Laundry Love

I am back at work today, after being sick for the last few days. Steve is still sick and at home, and since our dryer is out of commission until the replacement fuses arrive, he has generously offered to take advantage of the non-rainy weather to do a few washes to hang on the line to dry. We are both really enjoying line-drying the laundry, and have a clothesline upgrade project planned for this spring! I hung towels on the line yesterday, which froze, reminding me of the Laura Ingalls Wilder book "The Long Winter".

I also decided for funsies to participate in this online challenge at Nourishing Minimalism. The object is to get rid of 2015 things in 2015. I was already up to 200 things by the ending of January, and have posted the decluttering chart, available at the link above, on our fridge with 200 boxes checked off. Our house is still loaded with stuff, but there are starting to be some clean, empty, and clutter-free spots appearing around the house, which is immensely gratifying.

I got many compliments on my thrifted J Crew sweater today at work, but most importantly it kept me warm in my chilly office!

Terrific Tax Return and Super Saturday

I have been sick the last few days. I stayed home from work on Friday because I felt so bad, and will be home again tomorrow because I feel so bad. But Saturday, for some reason, I didn't feel so bad, so I did a couple of things around the house, and ran a few errands, which I will tell you ALL ABOUT in a moment, and consequently made myself sicker.

I am completely unable to take it easy any time I am home, even when I am sick, unless I am so out of it that I can't get out of bed. On Friday, I was running a temperature and miserable, so I sat on the sofa watching "Friends" on Netflix, sniffling and coughing, and knitting on the sleeve of a sweater than I am making. When I got bored with the sweater, I decided to take the opportunity to e-file our taxes. Yes, that is correct, I did our taxes while running a fever. Because Steve is a student, we will be get a very generous return, which we will use to get new glasses and running shoes, a laptop for Steve to use for school, and pay off a bunch of credit cards (yeah!). Once the taxes were done, I decided that since I had the laptop out, I would go ahead and place an order with Bramble Berry for my soap making supplies (I recently decided that I wanted to try my hand at making our own soap). Feeling satisfied with accomplishing so much in spite of all the dripping and moaning, I spent the evening being super-lazy.

On Saturday, Steve and Dharma went to a Girl Scout Father-Daughter bowling event. Girl Scouts paid part of the cost, and a snack was included, so it was a nice, inexpensive way for them to spend the afternoon together. I had the house all to myself, which is very rare. Even though it was partly sunny and would have been a great day to do laundry and hang it on the line, we were out of laundry detergent, so I didn't get to do laundry (waaah). I had also planned to go for a nice long run, but since I am sick, that obviously didn't happened either. Since there is no way we can afford to go to Washington, D.C. again this year for the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run, I was planning on doing my own anniversary 10-miler on the day of this year's race. I had planned to kick off my training this weekend, but ... sick!

Anyway, rather than taking it easy, since I have been sick, which would have been the smart thing to do, I decided to put my canning supplies that I rescued from under the sink into the cabinet above the refrigerator. I only use them about once a year, so this cabinet is a good place for them, since it is hard to get to without getting out the stepladder. When I climbed up the stepladder to get to the cabinet, I saw that the top of the fridge was really super dirty. So I pulled out that industrial-size bottle of Mr. Clean that I found under the sink and started cleaning. I finally opened the cabinet, which I don't think we have opened in years, and found some antique dishes, and old phone with missing parts, and some walkie-talkies (what? why?). I tossed the phone (since it was missing the actual part that you talk into), put the walkie-talkies into a bag to give to some friends, cleaned out the cabinet, and returned the antique dishes to it. Then, I put all my canning jars and supplies into the cabinet. I also located my Christmas cookie cutters and put them in the cabinet as well.

On top of the cabinet, I found these mid-century trays, which I cleaned up, and will hang on the wall:

and a cool wooden fish mobile, which I cleaned up and hung upstairs in the bathroom for the time being.

After the cleaning spree, I heated up some bean soup for lunch. This is the same bean soup that I made last Sunday. It has gotten yummier as the week has gone along. I also used the tortilla chip pieces in the bottom of the bag to make mini-nachos to go along with my bean soup. It was tasty, and perfect for someone who has a cold - warm and soothing.

Then, I spent a little time playing with my kitty Fifi. Bridget, another of our kitties, joined in as well. Last week, Steve did some cleaning in the attic and threw out a cat bed belonging to our kitty Allister who died a few years ago. The bed was dirty from being in the attic, and had a tear in in, but otherwise was in great shape. I pulled it out of the trash, and washed it and hung it on the line to dry. Then, I got out my sewing kit to mend the tear. Before I even finished mending it, Bridget had jumped into the bed, curled up and gone to sleep. I had to sew very carefully to avoid sticking the sleeping kitty! When Steve came downstairs, I pointed to Bridget and said, "And you were going to get rid of this!". This story doesn't really have anything to do with me playing with the kitties on Saturday, except to illustrate how cute they are!

When Dharma and Steve got home, Dharma and I loaded up the car with donations for Goodwill. I had several errands I wanted to run while we were out. First we stopped at Plato's Closet. Dharma had an LL Bean backpack that she wanted to see if they were interested in. As it turns out, they only purchase backpacks around back-to-school time. We looked around the store anyway, and Dharma found a shirt that she liked for $8.

After Plato's Closet, we went over to Goodwill, where we dropped off the donations, including the backpack. Then, we went inside to do a little shopping. I was looking for a Pyrex measuring cup to use for my soap-making adventures. Alas, I did not find one, but I did find a great pale pink J Crew pullover sweater. It was 100% cotton which is my favorite, because it doesn't get too stuffy, and all it needed was some laundering. And the best part was that it was $6. J Crew sweaters that I have seen online start around $60 and go up from there, so the pink sweater came home with me!

After Goodwill, we went across the street to JoAnn Fabrics. I wanted to get some paper for my running scrapbook. (I like to scrapbook all my running bibs along with pictures from the races and events that I do.) They were having a 40% off sale on scrapbook supplies, so I selected the paper that wanted, then headed over to the yarn. I wanted to get three skeins of 100% wool yarn to make wool balls for the dryer. (I also need a pair of pantyhose for this project, which I never buy, but I rescued a Halloween pair that Dharma was donating to Goodwill.) The yarn was not on sale, but I had FOUR 50% off one regular priced item coupons. I was able to use three of the coupons for the yarn, and I gave the last one to Dharma for a necklace that she liked. She used her own money, and learned the lesson of how there is more money left at the end of a transaction when you have a coupon.

After JoAnn, we went to J.C. Penney's. Dharma has a store credit that she got from returning some Christmas presents that didn't fit. She wanted to look for shoes to go with her spring "piano recital" dress. She has learned that when she uses her own money for clothes, I am somewhat more lenient with what styles she can purchase. They didn't really have any spring shoes in yet, but she talked me into wandering down to the juniors area. By this time, I was pretty tired and cranky. After five minutes of aimless browsing, I announced that we needed to go.

The last stop of the day was at Rite Aid. I had a fistful of coupons for body wash, shampoo, conditioner, and hair color. I was particularly jazzed about the hair color coupons. I had a $2 manufacturer's coupon, a $1 off store coupon, and another $2 rewards coupon, so I got $5 off the box of hair color. With the other coupons, I saved a total of $11.27. I also got some isopropyl alcohol ( for first-aid and soap-making purposes), a little spray bottle (to use with the alcohol for soap making), and some brown shoe polish to restore my awesome 14 year old brown shoes.

We finally made it home, and ordered a pizza (I had some coupons). Even though the pizza was more than I would have liked, Steve picked it up so we didn't pay for delivery, and I got 25 points on my deals account, which means I can get a free pizza later this month.

The day did not end on a high note though. I put my new J Crew sweater in the wash, and moved the clean wet clothes that were in the washer to the dryer. I turned the dryer on, and it said, "Click!" and nothing happened. That means that the fuse has blown AGAIN. The last time we replaced it, I was going to order some more, but I forgot, so we have no fuses. This means we have no dryer for at least a week! Of course, the weather has now changed, so I won't be able to hang clothes on the line either! I was able to go to Amazon and immediately order some more fuses, but of course it will take a week for them to get here. I also ordered some A/C filters while I was there (as I can get them in bulk and they are cheaper), and a Pyrex measuring cup, so I guess all wasn't lost.

All in all, it was a very productive Saturday. Of course, I am paying for it today, because I overdid it and now feel horrible! And probably no one cares about all the boring things that I did over the weekend, but decluttering, simplifying, and living and shopping frugally are all new and novel concepts for me!

Everything Under The Kitchen Sink

Hello, everyone! It's time to play What's Under Jill's Kitchen Sink?

(Theme music. Cheers and applause from the audience.)

So, some of you may remember that I was planning on cleaning out the cabinet under my kitchen sink. I know, I know, my life is wildly exciting and glamorous. Don't be jealous.

Well, I didn't get around to it the day that I mentioned it, but I decided to tackle it after dinner tonight. I can honestly say that I haven't really cleaned out from under the kitchen sink since we moved into the house 12 years ago. My husband, however, has cleaned it several times, as we have had some intermittent leaking pipe issues under there (so stop those gagging noises right now!). Still, over time, it has become a black hole filled with half-empty bottles of cleaners and insecticides, plastic bags, old flashlights, extension cords, and other things that I couldn't even remember.

Here is the BEFORE picture:

This picture doesn't do justice to the GIANT MESS THAT LIVES UNDER THE SINK. I pulled everything out into the floor, so that I could, you know, fully appreciate the mess.

Let's just take a look at some of the items that I discovered. Clockwise from the top, we have:

• two boxes of baking soda
• one box of kitchen garbage bags
• one box of yard garbage bags
• a yucky plastic bowl
• a super-old tub of plant food
• canned air
• super-old bottle of plant pesticide
• hangers for the towel warmer in the bath room
• a plastic shelf from the refrigerator that we have never used
• Swiffer Steamboost pads
• drain snake
• three almost empty bottles of insect spray
• carburetor cleaner
• a half-full, industrial-sized bottle of Mr. Clean
• some miscellaneous canning supplies
• my personal favorite - a license plate from Washington state (numbers blurred out in the pic)
• my second favorite - a PAPER bag full of PLASTIC bags
• more plastic bags
• a really rusted and gross glass shelf from the refrigerator
• a mop sponge pad for a mop we no longer own
• a 6-outlet adapter/converter thing
• three rolls shelf paper that were there when we moved in(!)
• an old t-shirt (to use as cleaning rags)
• two packages of plastic dropcloths
• liners for a Litter Genie that we no longer own
• a small bottle of camping soap that was mostly dried up
• a broken sink sprayer hose
• an empty disposable fire extinguisher
• some disgusting old rope
• a bunch of expired packages of wet wipes
• various receipts, labels, etc.
• other long-forgotten or unidentifiable things

Not pictured - dishwasher detergent, pet comb, and complete and unopened canning starter set (SCORE!)

Yes, all that was under the sink. Here, Fifi investigates the GIANT MESS.

I bagged up all the extra plastic grocery bags and took them out to the car immediately, so that we can recycle them next time we are at the grocery store.

Here are some of the things that got tossed into the trash. I made sure the fire extinguisher was fully discharged.

Not picture above in the "tossed" pile - the yucky glass refrigerator shelf. I considered donating it, but it was so rusty and gross - ick! I also recycled the plastic shelf. We've never used it, and honestly, I am not even sure how it fits in the fridge. Also, the license plate was disposed of properly according to Washington and Tennessee requirements. And I tossed all the expired wet wipes.

Only two items were selected for donation (most stuff got tossed or recycled).

I am keeping the canning stuff, but it was all quite dirty. I had to toss some of the lids and rings, but I am running all the jars, funnels, etc. through the dishwasher. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but the woman on the box bears a strong resemblance to Amy Poehler.

Here is the freshly scrubbed cabinet. Notice how the previous home owners were kind enough to "floor" the bottom of the cabinet with vinyl flooring that matches the rest of the kitchen.

And here is the final result! I returned the garbage bags, dishwasher detergent, baking soda, Mr. Clean, Swiffer pads, cleaning rags, and a few plastic bags to the cabinet (the plastic bags are neatly contained in the P.F. Chang's bag. Yes, I know - plastic bags in paper bags - maybe that's a thing in our house). There was enough room left in the freshly cleaned cabinet that I was able to store the kitty litter, puppy pads, and cat box liners under there as well! These were previously "stored" on the other side of the kitchen, where they total blocked access to a lower cabinet.

Upon completion of this project, I dragged my family into the kitchen to admire the beauty and elegance of the new sparkling clean under-sink cabinet. They were so impressed that they hoisted me on their shoulders and carried me around the kitchen nodded politely.

Now your turn. Have you ever experienced inordinate satisfaction from a simple decluttering project? Please share in the comments area below.

Today I Am ...

My new favorite blog that I have discovered is Katy Wolk-Stanley's The Non-Consumer Advocate. Among other things, Katy advocates buying used rather than new whenever possible and has inspired countless others to do the same. Her blog is wonderful, and I have been thoroughly enough reading all the back posts.

On type of post that Katy does, that I am going to try today, is the "Today I Am ..." post, where she talks about things she will do today, and how she manages to work frugality and green living into each aspect. I love this posts, as they give me all kinds of little ideas that I can try. While my "Today I Am" post won't be as inspiring as hers, I thought I would give it a whirl anyway. So, without further ado,

Today I Am ...

• Home with my daughter who is sick, and enjoying the quiet house, since my husband is at school
• Enjoying having the windows open and the heat off during this rare burst of warm January weather
• Doing laundry, like sheets and towels, to hang out on the line to dry, taking advantage of the fresh air and sunshine. I am also monitoring my detergent usage, since I think I have been using way too much!
  
  
  
  
  
• Planning on cleaning out from under the kitchen sink so that I can make room for some things that currently have no home
• Watching Friends on Netflix when my husband gets home from school. We are up to Season 4, and I am enjoying the episodes so much more in order, rather than all the hit or miss re-runs that have played for the last 10 years
• Hoping to go for a run later
• Wondering what that weird sound is in our neighborhood. It sounds like an alien playing the pipe organ!

What are you doing today?

Declutter Holiday!

This weekend, we went visit my parents in East Tennessee. My dad retired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and they live just outside the Oak Ridge city limits. Now, as you may recall from previous posts, Oak Ridge is the location of the nearest Holiday Bureau! So you know what that means ... DONATION TIME!

We have been gathering toys, holiday decorations, stuffed animals, and so forth for several months now with the anticipation of taking them to the Holiday Bureau. We had two plastic totes of Christmas ornaments, a black plastic bag of more Christmas ornaments, two small Christmas trees, a plastic tote of holiday lights and yard decorations, a black plastic bag of stuffed animals, a plastic tote completely filled with my Groovy Girls, a plastic tote of my daughter toys, several holiday-themed tins (the kind popcorn comes in), and an eight-place setting of holiday tableware, including serving bowl, salt and peppers shakers, sugar and creamer, and a butter dish. (There are probably some other things that I am forgetting.)

When we loaded the car, it was literally stuffed with the donations! The trunk was full, we packed things around my daughter in the backseat, and I had to hold our suitcase on my lap because there was no room for it anywhere else. My husband was the only one who had a little room, since he was driving.

I had planned to take pictures of the giant pile of stuff that we were donating, but I forgot before we loaded it into the car. We arrived at the Holiday Bureau, I was so excited, that I forgot again, but take my word for it - it was a lot of stuff. The folks at the Holiday Bureau were so helpful unloading everything, and so nice and sweet, assuring me that my Groovy Girls would make some little girl very happy, and that all our donations were much appreciated. It was a wonderful experience, and I can't recommend the Holiday Bureau enough. They do wonderful work in the community!

After dropping off the donations, we spent a lovely weekend with my parents. I have made a resolution to myself to get all the stuff that my parents have been "holding onto for me" out of their house. They have plenty of room, and their house is quite large, but I am a grown woman and there is no reason why my clutter should be cluttering their house! My mom told me that there were six boxes in the basement of my stuff, so I spent Saturday afternoon going through them. The boxes included letters from friends that I have lost touch with (or sadly don't even remember!), newspaper clippings, school awards, schoolwork, high school memorabilia, college memorabilia, and old bills and cancelled checks from the early 90s. I also found a pristine $2 bill, postcards from Yugoslavia from the 1970s (with stamps), and a cool "friendship sheet" from my pen-pal days as a kid. (Friendship sheets were so neat, for those of you who probably don't know what they are. You started the sheet, sent it to a pen-pal, they sent it to one of their other pen-pals, and so on, until it was full. Then the last person sent it back to you. My friendship sheet had been to Denmark, England, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, Spain, and several states, before coming home to me.)

To deal with the boxes, I made four piles - shred, recycle, trash, and keep. At the end of the afternoon, there were only two and a half small boxes left. I packed them up neatly, and put them back in my parents' basement for now. We don't yet have a place to put them at our house until we clear out some more stuff. My plans are to scrapbook the newspaper clippings, ticket stubs that I saved, memorabilia, and that kind of thing. Some of the things, I am not sure what to do with, and others I will likely get rid of when I go through them again.

On Sunday, we went to a wonderful service at the First Methodist Church in Oak Ridge, where we also ran into some friends from when I was a kid. Then we spent the afternoon playing board games before heading home. It was a wonderful weekend, in which I got to do many of my favorite things - spend time with my family, play board games, and declutter.

Unraveling the new year

The new year is just over a week old, and I return to work on Monday. I have been on vacation since January 1. I like to take time off the first week of the new year, to look back over the previous year and evaluate my accomplishments and my failures, to plan ahead for the year to come, and to just relax, reflect, and rejuvenate. Also, people tend to be cranky at work during the first week of the new year - everyone has gone on a diet and all there is a conspicuous LACK of Christmas goodies in the kitchen. I give everyone a week to settle down into their routines, then I quietly slip back into my office the second week of the year.

During this year's break, I had planned to get some major decluttering done. Unfortunately, the first several days of my vacation, I had a cold accompanied by several (or one long) migraines. Needless to say, I have not gotten a whole lot accomplished, but that's OK. I tacked a couple of small but tough decluttering tasks. One of these was going through my collection of Groovy Girl dolls. I have been putting this off for quite a while, because all these little smiling dolls make me so happy. For those of you not familiar with the Groovy Girls (by Manhattan Toy Company), here is a picture of Groovy Girl Kelsey:

Now, interestingly enough, I am not a doll person at all. I didn't play with dolls growing up - I preferred Legos, Lincoln Logs, and Tinker Toys. My daughter got Kelsey as a present on her first birthday. She played with her quite a bit, but I just fell in love with her sweet little smiling face. Over time, Kelsey's "friends" came to "live" with us as well. Every time we would go the store, one of Kelsey's friends would come home with us. But they didn't "live" in my daughter's room; they lived in my room. I even built a special shelf to keep them on. They quickly outgrew the shelf, and have been on top of my chiffarobe for some time now, though I have not added to the collection in years. I noticed a couple of months ago that they were covered with dust, to the point that you could barely see them. It made me sad and ashamed to think how I had neglected them after the joy they had brought to me. So this week, I removed all the dolls and place them in a laundry basket. I thought that I had about twenty, but I was shocked to discover it was closer to fifty! Some of them, I don't even remember getting! Many still had the tags on them. I took them all to the dryer, and ran them through on air dry with a dryer sheet to get the dust off. Then, I went through and cleaned any the were stained or dirty. Finally, I picked up each one and decided if I wanted to keep it or not. I used Marie Kondo's litmus test: "Does this spark joy?" I told myself I would keep five or six, but I ended up keeping ten. I realize ten is not very "minimal", but it's quite a bit better than fifty! The rest, clean and smiling, are in a black plastic garbage bag to be donated to the Holiday Bureau (placing them in a closed black plastic garbage bag for about a month will kill any dust mites, according to the Holiday Bureau.) The ones that I kept, I placed carefully on the now clean shelf, with a promise to appreciate them and keep them clean. Now, I can see ten little smiling faces in my room, rather than a pile of dust.

So even thought I didn't cart ten tons of junk to the curb this week, I did get some small, important tasks accomplished. For those of you who have decided to simplify your home and your life in 2015, here are a list of articles that I have found to be useful:

D is for Decluttering from Brooke McAlary's "Slow Your Home" blog

Getting Your Brain Back from Mr. Money Mustache's blog H is for Home, Not House from Brooke McAlary's "Slow Your Home" blog - this one really spoke to me!

2014 in 2014 Declutter Challenge Month by Month Guidebook from Brooke McAlary's "Slow Your Home" blog - she is preparing a 2015 version as we speak

Unraveling the new year by Susannah Conway at

The last of these is a workbook to help people determine their "word" for the year. This word will be used to keep you on track with your goals and the path you have set for yourself. I haven't had a chance to work through the book completely yet, but I have selected my 2015 word: LESS. I occasionally have moments of enlightenment, usually when I am running, or looking out the window at the sunset. During these moments, I feel happy, at peace, totally content. I am not worried about tomorrow, or replaying the day in my head. I am in the moment. I want to have more moments like that in 2015. And to achieve those moments, I need less - less clutter, less stress, less debt, less junk food, less stuff, less distractions, less of all the things that drag me down and keep me from having those golden contentment moments. With less of these things in my life, I hope to find that at the end of 2015, there will be room for more of the things that I truly value: time with my family, running, my music, charity, and fixing up our wonderful Blue Heaven.

Christmas!

Though Christmas is upon us, we are just now getting started in earnest with the Christmas decorating! One of my plans is to go through all our decorations and ornaments as we take them out (and later pack them away), and determine what we want to keep. We have lights that we don't use anymore, ornaments that were gifts that we never cared for, Christmas dishes that I can never remember to unpack in time for Christmas, and things that are just too much trouble to put out for whatever reason (I am looking at you, unreasonably heavy tree ornament!). There is a wonderful charity called the Holiday Bureau that takes toys, stuffed animals, and all kinds of holiday decorations, and finds new homes for them. The closest branch to us is in Anderson County, TN, so we have planned a post-holiday dropoff of toys, stuffed animals, and decorations when we go visit my parents, who live in that area. For those of you who are interested, the Holiday Bureau is one of the few places that I know that will take lightly used stuffed animals. (You can call to get tips on how to prepare donations of stuffed toys for dropoff.)

We brought four boxes of Christmas decorations down from the attic, and went through them as we decorated the tree. We touched and sorted through each item. The ones that we loved went on the tree. The ones that we chose to let go were packed into two large boxes for the Holiday Bureau. In the end, the tree was beautiful, and every ornament a treasure to us. And as you can see, Bridget approves.

I have noticed something since we started going through the house and simplifying. It appears that in the year or so leading up to our change of lifestyle, we did a lot of shopping. It's almost as if we reached some kind of tipping point with our accumulation of possessions that made us decide to jump off the consumerism bandwagon. I am not sure why this is the case, but I do find it interesting. It has been most striking as we unpack the Christmas decorations. I have said at least once, "I totally forgot we had this!". And though we are planning on parting with many things this holiday season, we WILL be keeping our "menagerie" - a large giraffe, a dinosaur, two flamingoes, and inflatable bears, all with Santa hats - who live on our porch during the holidays and make us smile.

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope your Christmas is beautiful and bright.

Yuletide Reflections

This Sunday was Yule, the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. To celebrate, we had a fire in our backyard chiminea. Even though Christmas is just a couple of days away, I am already thinking ahead to New Year's. New Year's Day is probably my favorite holiday (though I also love Valentine's Day). I love the idea of a clean slate. I enjoy looking back on the year and reflecting on my journey, and then looking forward and thinking about where I want to go. This year, I feel like I will be continuing along the path that I began a few months ago, simplifying my life, minimizing my possessions, and making room for the things that are important to me - my family, my music, my art, my health. The new year will bring new opportunities and challenges, and I feel equal to meeting them.

I also had the joy of closing my Macy's credit card account this week. I paid the card off long ago, but just got around to closing it, thereby further minimizing the possibility of future debt!

2005 Was A Good Year

Last Friday night, we decided to have spaghetti for dinner, so I volunteered to cook (yes - I define boiling water as cooking!). While I was in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil, I decided to clear out a corner of one of the countertops. Out kitchen is very small with limited counter space, and yet has still managed to become a catch-all area in our home. This particular corner held a recipe box, two outdated phone books, several cookbooks, and more appliance / toy / equipment user manuals than I wanted to count! In the time it took for the water to boil, and the pasta to cook, I had recycled the phone books, sorted through the user manuals and recycled those for things that we no longer own, culled the recipe box, and selected unused cookbooks to take to the used book store. Though there is still too much in that corner, there is a lot less than there was before. It just goes to show that with even a few minutes, a bit decluttering and simplifying can be accomplished.

In sorting through all the papers, recipes, and user manuals, I found several interesting items - an old address book from when my husband and I first got married, and a whole stack of coupons that expired in 2005. Think about that for a minute. Those coupons were cut out and collected in 2005, placed in that corner of counter with the cookbooks and manuals, and have remained there, mostly undisturbed, for ALMOST 10 YEARS!! How is that possible?! We use those cookbooks and occasionally those manuals, and we HAVE cleaned that area of countertop in the past 10 years. But apathy, disinterest, something, kept us from going through those papers and throwing out those coupons. I wonder what else we will come across on our journey that will cause us to just shake our heads and say, "Why did we keep this?"

Has anyone else out there had this experience - finding things in their home and wondering why the kept them all this time?

Things I have found new homes for this week

Considering that I have not had a lot of time to declutter lately, what with the mad end-of-semester push for both my husband and daughter, I feel like it has been a fairly successful week. I have found homes for the following items this week:

• mechanical timer - previously used for an indoor greenhouse for starting seeds, I gave it to my supervisor at work for her in-office space heater that she worries about forgetting to turn off
• alarm clock - this was on my nightstand, but I have decided to use my iPhone as an alarm clock (the alarm tones are not so jarring in the morning!). I gave this to a friend who has a friend that is setting up a new apartment
• toothbrush holder shaped like duck - left over from when my daughter was little, this has been sitting by the kitchen sink for about 5 years (why?). It also went to my friend with a friend, who has kids
• stand mixer - barely used, this went to the same friend for his parents that like to cook
• blender - used but still in good condition, also went to my friend's parents

The mixer and the blender will free up almost a whole cabinet under the kitchen counter. Not sure what I will do with that space, but I am sure we will put it to good use!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to share a picture of our dining room table. We decluttered it yesterday for Thanksgiving, and actually had a meal at the table!

The only thing left from the piles of junk mail, magazines, old receipts, and things that just never got put away is a stack of library books, which my husband is returning to the library later today. Everyone agreed that it felt wonderful to sit at the table for a meal. And now we can have a games night tonight!

Also, Bridget, our Official Kitty of Thanksgiving, reminds you to give thanks for the blessings in your life, and pass the turkey.

Clean Sweep

Tonight, we had pasta for dinner. In the time it took for the water to come to a boil, and then for the pasta to cook, I went through the cabinet above the kitchen sink where we keep most of our cleaning supplies. I threw out all those that were nearly empty, that I bought years ago and have never used, or that were redundant (I rarely dust so why do I need two cans of Endust?). I threw out tile cleaner (we have no tile in our house) and scouring powder (I prefer baking soda for cleaning the sink). I filled two plastic groceries bags which I happily carted out to the garbage can, and out of the house. Then we had dinner.

After dinner, I cut some more pieces for the quilts that I am working on. All in all, I got a lot done for a Monday night. I consider every day that I remove some clutter from our house a successful day.

A Day of Rest

Today was a lovely restful Sunday. I had coffee while I read and caught up on my minimalist blogs. It was raining and gray outside, though thankfully not as cold as it has been. After breakfast and coffee, my husband started working on his paper for school, my daughter started her homework, and I read a little more while planning my day. At one point I noticed that the only sounds were the rain falling, birds chirping outside, and the tick of the clock. While my family around me, working peacefully and quietly, I felt very content. After a while, I began work on the blocks for the quilts that I am making for my parents. I hope to have them done in time for Christmas, but the same things that have kept me from working on the house and simplifying have gotten in the way of my quilting as well. I was able finish four blocks today, so that is pretty good progress.

Before bed, I found one more item to minimize. I unplugged my alarm clock and added it to the donate pile by the door. The face is too bright, it awakens me with a loud blaaa sound which makes me instantly hit snooze, and it is not battery powered, so when we have power outages, I oversleep. I will be using my iPhone now instead. It has pleasant alarm sounds and is already by my bed most nights anyway being charged.

It's warm enough tonight that I have the bedroom window partially open. I love hearing the wind chimes.