weekend check-in

[rmc28]

Hi all, it's been a while. Today's check in is brought to you by me finally finally doing a reorganisation of the living room furniture that I've had in mind for literal years. This was not strictly a decluttering exercise but I ended up doing some along the way. (Because I am a nerd who has done too many projects, there were many cries of "NO SCOPE CREEP" as I made myself stop sorting out a shelf that wasn't on the critical path.) And now I have things I should try to move out the house over the weekend.

I'll ramble in more detail in the comments, please join in with your own goals for the weekend, large or small!

Comments

[vysila]

Oh, how wonderful to have begun to create order from chaos in your living room. It must feel so good!

I had success yesterday by selling what remains of my Star Wars collectibles. That is fifty-five large boxes gone out of the basement! It's funny how possessions can hold you back without you ever realizing it. Now I feel free to move forward and make progress again.

[rmc28]

What finally got me to do this: the TV was in a suboptimal place, and Elder Child wanted a new games console for their birthday, but I didn't want to connect it up with the TV where it was, so that gave me a deadline.

(Oh, and I finally took down the dratted Christmas tree that's been up for nearly two years, so that was a bonus of all of this.)

While moving things out of the living room and back in again, I

• threw away a lot of literal rubbish, and put a lot of paper recycling in the recycling bin
• culled a storage box of assorted activity books in pristine condition of everything that Younger Child is definitely too old for, which meant I could lift the box to move it (it's still at least half full, that is a problem for another day)
• threw away the giant plastic housings from a bunch of DVD box sets my friend gave away to me 18 months ago (and we still haven't watched), which means I needed less space to store the actual DVDs, which needed a new home, because they had been stashed in the TV stand where the new console needed to go
• made space for the DVDs by emptying a shelf of jigsaws for young children that we've been meaning to sort through for literal years

Then, after everything was back in place, I spent a cheerful couple of hours doing all of the little jigsaws to confirm they were all complete, while listening to my offspring play cooperatively on the new console. My SIL has claimed the assorted Frozen and Moana ones for my youngest nibling, the rest I will give to the charity shop. Some of them were so old and battered I decided it was time to bin them rather than inflict them on anyone else.

Goals for the weekend:

• Take the bags I unearthed of textile recycling to the nearest recycling point
• Take the bags of jigsaws and pristine activity/sticker books to the charity shop
• Parcel up the jigsaws for my nibling, and for bonus points get the parcel posted
• Consider some rounds of Dana K White 5-step decluttering on the shelves that tempted me with scope creep

[alexseanchai]

I have ambitions of vacuuming my bedroom floor and folding last week's clean laundry, but will be content with getting the stuff Mila-kitty knocked off the bedside table either back on the bedside table or to some better place it can call home

[ilyena_sylph]

Oh how awesome, go you!

[wendelah1]

So many things. Getting my unfinished, in-process art projects boxed up with the appropriate supplies so I can find stuff, instead of rummaging around looking for misplaced items. I'm taking three classes on Zoom, using different mediums, and I am so disorganized. Boxing up finished work would be useful, too.

[spiffikins]

Today was a good day for progress on a bunch of little things!

Last night I sold the mountain bike that has been sitting in my garage for years!

This morning I took 4 fluorescent light bulbs from my kitchen light fixture that I replaced a YEAR ago - and finally got rid of them - in addition to 9 old paint cans that the previous owners of this house left for me when I moved in - almost 13 years ago now. I've never needed this extra paint - and when I finally opened them up to see what I had, none of the paint was still any good, nor was it any of the paint colours that I actually need to touch up!

And then I also filled my car up with 2 old desktop pcs, and 3 monitors and dropped them off at the local e-waste place!

I still have more stuff to do, but I'm feeling like I made a bit of progress today!

[the_broken_tower]

First time I've heard 'scope creep' used and I love it.

Good job on the reorganization. :)

- White (he/him)

[adafrog]

:)

[illariy]

Oooh, I have to adopt your rallying cry of "NO SCOPE CREEP!" That mistake derails me often enough, particularly while decluttering but also sometimes with crafting projects and always leaves a huge mess behind. :P

How satisfying that you got that reorganisation done that you've had in mind for years! Very cool that you have even done some decluttering along with that, very sensible given that it is much easier to organise with fewer things in the room. I am for sure going to check out your comment!

As for me, well... I had in mind for this lecture-free time to do a lot of decluttering in my room, take out the books I decluttered months ago and also the broken electronics I likewise decluttered months ago. But then work and general exhaustion got the better of me and today is already the last day of the lecture-free weeks! So I rallied all my energy and successfully went through the decluttered books again, recluttered some (because I want to re-read them and in some cases, read more of the series), put 33 books into my outgoing stuff list and took those 33 books to the public bookshelves. I was initially afraid of a) not being able to transport that many books at once on my bicycle and b) there not being enough room at the public bookshelves to shelve my about 1.4 m of books. Well, a) turned out not to be a problem (but I couldn't have taken more books in one trip so it's good I recluttered some) and b) wasn't a problem either, there was even more than 1 m of empty shelf space left when I left. Unfortunately, I did end up taking 4 books home but oh well. I know I can just take them back to the public bookshelves. I love those! Them and the Giveboxes, for non-book usable decluttered items.

I didn't make it to the small electronics rubbish container but that is a task for another day. Perhaps for the Christmas holidays, when I have more time off from uni. I am quite satisfied I finally got those books out of my room!

[trudy]

Congratulations!!!