2025 DECLUTTERING CAMPAIGN MrsSD - The Joy of Decluttering

Florenceem

Wednesday2000 - I have only done 6,500 steps today but my watch said - well done for doing your daily steps.
Muddy_Walker - Mr F was struggling with his compression stockings this morning - I had a go and gave up.
I rescued 3 plates of roast pork dinners from the SA fridge this afternoon. There will be enough for 2 days meals. I would freeze some so we could have a change of menu but the freezers are full
I have cleared off and cleaned the top of the bookcase in the hall today - dusted/polished and just a few items neatly placed there.
I also cleared off the tall boy by the arch in my craft room - again dusted/polished and 2 nice glass items placed on it - one is a bowl holding a new diffuser so I am expecting a lovely aroma when I come downstairs tomorrow morning.
We had a call from Social Services - they were contacted by the hospital - worried about how we were coping. I told the chap - if I want to go to bed at 8 - I can - carers may not arrive until later. In the morning - Mr F can stay in bed - have breakfast there and come down when my mopped floors are dry. 
He asked about meals - I enjoy cooking - no problem.
We are doing okay by ourselves.
Next job - Mr F's toenails - I am not keen on this job but badly needs to be done.

Dizzycap

Floss said:

I'm a list person but I got a bit stuck with mine after I was ill in 2023. I found I had to break the jobs into smaller tasks, so "tidy bedroom" became "strip bed; put clean sheets on; put clean duvet cover on; sort ottoman; put away clothes; clean window; polish & dust; clear dressing table". Maybe that's an approach for those whose list isn't getting ticked off?

I'm off work until Monday but have some stuff to get done including a vet appointment for my cat in just over an hour and a committee meeting this afternoon.

Then I will have to do some tidying and maybe a bit of housework....

Yes, I had to do this too and it really does help because you really feel like you've achieved, even if it's just strip the bed, put clean sheets & pillow cases on, put duvet on, put dirty bedding in the washing machine, wash, and hang out to dry - 7 tasks completed. It didn't matter if it took all morning or day, when it got done, it felt great xxxx

Today has been interesting

Was up at 6am decluttered all bins whilst kettle boiling.Decluttering coffee when I received a message from a friend not too far away, she hurt her foot 3 days and been told she has got to rest it for 2 weeks, otherwise it won't heal and she'll have issues being able to walk. Anyway, she has an 18 month old baby-face who is bursting with energy because she's not been out for a walk or run for 3 days and has become depressed - we can't have that

I said no problem, I'll take her out for a crazy time for an hour and a half and let her enjoy herself So I had to drop off the dolly trolly and large black bin liner at 9am pronto with baby-face in tow, who absolutely loved it

I then got back to have to declutter a large cup of coffee while decluttering another doctors phone call followed by the chemist dropping me off another 2 bags of liquid meds - yuk! So after being told I needed to rest, off I went to collect baby-face 2 and off we went for our 1.5 hour adventure cluttered up with with water, bowl, teats and the other usual doggie things We had the time of our lives as I know of some fairly unknown open grassy areas that I could just let her off the lead and she could let rip safely, and boy did she Non-stop crazy running fruit-loops for 20 minutes before she even thought about having a pee etc and so it went on. I actually managed to just sit peacefully and rest for an hour while baby-face 2 did exactly what she wanted - 2 birds, one stone  I took her back home totally content, relaxed, wriggling & wagging her tail and very vocally demanding a big breakfast as soon as she got through the front door Apparently she's been snoring her head off all afternoon and wagging her tail while sleeping

Wait until tomorrow

As for decluttering: I've managed to declutter a couple of large cups of coffee late afternoon, bin useless circulars & daily mail, delete emails, and texts. I'm too tired to collect any more RD donations from the inpost locker today. There's only 1 parcel to collect, but I need a night of a decluttered hallway with the dolly trolly out of sight and I'm really hoping to list some more items to declutter out of the house,as I need to keep the momentum going, even if it's in small doses of 2-3 listings a day. Knowing Sod's Law, the hallway will be cluttered up tonight with parcels in black bags ready to be decluttered out pronto tomorrow! - Here's hoping! A change is as good as a rest

Anyway, it's time to declutter some more coffee and get 3 items listed xxx

Wishing everyone a great night and happy decluttering tomorrow

Muddy_Walker

Dizzycap- I have to know - who/what is babyface? ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I am widly guessing at a bull terrier but am probably completely wrong!

Im able to put weight on my bad leg now and caught sight of my tummy in the mirror where the injections go…….wow! Many shades of purples and yellows and greens….

charlies_tribe

Ahh, just wrote a huge post and accidentally caught the back button. 
Gentle hugs for muddy-walker and Vulpix, I hope you're both recovering well.

I did catch whatever DH has so felt rubbish for a few days and hardly done anything. 

I did make DS1 (21) throw away his waterbottle after watching him make his bottle the other day and it was black inside.
Today I sorted through the bookshelf in the room as loads just thrown on it. I put a drawing pad in the recycling that DD1 had done lots of pictures dated 2012. There's a pile of revision guides to sort through tomorrow. 
Right will attempt to post before I press a wrong button again.

77-79  3x Cardboard envelope
80-81  2xPaper bag
82  Water bottle
83-88  6 exercise books
89-90  2 a3 paper pads (full)
91  Pile of used paper recycled 

Dizzycap

Muddy_Walker said:

Dizzycap- I have to know - who/what is babyface? ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I am widly guessing at a bull terrier but am probably completely wrong!

Im able to put weight on my bad leg now and caught sight of my tummy in the mirror where the injections go…….wow! Many shades of purples and yellows and greens….

Babyface is a Miniature Dachshund  

Sorry to hear about your bad leg but glad to hear things are improving xx

I've still not listed anything new to declutter   Decided I'll go to bed after I declutter this coffee and list 3 items as soon as I get up before any distractions of the day happen. Sounds like a plan and hopefully it'll work  So far no parcels to declutter tomorrow, so the hallway is clear of clutter for the first time this week

Brambling

I've been busy this week with none decluttering Stuff including a hospital appointment Tuesday to see the consultant re my hip the hospital is nearly a hour away and felt like it was in the middle of the Ashdown Forest, I did declutter some blood there! It should be four to six months before the hip replacement so I need to get a wiggle on with my clearing. I don't want to trip over stuff when recovering and my sister will be staying a week so the spare room needs to be fit for purpose.

Volunteer webinar most of today which the cat also attended, he likes sleeping with his head on the keyboard 🙄 I will be volunteering in town tomorrow so the weekend unless I get a better offer will be dedicate to some organised planning rather than the scatter gun approach I'm currently using to declutter.

After a sleepless night last night with a tadpole which blew up in my brain to a giant frog by 3am I resolved it with a couple of texts before 9am, I should have dealt with it yesterday 🤨

basketcase

Everybody seems to be doing impressive amounts of decluttering – woohoo!  I’m a bit on-again, off-again at present - but I’m beginning to think that may be my style, so I’m going with the flow.

Wednesday was definitely an Off Day.  I felt like I was competing in the Great Pottery Throw Out – pottered around doing Dailies plus bleaching loo, drains etc (but not the windowledges); pottered around the bedroom doing ‘bits’ then pottered to the bins with more recycling and a bag of rubbish…  So nothing much – although I did manage to declutter a couple of books from my Kindle and a film. 

Today was an On Day though.  Dailies plus dusting and tidying/wiping the fridge; washed all bathroom towels.  Plus some admin and met my decluttering targets.  Yay!

Admin Amphibians:

Shopping list for Costco for supplies for Feb food.  I’d usually just walk round seeing what there was, so my brain recognises getting into the habit of writing a list as a frog.  Paid off credit card in full.

Decluttering:

Today was fridge day.  And there was absolutely nothing to throw away or use up urgently – because I did it last week.  I’m calling that a win – although I do have a fair bit of yoghurt to get through.

Decided to sort out my office stationery supplies.  I used to use a lot, but most things are paper-free these days. Of course, I’ve still got all the stuff.  So I was ruthless.  (I was stunned.  I didn't think I had it in me!) 

I used some A4 cardboard magazine holders to organise them and only allowed myself as much as would fit in 1 container: A3, A4, A5 envelopes, labels and jiffibags in 1, A4 plastic folders (envelope type), presentation folders, binder pockets and dividers in another and notepads, CDs etc in the repurposed half of one of the software boxes.  Notelets & writing paper to correspondence box, stray Christmas cards away. And a packet of screws and rawl plugs (no, I don't know either) put in the drawer with the other screws.

2 sets of ancient software, boxes and manuals binned (Why on earth was I keeping them?!), plus 1 bent mag holder, a large number of scaffy files, folders etc and a selection of dead pens, highlighters, odd staples etc chucked. 

Storage containers down from 4 magazine holders, 1 basket and a bag for life to 3 slimline containers.  All put on the newly dusted top of one of my bookshelves.

All presentable items are now in the bag for life waiting to go to a good home.  The basket and 2 collapsed mag holders have been put away, because I’ll be repurposing them later.  There’s a bag of rubbish and another bag of recycling to take down to the bins.

Ooh.  And I sorted that yarn into 2 sets.  One, plus box to go Edinburgh and one bagged for labelling and posting tomorrow.  I'll count those when they leave the house.

Plus I managed to declutter a documentary about the decolonisation of museums in Ireland (Irish with English subtitles).  I know.  I’m weird.

NSDs

I’m using NSDs to cut down on impulse and unnecessary spending.  So, although I did the monthly Costco run on Wednesday, it was planned and budgetted so I don’t count it as spendy.  Likewise, paying off the credit card isn’t a ‘spend’, it’s a budgetted bill.  So 2 NSDs.

TOTALS

February– NSDs = 4/15. Containers = 5/28. Frogs = 3

DundeeDoll

6 for 6: 4 books and 2 bottle covers. Also found a chocolate letter S which i had totally forgotten about (sinterklass gift from DD1 who now lives in the Netherlands) - will declutter but it won't count towards my February challenge 😜

TC77

Not had much time to do things outside work but with refuse being collected today managed to part with a duvet., a. real struggle but have too many , and some marks on it so couldn't donate. I really want to take it out of the bin and find a use or recycle but I can't. 
I have to remind myself that my house isn't landfill.... I have an abundance (aka too much) of nearly everything.
Can't decide on pillows, have a couple of feather pillows but seem to me some feathers escaping, I tend to put an underpillow case on (old one) as a protector and then another so the odd mark isn't an issue.
 1 item but its movement in the right direction...

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

1. Write a daily To Do list - only 3 tasks
2. Concerted effort to sort out sleep patterns - Realistic targets: bed by 2:00 a.m. & up by 10:00 a.m 
3. Continue dealing with mail & email on a daily basis
4. Don’t put it down, put it away + deal with mini tasks as soon as they are noticed e.g. refill olive oil pourer or salt cellar, stitch up a hole in a garment etc
5. Commence ‘Operation Frog Tickling’ using the acronym - I.R.I.S. (Identify, Research, Implement, Sign Off) - One per quarter
6. Continue to keep kitchen clean & tidy - before going to bed

So I did go out 😉 Left the house about 13:55 & got back 16:15. First stop was CS dropped off the toy llama, some hand knitted items & a few other bits

232 - 291 Long scarf, 37 plaited bookmarks, 2 baby blankets, ring binder, 2025 charity calendar, 2 decks of playing cards in a nice box, 5 pens & a pencil, small black carry bag/case, 7 small bags of buttons, Tupperware storage box, cuddly llama, bubblewrap - CS

I popped into M&S to buy a bra, then to the card shop & stocked up on birthday cards - although still need to buy another 2 dozen or so. Postbox in Lewisham town centre is still closed, so posted cards, letters etc on the way home. DH phoned - had decided to catch a bus from Acton but when he got to Oxford Circus he changed to Tube then DLR as it was taking too long 😉 He got home at 17:30. Dinner was spaghetti Bolognaise. Wudupa

292 - 294 Kitchen recycling, drinks cans, glass bottle - recycled 

295 Kitchen detritus - binned 

Excellent decluttering vulpix 👏 & good work tackling frogs 😊 This “Some things are time critical and in my experience not as bad as expected once I have girded my loins and started it. I particularly don't like having to phone people and put it off till the very last minute.” could have been written by me 😂

Excellent decluttering regnbue 👏 Well done on the sales - you have obviously priced to go 👏 I use my paper calendar to mark the weather & will count up the number of days when there has been some rain 😂 Perhaps I should count the days with NO rain - probably quicker 😉

QueenJess, I think we can let you off 🤣

~FlowerPot~ fingers crossed that you got the adminy toad posted today 🤞

Excellent decluttering GrannyKate especially the digital decluttering 👏 Poor Sir Sox - two days in a row not being allowed to survey his entire kingdom 😉 Sounds like the window fitters are getting on with it 🥳

Excellent work with the sales Happy_Kitties 👏 & still powering through decluttering neutral items 🥳

Excellent work decluttering the craft stash Soontobeoap 👏 At the rate you are going the room will soon be ready for your visitors 😊

Florenceem, hopefully the doctor can prescribe something to get rid of the fluid build up 🤞Another busy day for you 👏 & I see that you are able to leave MrF alone for a lot longer 😊 Congratulations on getting 26 bags down to 1 🥳

One page caught up but nodding off ☹️ Sleep tight 😴 

MrsSD Awards: 💐 🌟 ❤️ ❤️ 🏅 💐 💐 💐 🏅🥉🏅 🎂 🌟

DH Awards: 🏅 

DSis Awards:

Decluttering Target 2025: 295/2025

1p Savings Challenge Running Total: £41.00