Mid-week uncluttering

[fred_mouse]

How goes the uncluttering?

Despite rather a lot of chaos in my general life, I've managed a bit of uncluttering. I have found a home (the ballet school my kids go to) for the rubber mats that used to be under the games room rug (the rug is long gone, but the kids kept practicing on the mats), and they will head off as soon as I remember when I'm heading to the dance school. I've also discovered that one of the local university libraries is missing various SF magazines that they would like to have which I have collecting dust, so a friend is asking questions of the appropriate librarian(s). It is possible that I'll be able to rehome rather a number of rare publications that I'd rather not just throw out, where interested researchers will be able to access them. I'm quite excited about this possibility!

Plus, the kids have managed to find more things to add to the ever growing pile in the front hall. There is still no opportunity in sight to offload any of these items, but I have hopes that there might be a short window on Saturday in which someone might be able to run the necessary errands to at least get rid of some of it.

Comments

[yukonsally]

I recharged the batteries as possible and recycled the dead ones, and added a thing to the donation pile.

[tanaqui]

Nice work on the batteries - dead "spare" batteries are as annoying as pens that won't write. And neither should be in our homes!

[yukonsally]

I like to give my eldest child the task of testing pens! Scribbles, giggles, and all the dead pens thrown out. Everyone wins.

[tanaqui]

Donating the magazines to the library sounds very exciting -- I hope that works out! It also sounds like you've made some good progress in other areas and now have the kids very well trained in ongoing uncluttering. (And building great habits for the rest of their lives.)

Good luck with actually getting some of the pile in the front hall out of the house!

Because of other commitments, I haven't done very much physical uncluttering this week apart from routine recycling, but I have been plugging away at reading books/watching the TV backlog and have made some nice progress there.

[fred_mouse]

I'm quite excited by donating the magazines. I grabbed some of them at very reduced price when a games shop closed down over a decade ago, and I've never even taken them out of the shrink wrap! So I don't think I'm going to miss them (although I'm thinking of flipping through them and at least seeing what I could have been reading).

I'm not convinced by my kids and their skills -- we'll see what happens when they leave home. In theory my mother had me well trained, but in practice what she had done was instilled the seeds of hoarding, which I'm still trying to deal with the consequences (my house is a disaster because there is too much stuff to tidy).

Congratulations on the plodding on. I have followed your example, and started on the shelf of 'will I keep these?', and concluded that no, the first one wasn't worth reading, so it has gone on the pile as well!

[kalloway]

Yay for possibly being able to re-home those magazines~

I sent of Box 2 of craft supplies home with coworker today. I had meant to do it Monday, but we've had impressive amounts of snow daily and I'm only willing to make one trip to the car per day and some other stuff took priority. But that's out of the hall and I have one more bag with some tools and whatnot to lug tonight.

I realize I need to split time between the utility room and the kitchen, which has been a losing battle for quite awhile and I need to win it. I think if I do a little bit a day on both, I'll be okay and make some progress. Right now I need to get rid of the Central Gathering Area of Things in the kitchen, which is half recycling and half... stuff, and also get the counters vaguely clear. (I really need to see about getting rid of the dishwasher. I never use it and could use more pantry space badly.)

[tanaqui]

Hooray on sending the craft supplies to a new home where they're more likely to be used. And good luck with the utility room and kitchen. In my experience, they're both areas that respond well to small but regular amounts of work (especially if you can spend a couple of minutes each day "resetting" the areas you've already uncluttered), so that sounds like a good strategy. :-)

[kalloway]

Thank you. And thank you for the last couple weeks of cheerleading; it has meant a lot.

One of the main things in this box was most of my yarn stash and I realized some of it was the same yarn I was making yarn dolls out of nearly thirty years ago... Which was basically the tipping point of 'seriously, even more of this can go, start over and go thru it all again until it's what you really need to keep'.

[fred_mouse]

30 years ago. Oh, gods, I've got untouched fabric that fits in that category. I completely understand where you are coming from on that. Good job on getting it out of the house!

[fred_mouse]

All the sympathies on the kitchen. Ours is currently at >1/2 tidy, which it will probably maintain for a week (unless this is One Of Those Weeks, in which case I guess it will be completely disastrous by Tuesday). Good luck with getting rid of the dishwasher, and claiming back that space for more valued items.

[kalloway]

Thank you~

I think we've decided the dishwasher can go, though it'll wait til spring. However, I've done some good work in general this weekend and I can definitely see progress. I think a bit more time deciding on smart placement of things I don't use often and I can have countertops again!

[fred_mouse]

Fabulous that you can see the progress -- so reassuring! Good luck with finding homes for the rarely used items.

[redsixwing]

Woo! Rehoming rare publications is a public service. :D

Star went through a cache of older video games. On trading them in to the game store, it resulted in a nice pile of store credit. \o/

[tanaqui]

Hooray for trading things in! I hope you enjoy what you get with the store credit.

[fred_mouse]

Store credit is a very exciting thing! I hope that you/they find something great to spend it on.