My Mom is a gardener at heart. She loves to work in the yard growing flowers and some veggies. She also loves to grow indoor plants. I think if she could she would be “gardening†all the time. There are problems with all this. She can no longer physically do the gardening. It is hard for her. She feels she has lost part of her identity. We have always been known for having a “jungle†in our house. There have been plants, plants and more plants. When she was still gardening we also had a yard full of plants. It drove me nuts because to me it was too crowded. This is one area where I … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2013
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Sometimes You Just Don’t Care
Recently a friend was cleaning out items from his mother's estate, a chore than sadly has stretched on at least two years now. He brought over a bag of craft supplies, jewelry, and a peanut butter jar full of needles and other small sewing items. Â In pretty short order, Dan and the girls and I sorted through the jewelry and craft supplies. Only the peanut butter jar remained. Specifically, it remained on my desk for weeks. Finally I got sick of looking at it there, so I moved it to the kitchen island to motivate myself to sort through it. There is remained for another month. I looked at it … [Read more...]
Memory triggers that aren’t clutter
If you find it hard to part with sentimental clutter I have a plan that may help. The thing that is important to people when it comes to items of sentimental clutter is the memories they evoke and not so much the actual item itself. So I have two suggestions. The first one is simple. Take digital images of your sentimental items, load them onto your computer and then declutter them. Include the image as part of your screen saver file so that whenever your computer goes into hibernation these memory triggers will flash up to remind you of precious loved ones, places and events in your … [Read more...]
Mini Mission Monday ~ Memorabilia
Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and "fun" for you to achieve some quick decluttering. Last weeks post ~ Memories are no stuff ~ deserves a little more attention than just one post. So this week I will dedicate the mini mission and another post to the subject. I feel this is important because this kind of clutter is often the sort that most people have trouble detaching themselves … [Read more...]
Memories are not stuff
Stuff is not people. Stuff is not places we have been, experiences we have had or the happy times in our lives. When all is said and done it is our memories that are important. All the significant loves and moments remain in our minds without  stuff so represent them. Yes stuff can remind us of those people, places and times, but any of significance will come to mind regardless of whether we have mementos or not. In my experience the tendency to attach too much sentiment to inanimate objects comes hand in hand with a need to acquire and save objects to commemorate every little event in life. … [Read more...]
Question your stuff
Cindy I. posed a three part question in a comment two weeks ago. It went something like this... Question. What makes you feel at home? Which little things do you need in order for you to feel good about yourself and your surroundings? Â Do you think they may be things that other people take for granted? This is a very good series of questions that make you think about what means most to you. Once you have formulated your answer ask yourself ~ "So why do I need all this other stuff?" Let this questions guide you in making easier decisions on whether to keep things or let them go. If you feel … [Read more...]
Waste Not Want Not
In the mail last week I received, from my mother-in-law, an article cut from a newspaper. The story was about a Brisbane family who set themselves a resolution to buy nothing new for 365 Days. Before I even got past the first sentence of the second paragraph I was inspired to write this blog post. The first sentence of the article read ~ "A hair band was nearly her undoing." ~ and right then and there I knew exactly where they were going with this story. You see I had the same epiphany one day when considering the purchase of a packet of hair bands. I have mentioned it before in this post … [Read more...]
Mini Mission Monday ~ Emotional Decluttering
Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and "fun" for you to achieve some quick decluttering. This week we are going to let our feeling help us to declutter. I will name an emotion and you will find something in your home that evokes this feeling. I will of course be focusing on negative emotions because after all who wouldn't want to get that sort of clutter out of their homes. I will … [Read more...]
Prolong the difficult decisions to avoid declutter regrets
Last week one of our readers, Bea, asked for advice in this comment on how to avoid feelings of regret when it comes to decluttering sentimental objects. My advice, and one of the principles of my slow and steady decluttering style, is to work on the easy stuff to let go of first. Tackle the harder stuff later on when you are better at disassociating yourself from stuff. Sanna then posted the following advice which gives a perfect example of this... "We often tend to focus on the hardest decisions. I was really having problems with my difficulties of letting go some of my pottery and vase … [Read more...]
Why am I decluttering? ~ By Andréia
I don’t remember exactly why I started decluttering. All I recall is that I was overwhelmed. I told about this here. However that story is over two years old. So why have I continued decluttering, even though I had reduced to a “manageable’ amount of stuff and a big house where I could fit all the storage units my heart could ever desire? I was not sure about the answer. I wanted more space, but more so, I did not want my children to deal with my clutter should something happen to me. There is always going to be some stuff they would have to deal with but less is better right. But why … [Read more...]