like a woodpecker! They are mostly black-and-white and have red somewhere (different place for each species).

Wednesday2000

Siebrie said:

@Wednesday2000 that sounds like a woodpecker! They are mostly black-and-white and have red somewhere (different place for each species).

Oh yes. It was, I just googled! Next door have a bird feeder so that must have been what attracted it to my garden. I saw another bird I don't normally see that day too, but I googled and that was a Jay.

Siebrie

@Liverpool_Anne Husband had an opportunity to buy a plot of land in his country's capital. We started building about 3 years ago, but it's very slow going, because we have to save up some money before everything we do, and he has to be there to supervise.

The first few months were done without supervision, and then he had to sue the builder, and find a new builder to undo all the mistakes the first builder made. He now sits in the rooms they are working in and keeps a close eye on them. For instance: last summer a builder needed electricity in the room adjacent to where the electricity was coming into the house, and he just made a hole through the wall to get the most direct route, instead of going through the hole for the door which was 2 metres to the left! The windows were cemented in all the way upto the glass instead of leaving a window frame (that came with the window...) and the water rained into the room, because it had nowhere else to go.

Husband now uses the money he gains from selling IT-stuff he fixes up; it's not from our household budget anymore. But I have to keep an eye on it, because he will sometimes 'forget'.

Brie

Shop returns today.  Tomorrow it will be stuff to the charity shop - there's 3 banana boxes ready to do.  Plus the sofa  and excess kitchen counter have been advertised on both Gumtree and FB market.  Here's hoping the go soon. Hopefully without too many of those "I'll send a courier" buyers bothering me.

Florafauna

@mrssaladdodger what an amazing surprise, lucky lucky you! I remember the time when one of our cats proudly brought in a dead endangered species woodpecker. Oh the horror.
Have broken up for half term after a very tough week. I've done a little decluttering tonight
Poster
Vase
Decorated stone 
Arnica tablets 
Felt mouse 
Bracelet
Button 
Glass coaster
Toothbrush 
Body scrubber 
Wooden soapdish 
Finished off a night cream and jar recycled 

Holes in top bedroom wall polyfillaed, ready to be painted tomorrow 

And that's me

QueenJess

Wow - what a fab surprise Mrs_SD.  Maybe Mr_SD needs to have a chat with Mr_QJ

Had one of those days where I was out in a big uncluttered space for half a day and then came back to our house and realised we still have way too much stuff (a bit like when you go on holiday for a week).  So I've been using this new motivation to go through kids toys and all the games downstairs (especially as DD will get new things in a few weeks for her birthday).  Have a big pile of stuff for the loft as I don't think the kids are quite the right age and yes I may just be delaying it leaving the house, but there's only so much decision making I can do in one go.  There is still a big pile of stuff leaving the house, although I feel like there is still quite a lot more lurking around.  Not finished the last shelf in the cupboard downstairs and not looked into one of the drawers either.  DS's room remains the most cluttered one, but it's difficult to do to much there as DS seems to collect stuff from everywhere and likes to spend his money on tat.  I just constrain him to the space/storage that he has and if it doesn't fit, then he has to get rid of something so it does.  I try to convince him to get rid of stuff every now and again.

I also continued trying to get rid of more online accounts/loyalty cards I never use.  The frog is now further on and I may be able to close it all out tonight *fingers crossed*.  I boxed up some stuff I need to take back to work before I leave and now have a lovely entirely empty desk drawer

Digital:
7 - emails deleted from permanent folders
1 - text conversation deleted
1 - app deleted
3 - online accounts deleted

Physical:
6 - work stuff boxed up ready to take back
2 - paperwork shredded
1 - broken hairband binned
1 - bag I don’t use (charity box)
2 - DS tat recycled
4 - loyalty card/membership stuff binned/shredded
8 - board games/kids puzzles (Buy Nothing/charity box)
16 - DD toys grown out of (Buy Nothing)

New total = 3,557

For anyone new to decluttering, the trick is to start with anything you don't find sentimental at all and so you can easily make decisions (leave anything sentimental until last).  This will be different for each of us, although clothes or kitchen stuff/toiletries are often good ones.  Then make sure you find the easiest/path of least resistance to actually get the stuff out of the house ASAP.  I do lots of stuff via my local Buy Nothing group as I post them online, then pick someone and they pick up from outside my house.  I also put them into reused packaging bags so it is a double declutter

Randomly asked DS about his lanyard "collection" and managed to weed another 3 of them out for the bin.  New total = 3,560.

dND

Oh my goodness, I don't log on for a couple of days and there's so many posts! 🤣
Hugs, congratulations, get well soon and welcome, please pick what you need.

I'm hot spotting from my phone on an intermittent data connection so finding it a bit difficult to keep up.  The reason is because 16:15 on Wednesday I got a phone call from my solicitor to say that I'd completed on the house. 😁😁😁

I managed 2 carloads plus the cats into the house that night and since then I've been realising the enormity of the project I've taken on. 🤣🤣

Still no heating or hot water - I need to get a gas Safe engineer here.  The house has been empty for over a year and wasn't cleaned.  So there's white mould in the kitchen in all the places where hands have been!

It's a 1950/1970 house and not really been updated since then - think Bakelite style switches for the lights.  Not many sockets and where others have been added it's a bit of a bodge - cables running under the carpet sort of thing.

My task now is to update it without losing too much of it's mid-century vibe, on just a state pension.  So if anyone knows how to remove very, very old lino that looks like it's been put down with black tar, I'm all ears.  I'm hoping it's going to come up with a heat gun but I have to wait until I get all my stuff delivered to do that.

In the mean time, I'm decluttering money hand over fist, but so glad to be back in my own home.

I should get broadband on the 1st March so hopefully I'll be able to declutter the blue air over my head when the internet is slow or drops out yet again. xxx