Photo Credit layoutsparks.com

Although it is September twelve in Australia today it is September 11 in the USA, a date that will forever remain a day of tragedy and grief. I remember that day, getting up in the morning to see the horror unfold on my television screen in Seattle. I also remember not being able to drag myself of the couch in the hope that I would see the rescuers bring people alive from the wreckage of the twin towers. Alas I hoped in vain. When I finally did leave the house I remember feeling the urge to wrap my arms around every American I saw and tell them how sorry I was for what had just happened to their country.

I am thinking of you again today my American friends and my arms still want to hold you  and make your pain lessen. I hope that time will heal your grief . God bless America.

Mini Mission Monday

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.

Something Cindy said in a comment last week has triggered the topic of this week’s mini missions. Even though we have talked about and worked on the Fridge and freezer recently they are just one of those areas that need constant upkeep. And sometimes we only focus on the inside. This week we are going to take care of every side. So lets get started.

Monday – If you keep stuff on top of your Fridge/freezer clean it off and leave it empty for a while and see how you like it.

Tuesday – Not too many people I know have an empty fridge/freezer front. There are usually photos and kids drawings, invitations and a notice board. Clear off everything that isn’t essential and try living with a clear fridge for a while.

Wednesday – Perhaps what is on the front spills over to the sides of the fridge. Time to clear that off as well.

Thursday – The inside of the fridge always is in need of a little decluttering no matter how soon ago you did it last. Have a dig around and see if there is any out of date items or just items that you keep thinking you will use up one day but never do.

Friday – Today is the day to declutter the inside of the freezer. Maybe it would be a good idea to plan tonights meal around using up bits and pieces in there.

Saturday – Since everything is clean on the inside and out why not move the fridge out of it’s position today and clean underneath it. Perhaps if it is an old fridge it might be an idea to give the element on the back a bit of a vacuum.

Sunday - Sundays are a good day for leftovers. Whip up lunch today using up some more bits and pieces out of the fridge.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Today’s Declutter Item

This cheese board is another one of those items being decluttered due to poor design. It only has three legs and tips over when being used. Any flat plate with no legs will do the job more efficiently. I really dislike poor design, it is almost as though manufacturers do it deliberately to force people to buy more product.

Cheese Board

Something I Am Grateful For Today

A pleasant weekend. There was nothing extraordinary about it, it was just well balanced. A couple of outings, progress on my sewing project, pleasant weather, relaxation time, a walk with my hubby, a chat with my parents and a nice Sunday roast. The simple things in life are often the best.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

We all have our favorites – favorite laundry soap, favorite hand lotion, favorite beverage, favorite brand of tool. We also all have our second favorites – second favorite lipstick, second favorite pair of black pants, second favorite brand of tea, second favorite bath soap.

How did we accumulate so many seconds? Perhaps the second favorite used to be the favorite, before it was replaced. Or maybe we shopped at a different store than usual, and our favorite item wasn’t available. Or perhaps you just thought that you should branch out some – not just stick to the same old, same old.

But, you always reach around it. You never remember that you have it. It’s pushed too far back in the cabinet to find without a stool. You’ve bought refills of your favorite item (more than once!) and still not used up the second favorite.

What to do?

Well, the most obvious choice is to declutter it – give it to someone else, donate it to the thrift store, throw it away.

Or you could intentionally use it up.

I wasn’t using a type of tea that I like just fine, because I like another kind better. I decided that I would use the second favorite brand when I make ice tea, which I drink in vast quantities in the summer. One more batch of iced tea, and my second favorite tea bags will be no more.

I had a lip gloss in my purse that had fallen out of favor. It goes on a bit sticky, but I’m not really sure why it got downgraded to second place. Instead, I prefer a lightly tinted lip balm. My eldest daughter was leaving on a trip and realized in the car to the airport that she hadn’t packed her lip balm. I gave her mine, and vowed that I wouldn’t replace it until I used all of the lip gloss I’d been carrying around. True, it’s a bit stickier than I would like, but it’s a pretty color on me.

I had a lovely tin of breath mints in my desk, which where given to my children as part of a thank you gift. Rather than the usual peppermint or cinnamon, they’re rose and violet flavored. Odd, I know, but not distasteful, simply not a favorite. I took the tin and put it in the car. There aren’t any other choices in the car. If someone wants a breath mint, rose or violet is what they’re going to get. We’ve been munching our way through them ever since. (As a bonus, the pretty tin looks, well, pretty sitting in the car.)

My friend Holly eats her pantry down to the bare bones once or twice a year. The first time I realized she was doing this, I thought it was odd and unnecessary. Now I see the value of it. There’s always a canned good or special spice that lingers in the cupboard long after everything around it has been eaten. Making sure to clean the cupboards out completely was Holly’s way of forcing herself not to waste food. Plenty of second favorite items, which probably should have stayed on the store shelves, got consumed this way. A similar declutter could easily be performed on the refrigerator or freezer.

In her book The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin talks about owning numerous pairs of blacks pants, only one or two of which she really likes. Every time she wants to wear black pants, she has to sort through her closet looking for the favored pair. Why keep multiples of durable goods (clothes, tools, kitchen appliances) when you have a favorite and someone else could use it? Move it along to a friend or to the thrift store, and relieve yourself of the burden of trying to find that favorite thing.

What can you find today that’s your second favorite, and how will you declutter it?

Today’s Declutter Item

This frame is quite cute but I don’t like frames that distract from the picture that is put in them. I am sure someone will love it though so like many other items this one will go with me to the thrift store.

Disney Frame

Something I Am Grateful For Today

You know some days are harder than others to come up with something to be grateful for and that is ridiculous. Everyday there is so much to be thankful for, a roof over my head, a cosy bed to sleep in, a wonderful family around me, food on my table, good friends and good health. And you know, that is all a person really needs to live a happy, comfortable life.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Last week, I discussed methods for cleaning and decluttering your refrigerator and freezer; this week we’re onto what is usually a larger repository of items that should have moved along long ago, the pantry. Because things in the pantry don’t usually spoil, they can sometimes hang around long enough to become honorary members of your household.

It will probably be helpful to have a pen and paper with you when you start excavating your pantry, especially if you know it’s… let’s politely call it “a goldmine of uneaten potential.”

What do you have, how many do you have, how long has it been in there? Check dates. Put like with like. Anything you have duplicates of may be excessive. I have a dozen little cans of olives, and I use them once a week, so a dozen is a reasonable supply, not an excess. But two cans of garbanzo beans (chick peas) is definitely an excess for me; frankly, one can probably is. Either make a list of what you have that needs to be used up, or put all the extras and duplicates on one shelf, and start using things without replacing them. Alternatively, you can choose to give the extras to the food pantry, rather than consume them yourself.

Some people buy a lot of groceries because they feel uncomfortable about the possibility of running out of food. But remember, it doesn’t all have to be stored at your house; allow the shops to store it for you. Then you can visit your “pantry” whenever you need for whatever you need.

If you live in an area where you might be cut off without access to shopping, for example, in an area that floods or where you get snowed in, I’m sure you need an emergency pantry. I don’t live in that environment, but I would think that having it completely separate from your regular food pantry, or in a specific area of your pantry, and rotating it once a year would be a safe policy. Mark the rotation date on your calendar so you don’t forget. Think carefully and logically about what you really need it in. Just having a bunch of extra canned goods on hand without true consideration to what they are isn’t going to be as helpful as a thought-out plan.

I think cleaning the pantry is a good time to think about healthy eating. Long ago, I talked about decluttering the pantry after my daughter was diagnosed with diabetes. We changed our family’s eating habits literally overnight. Everything that wasn’t part of her healthy, low-carbohydrate diet went directly out the door. I sometimes hear, “Oh I could never do what you do, that must be so hard.” I always say, “It is hard, and you would do it to give someone you love the healthiest and longest life-span possible.”

Don’t we love ourselves? Aren’t we responsible for making sure that we are living the healthiest and longest life-span possible? Then why do you have unhealthy food in your pantry? Get rid of it and don’t buy more. Unhealthy food is just another kind of clutter that you can live without.

How does unhealthy food enter your house? Probably in a grocery sack carried by your own hands. The purchasing of food needs to be a conscious decision like everything else you buy. Shop with a list; don’t vary from it; only buy what furthers your goal of a healthy lifestyle. If you feel you “must” have a treat, buy the smallest container possible (even though that’s likely to be less economical) and don’t buy more until your next shopping trip … or even later than that. Do you spend too much money on alcohol? Again, buy less and don’t buy more until your next shopping trip. For me, beer in the house turns into a beer a day then two beers a day and a couple of pounds a month. It works better for me to only have the occasional beer at a party, not keeping it on hand, is a better choice.

A decluttered pantry will let you have easier access to the foods that you want and will use, without it being cluttered by past mistake purchases, bad-for-you choices, and so much volume that things get lost in a sea of cans and jars.

Next week’s post “Your Second Favorite” addresses using up things that don’t really like … at least not that much.

Today’s Declutter Item

This jar of beads were another craft decluttering effort. The beauty is that I donated them to the thrift store and was there on the day to sell them to a lady for $5. She was happy with her purchase and I was happy to see the charity making money out of my donation.

A jar of beads

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I know that volunteering your time usually evoke gratitude from the organisation that you are giving up your time and energy for. But I am grateful for the opportunity to do my part for the community in which I live. There are a lot of people out there worse off than me and I feel good about helping to provide support for them.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

These photos are the result of a 10 minute clean up under my bathroom sink. It took me longer to actually get all the items to their new homes, but the decluttering itself was a breeze and look at the difference. I removed and found new homes for:

The before shot

• 12 bottles of nail polish (neighbor)
• a foot scrub brush (this was broken apart – some recycled, some trashed)
• 2 Aveda Be Curly hair products (neighbor)
• Color Me Beautiful color guide (Anyone else remember Color Me Beautiful? trash)
• a large box of latex gloves (moved to the paint supplies, which is where they’re more useful)
• 4 boxes of hair dye (returned to store)
• hair gel (friend)
• bag of cosmetic sponges (my mother)
• 2 nail files moved to the top drawer where they’d be more accessible
• while rearranging the cabinet, I realized that one of the bottles of hairspray was almost empty. I made sure that we used it on Easter, and now it’s been decluttered too.

How much progress can you make in just 10 minutes today?

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Colleen has issued a Use It Up Challenge several times. The most recent one I can find is in September. I’ve been thinking a lot about this challenge recently because we are finally coming to the end of it here at the Bogard household. Along the way, I consumed all the multiday vitamins and calcium I had in the cabinet, and we used all the various extra bottles shampoos and conditioners along with several toothpaste tubes that the girls had not squeezed down tho their last drops.

Those items were quickly finished in comparison to the soap challenge. I had no idea we owned so much soap! I tried a couple of times to give away the Mr. Bubble then put it into the dispenser with the kitchen soap. (Not the best idea, according to my husband. He feels it lacks any grease cutting ability.)  The rest of it, we have been using up one shower, one bath at a time. We had soap the girls had made, soap their friends had made and given as gifts, chunks of soap left over from when we made soap, fruity smelling bath bars that had been given as gift, little soaps from hotels, and at least a dozen smallish bottles of bath gel that had been gifts. Obviously, the trouble with even a useful gift is that it’s clutter if you don’t use it, so using it is what we’ve been doing, apparently since September. That’s eight months ago!

As we’re approaching the end of the soap supplies, I’ve started thinking about other things that can be used up. The only thing I’ve really latched onto is plastic bags, specifically the sturdy plastic bags that mulch comes in. The last time I did a big mulching, I neatly cut open the tops of the bags and saved them, all stored inside of one bag. I found them when I was cleaning the shed. I decided that since I’d saved them, since they were still intact, and since they really can’t be recycled despite the recycling symbol on the side (too many bits of mulch still clinging to them), I would use them as kitchen trash bags.

I typically only use one kitchen-size trash bag a week, and it holds everything.  These mulch bags are quite a bit smaller than my kitchen trash can – not as wide nor as tall. I had to consciously decide to use them. Because they don’t hold as much, I’ve been using one and a half or two bags per week and am very gradually making my way through them. (I also reuse the large bags my toilet paper comes in as well as dog food and bird seed bags, but those I have much less frequently.) I am packing for a camping trip this weekend and decided to put a couple of the bags in with my kitchen things. They’ll make sturdy camp trash bags. (I am also taking a recycling bin.) If I hadn’t consciously chosen to use the bags, they’d have been wasted when I was dumping the mulch out – it’s a lot easier to get the mulch out if I split the bag down the center than it is to cut just the top – but I chose to Use It Up. (Or, to be more truthful, in the past I decided to Save It Up. In the present, I decided to Use It Up.)

What do you have that’s consumable and in excess to your needs? Food? Check the pantry and the freezer. Toiletries? Check under the sinks and in the bathroom drawers. Craft items? Check your supply drawers. Or is it something more creative like my reduce and reuse mulch/trash bags? Let me know what you’re using up.

Note from Cindy: I am driving the 5th graders on an overnight field trip Tues and Wed (US) or Wed and Thurs (Aus), and I likely will not be able to respond to comments. I have asked Colleen to try and keep up with them if she has time. If not, I’ll jump in when I return.

Today’s Declutter Item

Craft Adhesive (Use it up)

My Gratitude List

• Something that made me laugh ~ An amusing email response to my ki-ai story yesterday. I will not embarrase the author of the email by revealing her name or the details but needless to say her story was way more hilarious than mine and Ki-ai has forever had a special significance to her from that day onward. To be able to laugh at yourself is a good quality to have to give someone else permission to laugh at you is a special gift.
• Something Awesome ~ When you are late for an appointment but they were running late and you arrive just in time.
• Something to be grateful for ~ The opportunities that life continues to deal out to us whether we are expecting them or not.
• Something that made me happy ~A wonderful unplanned day of eating, chatting and laughing with old friends and new.
• Something I find fascinating ~ The things women talk about when we get together. I wonder what men talk about when we aren’t around. I bet they don’t have nearly as much fun or are as open as us females.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

One of my golden rules for decluttering is…

Don’t waste it just because you don’t want it.

There is no doubt that during the course of decluttering your home you are going to have to deal with what to do with all the items you are getting rid of.  We have spoken quite a lot over the last thirteen months on how to go about rehousing items but it never hurts to refresh our minds of these details.

On my page Give away-Throw away – Sell – Use up, I list what became of all the 365 items I decluttered from my home during 2010. I will use the info from that page here to explain what was involved in the disposal of these items and other methods that you could utilise to achieve the same result. The title of each topic speaks for itself but there is more to some of them than meets the eye…

Give Away (237 items)

Thrift Store – Most were taken to my local thrift shop where they were more than happy to take them off my hands. Now the thing with thrift shops is that they can’t take everything, and you really should speak to them first to make sure you aren’t just adding to their rubbish removal costs. Even when we think an item is still usable there maybe a health or safety reason why thrift stores can’t take these items for resale. Please click on this link to read about how some charities in my area are pulling their bins because of this problem and because some people just abuse the system.

Freecycle – Because of the inconvenience of having to arrange the pick up I generally only use Freecycle to offload the items that are not suitable to give to the thrift store. For example I have had three separate baseball card give-aways because baseball isn’t popular in Australia and these would just be a burden to the thrift store. I also had a lamp that required rewiring that one lovely lady was happy to take away because her son was an electrician. Once again this item would have been useless to the thrift store.  I have also given away a couple of American voltage electric appliances that people were happy to run from a step down transformer. As you can see these would not only have been useless to donate but also difficult to sell.

Friends – I have also given away about a dozen things to friends who were glad to have the use of them. In some cases the item would have had to be purchased new had I not been able to step in and help. My friends soon learned to see me before running off to the store.  We are doing each other a favour here and I thank them for taking the items off my hands.

Other Organisations – I managed to find homes for all of my 237 items just using the three avenues mentioned above but there are many other organisations out there that would be glad to accept donations. Scout groups I am sure would be happy to take camping equipment, schools would be glad of the generous donations of craft and stationary items, sporting clubs can always use extra equipment. Just use your imagination and I am sure you will find someone happy to re-purpose your unwanted stuff.

Sell (58  Items  sold on eBay at a total of $1533.65)

On-Line – Although all of the items I sold were sold on eBay there are other online selling options that you can chose from such as Craigslist.

Newspaper – You could advertise to sell in the classified section in your local newspaper. This is a good option if you have items that are too big or cumbersome to sell on eBay. Although eBay and the like do have a pick up only option that targets local shoppers I think you may find a bigger audience through using a non-online selling venue. In Australia, we have an online/local newspaper combo selling option called the Trading Post that I am going use to try to sell some musical instruments soon. I will let you know how that pans out.

Notice Boards – I don’t know if you have ever seen notice boards in your local shopping centres where people paste up photos and contact details to sell, rent or give-away items. I have seen a few in my area perhaps there is one in yours.

Garage Sale – I have had several garage sales in the past though none of my 365 things were sold this way because I was purging slowly and did not want to store the items until I had enough for a garage sale. One thing to remember with garage sales is that you have a very limited audience, and they are looking for a bargain but if you were only likely to donate the stuff anyway then you could end up with a few hundred dollars in your pocket instead.

Market Stall – This is much the same situation as a garage sale but you have a larger audience and have to haul the stuff to another location to sell. Like garage sales I have had great success in the past offloading my stuff this way.

Use Up (Only 3 items of my 365 were declutter this way)

Even though 3 is a very small quantity over the year there were many other items that were used up that I didn’t include. Items such as clothing that wore out that I didn’t replace and cleaning items that I didn’t like that I persevered with rather than cluttering up my cupboards with a duplicate in another brand. As you in know I call this Natural Progression Decluttering. I really hate waste and I would rather find a way to use something up rather than throw it away because that is a crime against the environment in my eyes.

Throw Away (67 Items)

To me this quantity (67) seems like far too many but it isn’t as bad as it looks. I scanned back through my records on my Google calendar to find out what was among these 67 items. Some of them were sent to be recycled such as paper products like old magazines, files and boxes while many of them were items that were simply used beyond there usefulness, just plain old worn out, rusty or perished in some way. There was nothing thrown in the trash just because I was too lazy to deal with it and that should never be the case for anyone. If an item still has use in it please please find it a new home.

Today’s Declutter Item

Today we have another mystery item which fetched $10 on ebay. Actually they are parts to an old wood plane.

Things I am grateful for today

• Getting through the housework quickly – So I could go out for a coffee with a friend.
• That it cooled down before we went for our afternoon walk – I would also be grateful if these 35°C plus days would go away for the year.
• Space in the freezer to put the water bottle for a quick cool down.
• Online product reviews – My stab blender is dying and I want to be sure to get a replacement that will perform admirably.
• Having fun with my guys – They are a pair of mischievous devils but lovable ones. (I speak of Steven my husband and Liam my son of course.)
  

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow.

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

In Honor of Tuesday’s Mini Mission

Imagine your freezer, nice and tidy, not too empty and not too full. Now imagine dumping it all out on the floor, scrambling it around, and shoving the frozen food back in willy-nilly. Whew! That’s a mess. Now double the amount of food and really cram it in there. That’s what my freezer looked like last year.

I decided to do something about it. Just like with any other major decluttering and organizing project, before I began, I got boxes and my label maker. I was ready. I did this cleaning in winter in the garage, so there was no worry about defrosting. I started removing the food and sorting it by category: vegetables, chicken, ice cream, beef, and leftovers all went into separate boxes. Not surprisingly, I unearthed a Ziploc bag of soup that was 2 years old and some frozen tidbits that I couldn’t identify, but the thing that did surprise me was the broccoli. I buy broccoli in four pound bags from Costco. There were two full bags and one half bag jammed into the freezer. Nine pounds of broccoli!

While all the food was out, I wiped down the freezer and cleaned up all the sticky blobs. Then I reloaded, keeping like with like. Certain shelves were dedicated to certain things. I left the meat and bags of veggies (except my truck load of broccoli) in low-sided boxes and labelled the outside of the boxes: chicken, pork, beef, veggies, potatoes. Of course, I had to juggle things around until I could find a pattern that worked best. Once everything was back in, I labelled the shelves, as well.

Before I ran out of steam, I hit the refrigerator freezer, too. I removed everything that wasn’t used frequently and sorted it into the big freezer. (Quick to do, since I’d just finished out there.) Leaving in the house only the items that are frequently used, I organized what remained and labelled the shelves.

We ate and ate, and I did see a lowering of my grocery bill for the first two months. I had my own grocery store in my garage and hadn’t even realized it! This system has been in place for months now, and it works wonderfully for me. I buy less; I can find everything. Your freezer and its contents represent a major investment; shouldn’t it be as organized, useful and free of UFOs (Unidentified Frozen Objects) as any other space in your home?

Today’s Declutter Item

Reams of binder paper that I should have donated in America before we left. It has been lingering here for over three years and I am over it. I sent it to the thrift store in the hope that it might be immediately useful to someone else. I still have enough scratch paper to keep me going for a very long time. It is amazing how little paper one really uses in this age of computer technology.

Things I am grateful for today

• A cooler overcast day – It has been very hot here lately and I could do with the reprieve.
• Being reminded how lucky I am – Thanks Amber
• Fresh Juicy Apples – One of these at lunch after a big fat scone with jam and cream for morning-tea is a balanced diet, right?
  
• No more visits for Liam to the Maxillofacial Specialist – His jaw is in good shape all things considered and he doesn’t need any more check ups. That’s one down now just the 6 month dental, the physiotherapy, the speech therapist, the neuropsychologist and the clearance from the neurologist to go. Hopefully the last  4 will be done in the next week. Then that will just leave the dentist. Yay!
• My darling husband– Who goes to work five days a week to keep me in the manner to which I have become accustomed. Lets face it he is good at it and I deserve it!
  

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow.

For those of you who haven’t read my earlier posts or have forgotten, natural progression decluttering is where instead of reducing the number of certain items by giving them away you use them until they outlive their usefulness. Once gone do not replace them. There are several ways this can happen depending on the kind of clutter.

• Wearing out – Things like an over-abundance of  socks, underwear, shoes, towels etc are prime targets for this type of decluttering. The key to making this work is to move the items that you are wanting to declutter to the front position in their storage space and use these most in order for them to wear out first.
• Use up – Toiletries, cleaners, stationary items, craft supplies etc would fall into this category. Use your imagination with some of these items in order to use them up faster than you would normally.
  • Shampoo and bubble bath  can be used as hand wash or detergent for cleaning items that won’t be used to eat off.
  • Toilet cleaners with bleach can be used as grout and tile cleaner.
  • Glass cleaner can be used as an all purpose spray cleaner if you aren’t happy with the way it cleans glass.
  • With pens and stationary stick to the one pen or one packet of staples or one notebook etc and use that one all the time until its used up or runs out. (be mindful of pens if you have far too many as they can dry up and become useless to anyone. Best to give them away before this happens if you are unlikely to use them quick enough.)
• Breakage – crockery and  glassware are the first things that come to mind when I think of breakages. When you have tiled floors in your home like I do this can happen at a more rapid pace than you would like.

I see no point in decluttering items that I use daily just because I would rather have fewer of them. By deploying the above strategies these items will wear out, be used up of break soon enough by naturally progression. It would be a waste to throw them out  and a waste of money to give them away if they are going to need replacing too soon after decluttering.

Natural progression decluttering is different to keeping items “in case I might need them some day”. The first group are items that are in regular use that are likely to diminish soon enough to an acceptable level while the latter are items that are rarely if ever used and will be wasting useful space in your home for years to come.

At the moment I am using bubble bath as hand cleaner. Using the same bottle of perfume everyday it is actually my last but I don’t love it but I will not replace it until it is all gone. Using the same few pens although I may have to donate some before they die of old age. Wearing several pair of socks that are getting close to wearing out and using this strategy with underwear and T-shirts as well. I am also using the same two sets of crockery that I have used for years even though there is not a full set of either left. I will use these until there are too few and then start on my good set. I have almost completed a declutter on a bottle of face wash, a tube of moisturiser and  . Oh and lets not forget my mountain of craft items, I plan on creating and opening an etsy shop so I will get have fun using them and hopefully redeem some of the money I spent on them over the years.

So set things in place for some natural decluttering today.

Today’s Declutter Item

This group of baseball paraphernalia was picked up by a very happy Freecycler on the weekend

Things I am grateful for today

• Seeing nature at play – the sulphur crested cockatoos in our neighbourhood have a liking for hanging upside-down on the electric wires and antenna tethers. The first time I saw this I thought the bird was snared but then it flew off and came back to do it again. Silly birds.
• Catching up with friends.
• Freecycle – One item gone five more to list.
• Friends who take my stuff – I got rid of two more things this way today.
• The kind people who found Liam’s lost wallet yesterday and took the time to come to our home to return it – the world is a better place because of these sort of people.
  

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow.

Back on day 159 I instigated a Use It Up Challenge which quite a few of my readers jumped on board with. We found some interesting uses for things that we were desperate to use up in ways other than intended and made special efforts to just focus on others. The end of the last challenge were on Day 171.

Since then I have been continuously using up things that I have excess of and today I will share them with you.

• Three sample size bottles of perfume that had been given to me from friends.
• Aluminium foil & plastic wrap that we had doubled up on due to my husband working away for a year.
• A small bottle of salt (same reason as above)
• A jar of body butter. Every time I think I am going to get my moisturiser down to one bottle/jar someone gives me another one as a gift
• A sample bottle of bubble bath (one of a pack of six) also from a friend who had been away on vacation in Hawaii.

I get the greatest pleasure when I get to the end of each these items even though they are small it is one more thing not cluttering  up my home. I am hoping to eliminate plastic wrap altogether.

ITEM 251 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Here are the items I used up but I am sure this won’t be the last we will see of Use It Up

While out walking today I went by the fruit shop and noticed a box of over ripe bananas  on the footpath by the door. I did a double take when I remembered I needed a couple of onions and picked up two of the old bananas as well thinking I could use them to make a cake. When I took them to the counter to pay there was no charge for the bananas which was what I was half expecting. I was happy with that and thanked the man and went on my way.

Later on when I was making my banana cake with my free bananas I got to thinking…there is more to this than just a couple of free bananas. This greengrocer could have thrown those bananas straight in the trash for fear that people would take them rather than purchase his less ripe bananas but he didn’t, he gave them away so they wouldn’t go to waste.

I have worked in retail off and on my whole life and I have seen some terrible waste due to the fact the companies choose to destroy product rather than donate it to charity or give it away to their customers or even staff members. They are afraid it will lose them a potential sale of a similar item if they do so, instead perfectly good products end up in land fill. One day I watched as about forty wheeled craft organizers (similar to carry on luggage bags) got thrashed with box knifes and thrown in the dumpster. What a waste.

Any wonder people resort to dumpster diving for their weekly grocery haul. Not only does it make economical sense but it is good food but not perfect enough to sell on the shelves. Makes me feel good about my two bananas and the reduced price cheese I often buy on Fridays just because the expiry date is looming.

Anyway good for the green grocer I will buy more of my produce there in future.

ITEM 226 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This is an old sleeping bag of my daughters. We gave it to the son of a friend and he has had a wonderful time camping out in the lounge room of his home on weekends.