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

Saturday has started bright & sunny with a forecast high of 12°C (but feeling 6° colder due to a very chilly wind) & a low of 9°C. I was up & dressed by 10:30 & have finally written, addressed & stamped the overseas Christmas cards 😉 Now just need to post them! Forgot to attach a picture of the latest completed hat - main colour is actually green! 

Just made myself a cuppa & about to settle down to the cheerleading, starting with posts dated the 3rd:

Lovely to see you Liverpool_Anne 👋 Sorry to hear that your decluttering mojo has gone walkabout 😞 but at least you have a bona fide reason 🙂 whereas my mojo has now been on holiday for several months ☹️ Very impressed that you are still using up foodstuffs 👏 & also exceedingly impressed that you haven’t thrown in the towel as regards training your OH 🤩 although I can understand how wearying it is to have to keep repeating yourself 😞 Excellent decluttering of wrapping paper & gift bags stash 👏 Good luck with your plans to gain a bit more space 🍀

Organizing_Home, a brilliant idea 👏 

Excellent decluttering of jewellery vulpix 👏 I take it you haven’t found your dressing gown yet 😞 are you sure there isn’t a van driver travelling around wearing it 🙊 Sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience at the pharmacy, as you say there is absolutely no need. I hope the hospital visit went well 🤞Enjoy your knitting 😊

Good decluttering florianatwobob 👏 & I glove the idea of you being a lending library 😊

MadamMim2013, when I read This “I’ve noticed lately that I procrastinate and avoid the thing that’s bothering me then get more frustrated it’s not done 🤯 Have been reminding myself this week that one job at a time works best, not flitting between 4 things.“ I thought you must have read my mind 😉  Well done on persevering with the POA & wills 👏 a medal 🏅 is on its way. Hope the doctor’s appointment went well 🤞

vulpix, pleased to hear that the situation with the pharmacy has been resolved 🙂 Good luck with your medical procedures 🍀 I hope that none of them are too uncomfortable 🙏 Sounds like the making your new house into a home is going well 😊 you have been working very hard so I hope that you will have a restful time over the holidays before starting again in the New Year 🙏 Definitely agree with This “No point in having a bay window if you don't have a big Christmas tree in it! hahaha.” 😊

suzeesu2000, excellent work with the DVD arranging & sorting out Christmas present wrapping 👏 You are very organised 😊 A medal 🏅 is on its way 🙂

Nice to see you TC77 👋 Hope you had a lovely three weeks 😊 Shame you had to come back to uncertainty about work 😞 Hopefully the restructuring process won’t be too disruptive & you & your colleagues will be kept fully informed of the changes 🤞

Lovely to see you BlueJ94 👋 Sorry to hear that life has been unkind 😞 You have been doing so well, so I know that now you are back on track you will be able to repair the damage 🙂 Good luck 🍀 Hopefully you will recover from your cold & will have a wonderful time at your works Christmas do 🤞

I got distracted by knitting again, so not caught up with the cheerleading as much as I had intended 😞 See you later 👋 

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

DH Awards: 🏅 ‘Squirrel Whisperer’ ⭐️🏅🏅⭐️😇🏅🥇 

DSis Awards: ⭐️ ⭐️ 🏅

Decluttering Target 2025: 2248/2025

1p Savings Challenge Running Total: £569.00

vulpix

Cranky, interesting 🤔. I don’t have a gall bladder any longer but I do hope I can manage the procedure again. I don’t have much choice really. It would be fab if it could be sorted out at the same time as the investigation. 

Did spend the day doing jobs. Little attention to detail stuff. Didn’t achieve as much as I hoped. Things always take so much longer than expected. 5 areas of plastering finished. Gave the fire surround another coat of paint. Mended a picture frame. Spent ages scraping emulsion off the new to me mirror. Someone had emulsioned round it on the wall! I also made an experimental meal with aubergines. Tomorrow is another day. I will keep chipping away at things. 

 Vx

TC77

@Liverpool_Anne good advice, thanks and I'll check out the you tube suggestion as I haven't heard of them.

Managed to do alot of sorting out, packaging and bits and pieces, and hoovering - counting as 20.
Then found some shoes that I realised are cracked on the sole so trying to see if they can be recycled, 3 medicines returned, 3 batteries will be (they have been in my bag for ever), some cards posted.
Couldn't resist a few clothes in the CS and also my favourite notebooks on offer and now have 2 diaries I like, one bigger than the other and debating if there is a  sensible reason to keep both.
Hoping someone will pick up the coffee table I took in from my neighbour for DD1 without realising how big or heavy -couple of people on free site saying they will collect - fingers crossed.

Mrs SD, I had a wonderful 3 weeks -  I went to Taiwan and given my none existent mandarin or any other Chinese language it was quiet, and a very calm place which was what I needed and wanted.  Realise how content I can be walking and wondering around and with only a few things. Translating this approach to home is more difficult but we will see.

Love the hat Mrs SD. 
@vulpix I remember your dressing gown being missing weeks ago, hope you've found everything else and sounds as if you're as busy as ever.

Impressed by all that is going on with everyone and sending hugs to all poorlies and those struggling.

Got my xmas stuff out and spent ages looking for the wreath for the front door then remembered it was decluttered. Decided to just put up my little tree as only me (and a few decorations) this year but DD1 has said we'll do something next year when DD2 is home so keeping all other decorations as I had a big cull last year.

almost forgot my numbers 1842

daisy_1571

tc77 no reasonable reason to keep 2 diaries as you'll always be having to double check you've added things to each.  Pick one and return the other or charity shop it so someone else can benefit 

Dxx

Happy_Kitties

668) another item sold on V
669) a water bowl destroyed by the cats popped into recycling
670) cat mat that the water bowl was on- binned. I have no idea what the cats did but it was trashed and soaked in water 

2 more Dun elm Bags of Joy handed over making 52 Bags so far.
Also handed over a bag of care packs made up that were requested for an extra cause 
will up date my neutral item total soon 

London_1

Cranky I can't believe your House Elf is @ Uni, but then it hardly seems possible my youngest DGS Mikey only has  less than 6 months to go before he graduates

The boys have all grown up so quickly my eldest DGS Danny is a Dad himself, and it 35 It only seems a short while ago I was making him a 'Postman Pat and his black and white cat'  
picture jumper which his Mum had trouble getting it off him to wash at 4 and his Mum, my eldest DD will be 60 in two years. the time seems to go faster the older you get 

Today ive not done very much at all, and I will have to get out and about tomorrow and get some fresh air no matter how wet and windy it is.

Ive just been researching what used to be where our house is now The internet is great for historical research and as a total history nut I love research
 Ive even found a picture of the pub Lake Superior which was on the land where our house was built in 1997 as the pub shut in 1996 and was sold off for building land. There are five houses in our road all with the same number and all built at different time so my house address has to be by name, and not number, or nothing gets delivered all five houses are named differently although the numbers are the same.

 Must be an IoW thing as my late Ma-in-laws house for years was called Lildred ,no idea who or why as it had been originally two small houses knocked into one by her father when she bought them in 1937.

She was a 28 year old widow with two children under 3 and had returned to the island to live when she lost her young husband from TB. He had been a fit and healthy ex-soldier, and PT instructor in the army, yet had what in the 1930s was called 'galloping consumption' they had been living in Chelsea in London, and within 6 weeks not only had she lost her husband, but her father-in-law, and her three month old baby son, leaving her with an almost 2 year old and my late husband who was just three.

She luckily had a small life insurance policy of £590.00 which is nothing by todays standards but put together with her small savings she managed to buy the two small houses which came with just under an acre of land about 5 minutes walk to her parents house in the same village of Northwood on the island
It had no bathroom, and only an outside loo and no electricity until 1941. It cost her £550.00 

But she grew as much of their food as possible, and kept chickens, and even during the war raised a piglet someone had given her which when grown helped fed by some of her neighbours she shared with them when it eventually was slaughtered.

My late husband and his brother woulkd go rabbiting and fishing when they could and helped their Mum in the garden at the back by digging it, and she grew almost everything that was edible bless her

An amazing lady my tiny little ma-in-law she never gave in to anything, and I had nothing but the greatest respect for her.
To me, along with my late Mum she was of that generation that would have loved the idea of MSE I think.Nothing was wasted and if you could eat it then you did.
 
My husband was 18 and just joining up for his National Service in 1951 before he ever saw a Dr as people tended to use the cures handed down to them by their families and Drs cost money they often didn't have.

 My ma-in-law cleaned her teeth with salt and had rarely been to a dentist and they were pretty good when she finally passed away at 86 after a hard struggle at times, but she said that when she moved back to the Island to live with her two little boys she was determined that they would always have a roof over their heads and food to eat.

Which at times must have been hard, as she only had a very small widows pension of around 11/- a week to live on. She said to me once that the local vicar had turned up to offer her help and she said she sent him off with a flea in his ear as she wouldn't take charity from people who needed it more than she did.

" My boys were fed and clean and kept as warm as we could, there, were folk who didn't have that luxury" she said "At least we had a roof over us, and were not in the poor house"

 Like many people back then there was a great fear of ending up in the workhouse.
She worked doing anything she could and managed to make ends meet though at times it must have been a stretch. War time brought  extra work in munitions, and she had electricity put in the house, so not more candles to light you to bed or oil lamps. Slowly her life became a little easier, and she remarried and had another son so the boys were all brought up together.

She taught my two little girls to play cards and dominos and was brilliant at darts, as the boys had a dartboard at home which she soon learned to play They only had a radio and no tv, but she would keep her boys and eventually my two little girls amused and was a pretty good card player My two DDs would say their Nanny was 'The old wife all the tales were written about' but they loved her dearly and also respected her ways I like to think she would be pleased that I'm here along with my youngest DD and her husband living here and her great grandchildren also come here to stay and love the Island as much as she did.

I hope my meanderings have been not too boring as I know its not to everyones taste but i guess I've decluttered a bit of history at least

Onwards and upwards chums

JackieO xx  

suzeesu2000

Thanks for medal @Mrs_Salad_Dodger. 

Dinner from freezer and used last bit of cauliflower and broccoli. 

Been a resting day today as body not good. 

Tomorrow the laundry will be done. 

Hope everyone’s weekend is going well, sleep tight xx

TC77

@daisy_1571 as always sensible advice... I've bought a calendar too.
4 lots of work paper out 1846.

Muddy_Walker

London1 I love hearing about your family and strong in-laws….and about the IofW….true family values not influencer should haves. Xxxxxxxxxxxxx my opinion anyway 😘

regnbue

London_1  your reminiscences of your ancestors' earlier life struck a chord with me.

I live in my grandparents' tiny cottage and I still have an outside loo.  I remember having to use it as a young child (only choice there was) and being particularly scared having to visit it after dark as there was no illumination in the alley outside nor in the loo itself.  I was always convinced spiders were going to drop on my head in the dark! 

There was an open fire in the kitchen and a tin bath would be put in front of it when you had a bath.  The fireplace surround is still here but I had the inside fitted out with shelves and doors put on.  It's handy storage.

The family had a proper bathroom put in during the 1970's and I remember as a young child being taken upstairs to view it and how proud my grandparents were with it although Grandad still used the outside loo until he passed away in the 1980's. 

When the plumber (Dad's friend) came round to do some plumbing work I confirmed I also wanted the outside loo capping off as I wouldn't be using it.  He and my Dad were astonished and tried very hard to persuade me to keep it.😂