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How goes the decluttering? Have you shifted anything out of the house? Found something to sort through? Had thoughts on things you can let go of?

Comments open to locals, lurkers, drive by sticky beaks, and anyone I've forgotten to mention.

fred_mouse

Attempting to get back in the habit of weekly(ish) check ins here. Love that people have been tracking their decluttering!

So! On that note: what have you achieved in the declutter sphere? Have you done a tiny thing? Something marvellous and magical that has transformed your life? Made a plan but haven't yet carried it out? Tell us, tell us!

Comments open to locals, lurkers, drive by sticky beaks, and anyone I've forgotten to mention.

vysila

It has come in small bursts of activity here and there, but in April I did manage to find new homes for over 80 fanzines, took a couple boxes of linens, clothes and small decorative items to the charity donation place, used up some older foods in the pantry, and finally finished my family photo curation project! 10 smallish albums and a lot of boxes were condensed down to one large photo album and two smaller ones, encompassing 160 years of family history dating back to the US Civil War in the 1860s. I can't tell you how many photos I eliminated and tossed, but it was 2 large trash bags full. There are still a lot of photos and each and every one has been identified with names, approximate ages, dates and locations. It was such an emotional journey to winnow these down. I confess to having shed a lot of tears during the process and my goodness, it was HARD. But it is DONE!

Hoping to repeat the success in May, with another large collection of fanzines and clearing my desk and paper files to something more manageable. And possibly start packing up some moving boxes. I may get rid of some furniture pieces as well, since I am downsizing to a much smaller place.

Current Mood: peaceful

the_broken_tower

I went through the dry mixes and binned a half dozen or so that had either expired or were opened and half-used sometime in the past... two years? Eesh.

The lesson was learned: I only bought ONE replacement rice seasoning during today's grocery run. It's for trail food, and if that doesn't use up one packet, then they aren't worth getting again.

It's part of the new system: Each week, a couple of older/half-used items get separated out to be used for hiking food, meal planning, ingredients, whatever happens to be going on. Eventually the old stock gets cleared out, and there's a sane use:replace ratio going on.

Based on the pantry-clearing soda breads, the method is working. The sugar/nut/dried fruits shelf is half-empty now and today I could reorganize enough that there's floor space in there. It's half as crowded as it was a month ago.

- Ron S (he/him)

the_broken_tower

... over the past month have been Baking and Beading.

Weekly bread has been a solution to clearing out the last of the Mysterious Unlabeled Cabinet Flour (it appears to be spelt) and various dried fruits, roots, and nuts that were lingering in their last dregs.

This week's bread contains the last of the spelt flour, crystallized ginger, and toasted almond slivers, as well as part of a container of dried currants.

Beading projects currently involve using up the last small bags of loose beads in the beading box. It's working reasonably well.

- Jack Mesa (he/him)

vysila

About two and a half weeks ago I posted that I am working hard on decluttering in prep for a cross-country move. After several years of doing the huge cleanouts, I'm down to the small stuff, the emotional/sentimental items and wow, it is so much harder now.

But in the last two weeks I found homes for 44 of my fanzines. 34 remain but I am hopeful that perhaps some of those will find homes as well. The bad news? Is that this are zines from just one of my fandoms and many boxes of zines from another fandom remain upstairs in a closet. But still, I am going to count progress because 44 zines is a very big pile!

The other project I am focusing on is to curate the family photographs and must admit I've done no work on this project in the last couple weeks. However, I have cleared my afternoon today to sort through a large pile and make decisions on them. Last time I posted here,

stonepicnicking_okapi had some advice from her own photo curation project, which I plan taking to heart: 1) no photos without people 2) no photos of people I don't like and 3) no photos of people I don't know.

Onward and upward!

Current Mood: satisfied

sisterofbloomerjunior

Left some rusted bakeware and an old license plate out on the curb near the driveway to be scrapped. Found more sewing notions that could be donated. Might need to go through my books to consider which ones to pack up before moving - even though we haven’t even considered all the areas we want to search for housing yet.

I added the weight of this to the running sum of things I’ve gotten rid of for the final two weeks of the Zero Waste Challenge, this final one for 2025 measures from April Sixth through the 19th. I admit I forgot to fully record the exact weight of items in the 90 gallon inorganic cart, so I just added photos to the emails I sent my liaison.

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: Upstairs
Current Music: Birds chirping

vysila

I finally made the hard decision that it is time to sell my house and move closer to my son. Part of the prep is serious decluttering for a big downsize. Don’t know yet where I’ll be living after the move, but it will definitely be smaller.

Right now I am concentrating on two rather emotional tasks: curating thousands of family photos and also sorting through all my fanzines to see which are keepers and which can be released. Hope to scan a few of my favorite zines but doing it large scale won’t happen (I have maybe 150 zines).

Today I worked on the photo project and started a trash bag of discarded photos. It seems like taking photos goes in spurts and so many photos are of the same occasion and are nearly duplicates.

I also finagled my little old desktop scanner to work with Windows 11 and managed to scan one zine for posterity. At some point I’ll try to find the discards a new fannish home.

Oh, this is going to be such a long and tedious process. But at least it is very good motivation for clearing out a lot of stuff!

Current Mood: tired

fred_mouse

It's been a while since I've had the oomph to engage with this community, which is a shame, because you are a great bunch of people, and I get motivated to go and deal with Stuff! by reading what you have all found to declutter.

Comments open to locals, lurkers, drive by sticky beaks, and anyone I've forgotten to mention.

fred_mouse

How goes the decluttering? Have you managed to rehome anything? Find a stash of things that were no better than rubbish, and bin them? Clear out a stash and now have an empty space? Anything, small or large, physical or virtual, counts as a win!

fred_mouse

the_broken_tower

If you're trying to use up a can of sweetened condensed milk and have some extra gifted sprinkles you feel too guilty about throwing out, might I suggest making Brigadeiros?

These helped me clean out the fridge and that sprinkles stash. One of the versions I'm making is matcha vanilla, so I also got to use some of the two tins of matcha powder in the pantry.

The recipe's very straightforward and simple.

Pantry and fridge decluttering has gotten a lot easier with weekly clean-outs and excuses to try new recipes from the random surplus ingredients.

- Keith (he/him)

fred_mouse

the_broken_tower

I decided to send a gifted book off to a Little Free Library without reading it.

This was hard, because I try to read gifted books even if I'm not interested in them, out of respect to the person who gifted it.

There were some things that made the decision easier. It's part of a series, and there is no interest or energy for new series right now. It's a genre that I don't like, and the summary online is a checklist of things I do not want to be reading about. And, the person who gifted it has a habit of ignoring when other people don't share her interests, and is currently giving me the silent treatment for setting a boundary. :/ This book is in the 'gifted by an asshole' category.

So I'm not under an emotional or social obligation to read it. Goodbye book. May you find another reader who appreciates your story.

- Crane (he/him)

the_broken_tower

The bookshelf is in order - all of the nonfiction categories are sorted. There is a whole shelf of the short to-read books that are probably destined for a Little Free Library. I mean, they will be if they aren't read within six months.

And!! What really excites me is getting through a couple of the 'junk, deal with it later' boxes. One single-item box has been put where it needs to be. Two were sorted through, their contents organized, and a handful of things set out for donation or in the trash. It already looks so much better.

- Orion Tempos (he/him)

fred_mouse

Things got a bit complicated for me, and I completely failed to remember the weekly posts for all of January. So! this could be a weekly check in, if all you have the oomph for is to think about something you've achieved in the last week. Or it could be a skite about everything you uncluttered in January (although, given weather and assorted other events, some of you will presumably have not had a spare moment to think about decluttering, and that's okay).

This might be the start of a new weekly-ish posting; I can but hope!

the_broken_tower

It's gone now. I found the remaining stash as I was looking for a place to put tiny preserves.

An entire storage container full of tea bags that no one ever uses! And some very old gifted looseleaf that, again, only rarely gets used out of a sense of obligation and guilt. Some of this tea was from 2017, at least...

The excess tea stash is no more.

- W (he/him)

the_broken_tower

I'm taking fabric out of the bins to use for a skate bag instead of buying new.

The quilted external portions of the bag were scraps, but aesthetic scraps from one of those quilting cotton ribbon sets. They went together. There wasn't anything for the liner, inner dividers, or base.

There are (were) flannel and fleece scraps in the fabrics bin from other projects that are being used for liner now. Old scrap fabric is going onto the interior divider. A sturdy fabric from a recent samples purchase is going onto the base.

It's nice to actually use what's in there. The colours don't match exactly, but I did the best with what I had and most of those parts aren't going to be showing anyway. When it's done, it'll be better than keeping the ice skates and equipment in a reusable grocery bag.

- Crane (he/him)

sisterofbloomerjunior

We sorted through and donated Christmas ornaments! 🥳🎄 Now to wash out the containers we held those in and see how many can store blankets or other items! We also donated bedsheets and pillowcases to the Epilepsy Foundation.

Brought up and scrubbed out some vases, which clears off quite a few of the shelves in the basement’s former pantry. Oh, and I just recycled my copy of this year’s Packers media guide. #sighpackers_sigh

If I haven’t mentioned it yet, I’m participating in this year’s Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington Counties’ Zero Waste Challenge and will be in the Plastic-Free Challenge yet again in February.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Upstairs
Current Music: Parody of the Philadelphia Eagles fight song

fred_mouse

Hi Everyone!

This is your check in for the week ending Friday 20th December. Have you found something to declutter? Made a plan that you can implement later? What are your recent decluttering wins? -- big, small, it all counts.

Open to regulars, drive by commenters, and lurkers alike!

(and we'll just quietly ignore the fact that I'm taking advantage of living in a +8UTC timezone to post while it is still Friday somewhere, shall we :) )

note: there might not be a post in a week's time, because I'm going to be somewhere halfway across Australia (epic roadtrip, wahoo!), and I don't know whether I'll have connectivity, let alone the energy to post. I hope that everyone's festive season goes well, and that for all of you the Solstice, Hannukah, Christmas, New Year, and any other festivals happening go fabulously.

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fred_mouse - Weekly (ish) check in
fred_mouse - Intermittent check in
vysila - April Progress!
the_broken_tower - Pantry Decluttering Continues
the_broken_tower - The Forms of Decluttering
vysila - Update on my decluttering
sisterofbloomerjunior - Zeroing in on yet more basement cleaning.
vysila - Decluttering While Preparing to Move
fred_mouse - Mid-week checkin
fred_mouse - Weekly (ish) check in
fred_mouse - Weekly (ish) check in
the_broken_tower - Pantry and Fridge
fred_mouse - (Not-a-)weekly check in
the_broken_tower - Donating Gifts
the_broken_tower - Sunday Cleaning Day Success
fred_mouse - (Not-a-)weekly check in
the_broken_tower - All That Unused Tea From 5+ Years Ago
the_broken_tower - Destashing Through Projects (No, Really)
fred_mouse - Weekly (ish) check in

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uncluttering one day and one thing at a time

Recent Entries

Weekly (ish) check in

Intermittent check in

April Progress!

Pantry Decluttering Continues

The Forms of Decluttering

Update on my decluttering

Zeroing in on yet more basement cleaning.

Decluttering While Preparing to Move

Mid-week checkin

Weekly (ish) check in

Weekly (ish) check in

Pantry and Fridge

(Not-a-)weekly check in

Donating Gifts

Sunday Cleaning Day Success

(Not-a-)weekly check in

All That Unused Tea From 5+ Years Ago

Destashing Through Projects (No, Really)

For behold, I bring you tidying with great amounts of Joy©️.

Weekly (ish) check in

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May 2025

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