2025 DECLUTTERING CAMPAIGN MrsSD - The Joy of Decluttering

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

Sunday has been a gloriously warm & sunny day with a high of 24°C & a low of 10°C ☀️ Another exceedingly lazy day for me. DH watched the MotoGP races & then took the car out for a spin - trying to find somewhere that had the specific brand of root beer that I like & pick up a loaf. Success with the bread but none with the root beer which has now been unavailable for 3 weeks ☹️ Dinner was fried pork steaks with roast potatoes, parsnips & carrots; cabbage & Yorkshire puddings. Very tasty 😋 Wudupa

836 - 839 Kitchen recycling, glass jar, paper packaging, drinks cans - recycled 

840 - 841 Kitchen & lr detritus - binned

GrannyKate, sorry to hear that the new kitchen is taking a bit longer than expected/desired ☹️ I will keep everything crossed that the fitters can get everything completed before you return home from your time away 🤞

Excellent decluttering QueenJess 👏

A very busy Friday Liverpool_Anne 👏 A shame & an annoyance that your gardener was worse than useless 😡 Good luck in your search for a gardener who not only remembers what you want him to do but also knuckles under & gets on with the job 🍀 You worked so hard in the garden that I am awarding you a medal 🏅 Well done on getting everything to the Tip 👏

TC77, all I can say is that there had better only be one call out charge! It sounds like if you had had the time & watched a couple of uTube videos, you would have done a better job 🤔 Great work dealing with the frog associated with DD1’s accident 👏 Fingers crossed that DD1 gets her referral quickly 🤞Hope you had a lovely walk with your friend 🙂

Lovely post Moorviews 😊 & I echo your sentiment “The swans are beautiful! It is a treat to be following their progress thank you @Dizzycap.” Excellent decluttering 👏 & well done on getting everything to the Tip 👏

Great work with the digital decluttering TC77 👏 I have made a note of your new number 🙂 How very droll of DD2 😉

Lovely post Brie 😊

QueenJess, shame about DS’s room ☹️ although I did have a rueful grin at the underlined bit of This “DS's room is turning into a state again and even my parents commented that it is a bit overwhelming and busy in there” 🤨 It is also a great pity that your DH ‘disappears’ when you need his support 😔 Great work over the past few years getting yourself into the position of Maintenance Decluttering 👏 Please accept some virtual flowers 💐 Yummy to the rhubarb crumble 🤤 

Florenceem, great work with the curtains tie backs 👏 How lovely to have an impromptu trip to Broadstairs 😊 I can just imagine you & MrF strolling along eating an ice cream 😊

Excellent work sorting out the towels Liverpool_Anne 👏 Fingers crossed that the potential new gardener comes up trumps 🤞

weenancy, crikey you were busy on Saturday 🤩 Excellent decluttering 👏 That is sweltering 36.6°C 🥵 - I do hope the temperatures fall to a more reasonable mid 20’s 🙏 & that you get rain overnight & early morning 🙏 Please, please stay safe in the heat 🙏

TC77, fingers crossed that the plumber turned up early within the time slot 🤞

Floss, good luck completing the decorating 🍀

TC77, everything crossed that this 4th visit from a plumber has been completely successful 🤞Excellent work going through the various places holding DIY stuff & great decluttering 👏 

Excellent decluttering Rootle 👏

Brie, absolutely counts - yo have decluttered a task (as well as the dust) 👏

CRANKY40, now that is what I call a proper distraction from posting 😂 Great work painting the staircase walls 👏 Loved This “Our house is ex council stock so we only get council estate starlings in our garden 🤣  The babies just now are like floofy brown tennis balls with wings and a beak. There were seven of them trundling around our garden this morning. They seem to eat non-stop, no wonder adult starlings are always looking for food! The babies also had a lovely time playing in our solar fountain. I did have a bit of a heart stopping moment when one of them came strolling across the patio towards our cat but luckily it changed it's mind at the last minute. The cat is a bit scared of them anyway and runs indoors if they start screeching.” especially the part about the cat running indoors when the starlings start screeching 😊

Very funny Floss & Brie 😂

QueenJess, beautiful photo 😍  Isn’t nature wonderful  🤩 Fingers crossed that your DS continues to NOT miss any of the items you boxed up & removed from his room 🤞

Good luck with your email frog TC77 🍀 & I will continue keeping my fingers crossed that the issue with the plumbing has finally been sorted out 🤞🤞

Florenceem, a busy Sunday morning 😊 Sounds like the cushion covers are almost finished 🤩 What a generous thing to do but a shame that the pizza company couldn’t follow a very simple instruction 😔

Excellent decluttering Happy_Kitties 👏 What a lovely neighbour 😊

Excellent work completing the email frog TC77 👏 Here’s hoping that you receive a favourable response 🙏

Lovely to see you StickyTheStickInsect 👋 Keeping everything crossed that your house move takes place soon 🤞🙏 Sounds like you have been very busy & successful in packing up & decluttering 👏 An excellent number of bags decluttered 👏 One Gold Star ⭐️ is on its way as I type & a 2nd one is not too far off 😊 As far as I am aware, the London meet up hasn’t taken place as not only has the weather not been too wonderful (until recently) but everyone has been very busy 🙂

Liverpool_Anne, excellent work dealing with the laundry & well done on fitting the new loo seat 👏 Hopefully you can deliver all the sorted out towels to their final destinations 🤞Hopefully the weather will stay fine whilst you & ln are sorting out the hanging baskets 🙏

I am deliberately staying up as DH wants to head off early for a 2 day RBR trip to the Lake District. 

Cwtches for all 🤗 Sleep tight 😴 

P.S. About 01:00 it rained for about 30 minutes ☹️

MrsSD Awards: 💐 🌟 ❤️ ❤️ 🏅 💐 💐 💐 🏅🥉🏅 🎂 🌟⭐️⭐️❤️ 🍫🐾 😍🥇🥇 💐 🏆 

DH Awards: 🏅 ‘Squirrel Whisperer’

DSis Awards: ⭐️ 

Decluttering Target 2025: 841/2025

1p Savings Challenge Running Total: £116.00

Floss

@Mrs_Salad_Dodger have you tried Stratford precinct for your root beer? I think it should be reachable on the DLR.

Soontobeoap

Everyone is so busy. More gardening for me. 2 grow bags full of weeds and grass cuttings put into empty grow bags ready for new compost in 2 years put behind shed and 2 bags that have composted put over garden. The garden is a long slow job having been left so long but I am beginning to see progress now and one border is nearly complete. The rain last night will help too. 😊

Brie

Mrs SD - you could always make your own root beer!!  There's a recipe on this website.  Let me know if you need me to translate the measures into English.

Root Beer: What It Is, History, Taste & the Best Root Beers

One week now until I've flying over that way where I may just wander into an A&W.  Used to love their TV ads with the A&W Root Bear.  

retiredinfrance

Good evening, declutterati chums. I’ve been busy here. , mainly gardening as when DH was ill last summer no gardening was done and although we did get a gardener to do all the grass the flower beds went wild. So lots of weeds decluttered but I don’t count them. 

On the declutter front I’ve been very active but it’s still work in progress on this project. Many of you will recognize this situation.
 I’ve been steadily reducing the number of bars of soap and other toiletries. It occurred to me that if I did a bit of rearranging finding new homes…. I might get one totally empty drawer.The nice box with soaps and bottles of perfume has been emptied. All bottles are now with the soap in a half empty drawer which is now full.i have a chest of 6 small drawers and another one of 3. Now, like many of you I do like a nice box. Then I saw that a big drawer in a chest was full of stuff - details in the list of items decluttered and the box top and bottom are just the inside height of the drawer. So I cleared the stuff, organised admin stuff to admin desk and filled the box halves with all my hand sewing notions. There are now two small empty drawers - totally empty and I’m looking to rehome another category into them. The big drawer yielded up so much clutter ….
Out
pile of wrapping paper
2 polythene bags
small pile of cardboard 
small pile of postcards
small pile of admin papers for shredding 
one hanging advent calendar with pockets
1pile of ribbons
1 small loom
5 small balls of yarn
6 small notebooks- more to go?
1 expensive jewelry set -a sunk cost item
21 in all
Elsewhere,
I pair linen trousers
4 small hotel sewing kits
1 pair garden trousers for rags
i fancy glasses case
20 books

total48=225+48=273 

The best bit is that there are no double parked books on the shelves 
and I have 2 small empty drawers 
and I’m being a wee bit more ruthless about sunk cost items .
its all progress , chums.

Hugs for everyone who would like one.

Brambling

No decluttering done at home today but having gone around to a elderly friend this afternoon to read a letter for her, we then spent a hour looking for a medical letter which 'should have been easy as it's yellow'. I realised that she had accumulated loads of carrier bags full of every piece of paperwork which has come into her flat including receipts since she broke her leg and had a stroke in 2020. I did fill a bag and brought back home to shred and I've told her I'm going back next Monday to sort and shred for her she can give me a sandwich for lunch as payment. We'll start with the carrier bags then I'll see if she will let me loose on her folders of paperwork pre 2020.

I was going to do some last year but she changed her mind and said she could cope but it's stressing her out and I'm worried that as she uses a Walker and her eye is getting bad she's going to trip over the mess which is spilling over to all rooms, it seems her cleaner hoover around the mess!  

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

Monday: I woke DH just after 07:00, had a cuddle & said goodbye then turfed him out of bed. He got dressed in the bathroom - motorcycle gear, went downstairs, had a coffee, made up a flask, packed the bike & was on the road at 08:03. I slept through until 12:30. A mostly sunny day with a high of 23°C & a low of 15°C Spent the afternoon & evening clearing down even more programmes from the planner. DH phoned 17:00 - due to roadworks & traffic he was bit behind but was expecting to be at his hotel (Howard Arms, Brampton)  by about 18:00. Weather was dry but windy. He was meeting a couple of friends who live locally. DSis did her laundry & managed to line dry two wm loads. Dinner was spaghetti bolognaise. Wudupa.

842 - 844 Kitchen recycling, glass bottle, drinks cans - recycled 

845 - 846 Kitchen & lr detritus - binned 

Thanks Floss 😊

Excellent work in the garden Soontobeoap 👏

Brie, thanks for the link 👏 My preferred root beer actually made the list 😊 You must be so looking forward to your trip ☺️

Lovely to see you retiredinfrance 👋 You have been extremely busy both indoors & outdoors 🤩 Brilliant decluttering & organising of drawers 👏 I see from your number (273/365) that I have been remiss in making awards 😉 Two Gold Stars ⭐️ ⭐️ are on their way 😊

What a lovely person you are Brambling 🥹 Please accept some flowers 💐 

Off to bed now. Sleep tight 😴 

MrsSD Awards: 💐 🌟 ❤️ ❤️ 🏅 💐 💐 💐 🏅🥉🏅 🎂 🌟⭐️⭐️❤️ 🍫🐾 😍🥇🥇 💐 🏆 

DH Awards: 🏅 ‘Squirrel Whisperer’

DSis Awards: ⭐️ 

Decluttering Target 2025: 846/2025

1p Savings Challenge Running Total: £116.00

QueenJess

Decluttering seems to have shuddered to a halt this end, although I have some things to declare from Friday.  I am still working on using things up, but they take quite a bit of time to use them up (this is MSE, so obviously I use the minimum required each time and use things right to the bitter end with no waste).  I will go back to the tidying and gardening and hopefully some more things will appear that I'd forgotten about.

I do need to declare two new books in for myself (a gardening book that I read so much of in the shop I thought I should buy it!) and a puzzle book I've already done 20% of!  Good buys as they are both being used.

Just dropping in really to put freshly baked rhubarb and ginger scones in the tlc carriage

Digital:
56 - photos deleted

Physical:
4 - paper, reused then recycled
2 - packaging reused

New total 1,365
Use it up total 122
Net physical things in/(out) +32
Mini kitchen challenge 26/50

StickyTheStickInsect

Thank you for my gold star Mrs SD!

Pleased to hear that I haven’t missed a meet up 😊

No decluttering to report, several people have been no shows for things I’ve listed on the Freebies site, it is always the same people too, I think I’ve got to the end of my tolerance for it, so I’ll either have to work out how to block them or just take things to the charity shop.

I’m about to declutter a significant amount of money as the cat has eaten part of a cardboard box and has some of it caught in her throat, so we are off to the vets later to have it sorted out. She is lovely but sometimes is just ridiculous!!

Liverpool_Anne

Hi all, I was home very late last night so when I got to bed I just crashed to sleep 😁. Quite a good day yesterday though. I bagged up the old towels for the animal rescue and threw in an old fleece that had a few holes in and put the bag in the car. I helped ln with 2 of her hanging baskets as by the time we got started I was running out of time to get ready to go out so there are another 2 to do today. The kitchen recycling emptied into ln's bin again but they will be emptied today so I can have a sweep around and get some other stuff out. 1 LDFPA and the 2 bin bags of plastic containers and the bin bag of plastic plant pots were put in the car. On the way to the pub I dropped 9 towels and the fleece at the animal rescue and the ex colleague who wanted the pots etc was at the pub so they changed card before we left 😁. Everyone was very happy with what they received 😁. 
We had a great night catching up with each other. One person C, has had a particularly tough time with his Mum dying while in the middle of having a part of his lower jaw bone removed due to cancer and his jaw rebuilt. It took nearly a year to be sorted but I have to say I was very impressed with the reconstruction as unless he told us you wouldn't know he had had anything done. Another friend R, is project managing the extension build and refurbishment of her daughter's house, doing some of the work herself, while working full time and periocically caring for her autistic son and the lady who wanted the plant pots K, has been dealing with the paper work for the planning for work on her son's grade 2 listed  manor house that is currently not habitable so lots to talk about before we got on to the state of the world 😂. You can see why it was a late night 😂.

Apart from the hanging baskets and the load of washing I have put out on the line I am not sure what else I will do today though I do have a couple of frogs that really need my attention and a trip to the bank is needed to shuffle some money around so I can sort next season's footy tickets 😁

@Moorviews I wanted to say I would willingly give some work to a couple of teenage lads if I knew any. I did try that route but the one lad who I found said I lived too far away as he was travelling around on his bike. Most of the teenagers I see are not that keen on doing manual work and seem to want other types of work, the girls want to be influencers or beauty technicians and the boys want to be footballers or musicians 😂.

Sorry got to go, the roofer has turned up 2 days early 😂 will update numbers later 
Take care everyone