December Purge

[Klunick]

Doesn't look like anyone started one so I will. I had such grand thoughts of all the Christmas decor I would get rid of but once I pulled everything out, hardly anything went. :( I thought for sure I'd get rid of a particular centerpiece that I thought I wasn't really fond of but once I saw it again, I realized it wasn't as bad as I thought and ended up using it. Now that my house is decorated, not even a handful of items left.

One strand of lights that only half worked. The outdoor electrical outlet that you put into the ground quit working some time between Halloween and now so that got trashed. A little reindeer decor piece that I really didn't have anywhere to put it. And my tree skirt that never fit around my tree anyway. :laff: I am surprised but I really don't mind not having a tree skirt around the base of the tree as much as I thought I would. Makes watering it a lot easier!!

[Tybee]

I use an old quilt for a treeskirt, and then it goes back in the closet for the guest bed.

[happystuff]

I put the strand of 300 lights in the donation box. In the past, used it for the outside, but the strand is so long, it's very cumbersome to put up. Have the tree in front of a window, so when that is plugged in, it can be seen from the outside. That will probably be it for lights this year, unless something else turns up.

[rosarugosa]

I've had a productive stretch on the decluttering front:
Dropped a batch of stuff off at Savers.
Gave away via Facebook: 2 cake pans, some vintage newspapers, 3 extra pet bowls, some cleaning supplies, and a Brita pitcher.
Gave a bag of greeting cards to the senior center.
Put together a box of stuff for a family in town whose house burned down recently.
Put together a bag of toiletries, and another bag of scarves, hats and gloves for a local drive to help the homeless.
It's amazing to me how much stuff we have in this little house; I can give away all the stuff listed above and barely make a dent. There is definitely less stuff flowing in though, and that is the ultimate key to success.

[iris lilies]

I use an old quilt for a treeskirt, and then it goes back in the closet for the guest bed.

I’ve used things like that for a tree skirt. It works well.

[ejchase]

I'm finally getting back to getting things out the door.

Yesterday, I woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up and posted 17 items on Buy Nothing - mostly kid-related stuff. Well, it turns out I wasn't the only mom up at that hour - everything was claimed by 6 a.m.!

[ejchase]

I also returned 2 things to Amazon, so total for month so far is 19.

[iris lilies]

I had two major organizational breakthroughs in my Hermann house:


The first one was when I emptied a few small boxes into a dresser I recently purchased. That cleaned up the clutter enough that I can eyeball the rest of the room and see that when the closets are installed, and the wardrobe I bought is fixed up, I’m going to be able to fit everything that’s in the room now in the room in the future. That is kind of a big deal because I had thought I would put my art supplies and flower show club records in another room, but I will be able to store them in the little cubby under the eve.


The second organizational breakthrough came when I eyeballed the garage after my brother and his wife helped us move things around to tidy it. We built a very big garage that is deep. I see I can use the end wall for setting up a table during flower show season to hold supplies and to make designs on. I won’t have to haul that messy stuff into our house. That is a major victory.


Oh I tell you this attached garage thing is really really nice!

[Teacher Terry]

I cleaned out some drawers yesterday and threw stuff away.

[sweetana3]

I cleaned out the entry closet. Got out the winter box and sorted gloves. Why does hubby have 5 right hand gloves without partners for the left hand? Sent him to the garage to pull any gloves he finds under car seats and with his tools.

Two pair of unworn shoes and two excess computer bags for donation, tossed oldest pair of exercise shoes that now feel like ballet slippers, and pulled all winter boots to the front.

[happystuff]

Found two bags of spun wool in my closet from - I don't know how long ago! Made a big wool afghan for a friend for Christmas!

[iris lilies]

Found two bags of spun wool in my closet from - I don't know how long ago! Made a big wool afghan for a friend for Christmas!
That is nice.

[beckyliz]

Sorted out about 8 pairs of my DH's shoes that he won't wear again and set them aside for his brother and nephew. Put the others in the closet and gave away the show rack to my son. Tossed one pair.

[littlebittybobby]

Okay---Saw this posted today on the Vintage Trek Group, by a very concerned party who spotted it in a dumpster. Someone musta been "tidying up" and "decluttering" in the name of neatness. A small-framed, low-end Trek 330 from the 80's. Frame is kinked. But, still--a keeper, for parts.
What a fool to toss it. See?5002

[hana]

Emptied out the glove compartment and removed the old registrations and proof of past inspections. Now the only things in there are the current registration, safety inspection paperwork, manual, and a change purse with $5.00 in quarters.

[Klunick]

Two kitchen mats/rugs. One I had for several years and the other brand new and meant to replace the old one. The old one didn't have anything on the bottom to hold it in place so it would slide all over. Unfortunately what I thought was (and was advertised as) a mat/rug turned out to be the size of a bathmat which wouldn't work so both had to go. Ended up just bringing out my Fall one and will use that until Spring.

[SiouzQ.]

A motely collection of small cardboard shipping boxes. My husband buys a lot of copper enameling powder that comes in a 6" x 4" x4" box each time. WE had 10 of them piled up in the studio, plus other assorted cardboard shipping boxes. Why is is SO HARD to part with GOOD boxes?! The nice thing about living in an artist/gallery town is that there is always someone to pass them along to. My friend happily took them for shipping her small pieces of work. A win-win for all!

[JaneV2.0]

A motely collection of small cardboard shipping boxes. My husband buys a lot of copper enameling powder that comes in a 6" x 4" x4" box each time. WE had 10 of them piled up in the studio, plus other assorted cardboard shipping boxes. Why is is SO HARD to part with GOOD boxes?! The nice thing about living in an artist/gallery town is that there is always someone to pass them along to. My friend happily took them for shipping her small pieces of work. A win-win for all!

I love to hear stuff like this!

[rosarugosa]

A motely collection of small cardboard shipping boxes. My husband buys a lot of copper enameling powder that comes in a 6" x 4" x4" box each time. WE had 10 of them piled up in the studio, plus other assorted cardboard shipping boxes. Why is is SO HARD to part with GOOD boxes?! The nice thing about living in an artist/gallery town is that there is always someone to pass them along to. My friend happily took them for shipping her small pieces of work. A win-win for all!

Nice! We are similarly able to rehome a lot of small boxes at the pottery studio.

[sweetana3]

For the last two years, we use all the small boxes we could find and collected from neighbors for our Ebay business. Now that the toys are mostly gone, we recycled what was left. Nice to have a great big recycling place near us. They even empty the trunk for us.

[Klunick]

Husband and my Christmas stockings. We have had the same one our whole marriage (25 yrs) and it was time for new ones.

[rosarugosa]

I gave away a couple of strings of white lights. There wasn't anything wrong with them; we just weren't using them.
I also gave away a jar of beads from our long ago macrame days. These had actually been my Dad's, and he died in 1984. He was a sea captain who went to sea all his life from the age of 16, so he could tie knots with the best of them, and he taught me a fair bit. However, since I hadn't used the beads in these past 38 years, I think it was high time to pass them on. I have someone picking up another batch of beads on Monday.
All of the above was passed along via my local FB giving page.

[Tybee]

So funny, Klunick, I read your post as you had purged your husband. I guess we have been locked up more than is healthy this week--we had no power for 4.5 days and were huddling around the fire--thank God for the woodstove--and trying to keep our spirits up.

Rosa, I am impressed that you gave away the macrame beads. I think I am giving a little wooden cat to my son this year if I can bring myself to give it up--my uncle made it in school when he was 10 years old, and he died in WWII when his plane was shot down over Normandy. It was sitting on my piano at my parent's home for 50 years.

He indicated that he wanted it when I die, so maybe I will give it to him early and let him take care of it for the next 50 years. I've only had it one year.

[Teacher Terry]

Tybee, that’s horrible having no power. I would have went to a hotel. I can’t sleep when I am cold.

[rosarugosa]

Oh no, Tybee, that is way too long to be without power!

I have someone coming to pick up a bunch of baskets today. I brought all the plant pots that my sister was storing in my cellar to my mother's cellar, which is several times larger than mine. I also gave away (with his permission) a large framed poster that a friend was storing in our cellar. There will be no more letting other people store stuff in out tiny cellar, which can barely contain our own stuff.

[mschrisgo2]

Just finished my Christmas wrapping. Asked my daughter if she’d like to have the 7 large rolls of Christmas wrap I have-Yes! Now that her 3 kids are grown, and 2 have flown, their gifts get delivered directly from Amazon. In the old days she and I wrapped together the weekend before Christmas…. But the last time was 6 years ago. In my remaining lifetime I would never use all this paper- purchased from elementary school fundraisers when the boys were little. The youngest is 24, and has a son of his own now. All ready to go in the morning. (I kept 1 roll, it will likely last 2 or 3 years).

On another note, we have an art and music center in town. I stopped in the other day, asked the owner if they could use donated art materials. With a happy twinkle in his eyes, he said YES, he has several students whose parents can’t afford the full fees, but he never denies lessons and classes to students who sincerely want to be there- and donations help offset his costs. I can deliver them any time they are open, but preferably in the morning. I have in mind several things I’ve been guiltily shuffling around- perfectly good real art supplies. I saved a shipping box from the trash, and will fill and deliver it next week.

Cleared out the rest of the used shipping boxes and packing materials to a neighbor, whose daughter is moving and shipping most of her things.

Threw the unused this year, odds and ends of Christmas decorations, into the recycle bin. I’m happy that I went to all recyclable (paper, not plastic) about 10 years ago.

[iris lilies]

Mrs Chris, that is a lot of good stuff gone.

[Klunick]

@Tybee- Husband knows he is always on thin ice with me and could be tossed at any time. :laff:

As per usual, I got a few unwanted gifts this year that have been tossed already. Inlaws got me sweaters to put on our cats. Umm... not even going to attempt that. Mom got me some Pyrex glass containers but they were the wrong size. I got myself two shirts that are so big on me that they look like dresses. I bought mom a little metal cart to haul groceries from the car to the house but she later said she wanted a wagon instead so I never gave her the cart. I have no need for it so it will be purged.

I finally got rid of a small Corningware container that never gets used because it's so small. Probably had it 25 yrs.

[mschrisgo2]

Y’all, I delivered that box Full of art supplies this morning…. They were thrilled to receive it, and that made me feel good. I came home and “organized” 2 cabinets, that made me feel good. But really, I am just giddy with relief of not having that stuff lingering in my home! So much energy was tied up in the I-spent-lots-of-money, I-never-did-try-any-of-these-materials, I-should-use-this… so relieved!

[Tybee]

Went through the jigsaw boxes with husband and picked out nine that were our least favorite and we have them in the car to drop off at the library. The two puzzle shelves are now very tidy and it's fun just to look at them, so neat.

Have been working on a big photo album project because the original books had the magnetic backing which eats into the pictures over time. Replacing with photo corners on cardstock in plastic sleeves in binders. Husband worked on project with me for an hour until we ran out of photo corners. Have reordered supplies. Took one book to granddaughters last week and they each took twelve pictures of themselves at younger ages and plan to keep doing this. Hoping son will take some of his childhood pictures, too.

[iris lilies]

Speaking of photos, I am in the final leg of moving data from our 2011 Hewlett-Packard Packard comouter to our new Apple environment. The photos on the hard drive are the last thing. It is labor intensive because I am emailing them to myself and uploading them to ICloud or Pinterest. I could probably download to a thumb drive and make it faster, but am already through this process.

Icloud isn’t perfect because it doesn’t support any labeling, that I can find anyway. So for one file of images I will put them on Pinterest as well as ICloud to bone able to put a label on each image.

[Tybee]

That sounds kind of like the polar opposite of what I am doing. I am happy to be away from the cloud environment and back to the albums of my grandparents.

[iris lilies]

That sounds kind of like the polar opposite of what I am doing. I am happy to be away from the cloud environment and back to the albums of my grandparents.

I think the difference may be that you will be passing on photographs to your kids and grandchildren, and you are passing on actual artifacts because the photos were taken at a time when photos were more the means of preserving images.


For me, everything I have on Icloud is more or less temporary as I intend it. It’ll be gone in 20 years and that’s fine with me. It may be gone in ten years, who knows. If all photos disappeared tomorrow I would be sad, but my life wouldn’t be over.

The portability of the photo, record, or artifact is key.

I deliberately keep garden club records in paper form because I want to hand a box of records to the next person who has my jobs.

[Tybee]

Yes, I think you have hit on an important organizing principle here. What do you want to pass on, what is portability in that context.

I figure much clearing will be done by the kids and grandkids as they start not knowing these people and not caring who they are, and that is fine, I will have played my part in cleaning up my parents' stuff and passing it down in an organized fashion, and going forward, I have a system for photos that will order itself. And the grandchildren are in on it and know the system and they can get rid of stuff as they see fit.

I have been glad my parents did not do a huge discard, as I have found a lot of wonderful things that are already being passed to their children and great-grandchildren, which is meaningful to me at least and helps with their loss.

[Yppej]

Papers, after losing a receipt for my tire purchase (which the shop was able to reprint for me). Also some ratty clothes. Throwing out clothes is now illegal in my nanny state, but the City says do it anyways if they are in too rough shape to be donated because we have no other way to dispose of them yet.

[iris lilies]

Papers, after losing a receipt for my tire purchase (which the shop was able to reprint for me). Also some ratty clothes. Throwing out clothes is now illegal in my nanny state, but the City says do it anyways if they are in too rough shape to be donated because we have no other way to dispose of them yet.
Wtf, you can’t throw out clothing? Good lord.

[littlebittybobby]

Okay---I just love(Haa) nanny-state public policy. They have so many laws/regulations, that the average person has to expend a lot of resources, just to be in compliance. See? Laws & regulations that make the situation even worse, it seems. The "remedies" solve one problem, and create several more. What's not to love about that? Hope that helps you some. Thankk mee.

[Yppej]

Wtf, you can’t throw out clothing? Good lord.

No clothing, no mattresses, no linens, curtains, etc.

[Yppej]

Okay---I just love(Haa) nanny-state public policy. They have so many laws/regulations, that the average person has to expend a lot of resources, just to be in compliance. See? Laws & regulations that make the situation even worse, it seems. The "remedies" solve one problem, and create several more. What's not to love about that? Hope that helps you some. Thankk mee.

Yes it creates more problems. Lots of illegal dumping of mattresses by the road now.

[iris lilies]

No clothing, no mattresses, no linens, curtains, etc.
When did this go into law? But more importantly, what ARE you supposed to do with these items to dispose of them?
.

[Yppej]

When did this go into law? But more importantly, what ARE you supposed to do with these items to dispose of them?
.

Specialty businesses have sprung up to take mattresses for $60 each and recycle them. You are supposed to donate good condition clothing etc to charity. No plan yet for bad condition items. To be legal hoard them I guess.

[rosarugosa]

I haven't thrown away clothing for years. We are fortunate to have a fabric recycling donation box that's just a two-minute walk from our house for textiles that are not in good enough condition to donate. I am guessing that Google could be helpful in finding a donation box near you. That being said, I'm perfectly confident that our trash collectors aren't digging through my bags of trash to make sure there are no textiles in there.
The mattress thing is more problematic. I'm annoyed that my town didn't proactively have some plan in place for affordable disposal, and there are now many mattresses on curbs throughout the town. We just have the company take away our old set ($20 fee) when we have a new mattress & box spring delivered, so it isn't really a problem for us personally.

[nswef]

I had heard that H & M stores take textiles.

https://www2.hm.com/en_us/sustainability-at-hm/our-work/close-the-loop.html

[rosarugosa]

Local women are coming to pick up the following from me today:
A partially used can of furniture paste wax
A large can of polycrylic
5 cans of spray paint
I'm especially pleased because these items are still good and useable, and they are also items that I could not dispose of in regular trash collection.