Hi everyone,

How did you all go with the Use It Up challenge? I am quite happy with my efforts, not only because I got rid of a few things but it also encouraged me to do a bit of craft.  I was excited about getting through as many “left over bits” as possible. My plan is to keep going with the challenge for myself until I have depleted a lot more of my craft supplies and a few more toiletry products.

Here is the list of things I used up…

• A box of adhesive tabs (craft supply)
• The last of a roll of Terrificly Tacky Tape (craft supply)
• The last of a tube of craft glue
• A bottle of shower cleaner
• A small bottle of body wash
• The last of a bottle of UnDo photo cleaner
• A sample bottle of face cleanser
• The last of a jar of hair sculpting paste
• A bottle of metal cleaner

There were only two items that I used slightly differently from their intended purpose. I used the shower spray  for cleaning the kitchen bench tops and the toilet as well as the shower. I had bought the metal cleaner to polish up a silver tea set. Then I decided I didn’t want to keep doing that painful task for the rest of my life and gave the tea set away. I used the rest of it to clean my stainless steel kitchen sink and my ceramic cook top.

Now I am curious to know what you all managed to Use Up over the last two weeks. Please send in those comments I am expecting big results.

ITEM 171 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Today’s offering is of course the items from the Use It Up challenge. I got a little over zealous and threw away the first couple of containers but then remembered to keep the rest.

I really only touched on this subject with my post Decluttering Pessimism but it seems to have evoked some interesting responses from people who have been subjected to the unfortunate position of dealing with a lost loved one’s clutter. And nobody wants to be forced into the very awkward position of having to broach the subject with an elderly relative that they need to consider paring down their possessions in order to avoid this very situation.

I remember when I was a child rummaging through drawers, cupboards and sheds at my grandmothers house and being intrigued with the interesting things I found. It was mostly just clutter that she hadn’t used for years. Stuff that belonged to my grandfather still lingered in all these places especially the sheds even though he had died several years earlier.

My grandparents owned and operated a bakery during and after WWII. My grandfather would not include the secret family sponge cake recipe with the sale of the business when he was ready to retire so no one would buy it. They just shut it down, stored all the equipment and fittings in the back shed and it was all still there thirty years later when my grandmother died.

We lived 500 miles away and my parents had to go and clear everything out when she died.  My parents had a business to run and didn’t have the time to spend going through all the stuff properly and deciding the worth of everything. They kept the good crystal and china, some tools, jewellery and a few other odds and ends. Then offloaded the remaining stuff quickly in a huge garage sale. I always thought it was such a shame.

It is never to early to get your clutter under control because that old person will be you soon enough.

So far I have focused on the inevitable event of old people passing on but there is an even more tragic situation yet to explore. Anything can happen any time to any of us and it is an even bigger shock for those left behind when someone is taken suddenly and unexpectedly. I am not saying that we should give away all our beloved possessions just in case but we should at least give some thought to keeping them at a level that is reasonable to expect someone else to have to sort through during such a tragic time. Maybe the things you own that you think may be a burden to someone else could be considered declutterable.

I am still not sure whether I am comfortable sending this post out it feels like it could be a little raw for some people. I hope no one is offended by it and if so please come forward and voice your opinion. I would be more than happy to withdraw it if you feel I should.

ITEM 170 OF 365LESSTHINGS

Another ebay sale only $3.00 this time but every little bit counts.

I was just reading the latest post from Becoming Minimalist which is titled The Life-Freeing Nature of Forgiveness. This post speaks about forgiving others for past indiscretions and moving on. How does that relate to decluttering you ask, well let me explain.

How many items do you have loitering about your home that haven’t been evicted yet simply because they owe you something. You know the ones you wasted your good hard earned money on but they never lived up to your expectations. Now you just can’t let them go because you may eventually come up with a way to extract their worth from them and justify the initial expense. There is a cure for this problem.

Admit that you should not have bought these items in the first place

Forgive yourself for wasting your money on them.

Promise yourself you will not be so wasteful in the future and move on.

Extinguish your guilt by letting these items go to someone who will get the use out of them that you didn’t.

Don’t make the same mistake again by  shopping more thoughtfully in the future.

Being the perpetrator of an offence can be painful being the victim at the same time is doubly so.

ITEM 169 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Another kitchen item to go.

I sit here with my hands poised above the keyboard drawing a complete blank today. I have been a little side-tracked as my son had all four of his wisdom teeth extracted this morning. So due to my lack of sleep last night, sitting in hospital waiting rooms for half  a day, swapping ice packs, warming soup and serving ice-cream to him I have been a little distracted.

So I am going to keep it light today and just admit to you the strangest item of clutter lurking in my home. Being as we have discussed this week about childhood clutter and in keeping with the above paragraph I think this is an appropriate confession. At the fear of losing all respect as a declutter blogger this is it…

I have two tiny bottles stashed away in my jewellery box which contain the baby teeth of my two children.

So does anyone have anything stranger than that hidden away somewhere? If so please tell us about it because I would like to think that I am not the weirdest one among us.

ITEM 168 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I am on the fourth go around in the kitchen and these didn’t make to cut this time.

If you have been reading my blog for a while you will know that my take on decluttering is ” slow and steady wins the race”. One of the advantages to this approach is that you can start with the easy stuff and as time goes on you become more ruthless and eager to reduce your clutter more and more. The job gets easier as you go because what seemed like hard decisions at first become simpler and comfortable for you.

Betty Jo from Joy With Less has discovered this and she recently wrote about it in her post The Little Things. Here is an excerpt of what Betty Jo wrote..

Like Betty Jo has discovered, decluttering is a process one that gets easier as you go if you give yourself the time to get comfortable with the areas you find challenging. Learn as you go, get ruthless when you are ready and youwill find out how liberating it can be.

ITEM 167 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This vase hasn’t been used for a long time, someone else may use it more than me.

I received a comment from Loretta yesterday and here is what she wrote…

I’ve got a question for you: since your children are now grown, what advice do you have for those of us with younger kids with regard to keepsakes and clutter? Is there anything you regret not keeping for your kids, or did you (and they) keep ‘too much’ childhood stuff?

I recently went through a big box full of cards my mother kept for me from the time I was born: birthday, Christmas, invitations. I had 40 years worth! Tossed most of them, but realised I was doing the same thing for my kids. It is quite liberating to think I don’t NEED to keep this stuff any more!

Much to my Mother-in-laws horror I have never been one to keep too much of this kind of stuff. Because we move around every now and again due to my husband’s job I have continually decluttered over the years. My approach this time around is different, it is more of a case of minimising with the intent never to accumulate again. Below is  a list of some of the items I have kept for and of my children.

• Baby cards (birth and Christening) Confirmation and First Holy communion cards and mementos (rosary beads etc.)
• A few special outfits they used to wear ( Unique items I and my mum knitted for them)
• One or two special toys. (a silver rattle and a music carousel)
• My son’s Thomas the Tank Engine & Star Wars toy collections.
• Some examples of their school work.

Which when you write it down like that it sounds like an awful lot. These are just the things I have kept for them. Once they were old enough to choose things they wanted to keep themselves that is when things started to pile up. I have always encouraged them to sell their old toys whenever I have had garage sales over the years and they were happy to make a little pocket money from that. Nevertheless, here is the list of what has accumulated over the years and is cluttering up every spare bit if space in their wardrobes….

• Every band t-shirt/hoody my son has ever owned. (my children love their music)
• Skateboard and Sports Illustrated Magazines
• Travel souvenirs
• KISS dolls
• Every note slipped between friends at school that my daughter ever received (there are a lot)
• A doll or two
• 2 Build-a-bears
• Every Rolling Stone magazine she received by subscription
• Both have piles of CDs
• Mariners Baseball souvenirs ( both children)
• Photos frames with friends and other odd stuff (daughter)
• Both have a sleeping bag (huge) that came from I don’t remember where but came in handy for sleep-overs and school camps.
• A box of Little Golden Books and Dr Seuss books they were particularly fond of.

And I am sure there is other stuff but I have scared myself enough already with this lot. I think I have mentioned before that this is my area of doom when it comes to decluttering.

The beauty of my decluttering strategy is to leave the hard things until last but the day of reckoning is coming and I do plan to minimise these items. My daughter is visiting next week and she is aware that I am planning on going through her stuff while she is here and hopefully she will be prepared to part with some of it.

As much as this list of stuff is large and scary and I really would like to see it minimised I do believe you shouldn’t force you children to part with things they are not prepared to let go. I suppose the best thing is not to over indulge them in the first place. There isn’t anything I regret not having from my childhood but then I didn’t have much in the way of possessions we made our own fun those days building cubby houses, fishing with the family, and other physical stuff. I wouldn’t change that for anything.

Anyway I digress. In a couple of weeks I will let you know how things went with my daughter and I will speak to her and my son about this subject and how they feel about their clutter and if there is anything they wish they still had.

I would like to think that if you set a good example of living with less maybe your children will follow suit and feel the same way but you never can tell.

Thanks Loretta for such a great question. I know I have only given you half an answer but when I have actually dealt with my children’s clutter I will give you some feedback on how that went.

ITEM 166 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Another ebay sale $6.50. I guy from the local post office and I are on a first name basis now.

I live in a city on with a population of about 160,000. So far I have explored very little of the area and have decided it is about time I made a bigger effort to find out more about the wonderful ways to spend time in this fascinating city without it involving shopping.

I meet a friend for coffee at least one day a week and usually we get together at the local shopping centre because it is convenient and there are plenty of cafes to choose from. The problem with this arrangement is that once we have finished dining there is nothing else to do there except shop. As you know I have no desire to buy anything other than food and other necessities these days so shopping just isn’t my thing and I am getting the reputation of being the “Shopping Nazi” because I am always telling my friend “you don’t need that” so I need some interesting alternatives.

I will start investigating immediately and have something nice to do this Wednesday when she calls…

…pause here to investigate on the internet…

…I have visited churches and cathedrals all over Europe and yet I have never been inside the big cathedral in my own town perhaps this week would be a good time to do that. In future we could take a stroll on the beach, go to the art gallery, take a drive to one of the small outlying towns to explore or even do some kind of city tour and learn some history of the region.

ITEM 165 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Another record sold on ebay this one went for $15.00

Hi to all the  people out there who read my post on a regular basis and to all newcomers as well. Yesterday was my 100th post and I am still very keen to continue. I am enjoying sharing with you all the lessons I am learning along this journey of decluttering and I hope my blog has been a help to you in turn.

To celebrate this auspicious occasion my site has a whole new fresh look. I made that sound so planned but in fact I didn’t know I had a “whole new fresh look” to my blog until I got home from work yesterday to find my husband had been tinkering in my absence. He did a good job though don’t you think. 365lessthings also has a facebook page apparently, I am not sure exactly what to do with that but I am sure I will figure it out.

The photo on my home page is of a car load of stuff I took to a local thrift store earlier on in the process. It was not the first load and won’t be the last. I hope that after the 365 days are over there will be nothing left to declutter but that remains to be seen.

ITEM 164 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Another ebay sale for $11.00

Disclaimer:- This story is not meant to be taken seriously but as a light hearted little anecdote which I found amusing and felt compelled to share with you.

While walking with a friend lets call her Liz (you know the one who owes me a lunch from (Day 152) we were talking about  philosophical things as usual and out of nowhere she asked me a rather strange question.

Now I don’t what to scare anyone away from decluttering there homes, oh no no no! And I now have serious questions about how Liz’s mind works but she raised a rather odd idea about a obscure possible side effect of my decluttering project. Here is what transpired…

Like I said, we were walking along talking when out of the blue she said to me, “have you ever considered that you might get hit by a bus someday soon‘? Now I will add at this point that I usually choose the route for our walks and that I am some what fitter than Liz and I did have her walking up a hill at the time which made me just a little suspicious about this question. My response was “why on earth would you ask such a thing“? Well she said “it would be just a little ironic if you were doing all this decluttering and unbeknown to you, you were actually getting your affairs in order because you were going to get hit by a bus and die.”

Well let me tell you, I made sure I checked left and right more than once every time we crossed the road after that especially because I knew I was going to be making her walk up a couple more hills before we could start out return journey home. I was particularly looking out for that bus she was talking about, not because I believed any of her mumbo jumbo but because I thought she might just push me out in front of it.

I made sure to tell her that is wasn’t afraid to die and at least  my family would have an easier job of sorting out my personal effects if by some “strange coincidence” such a thing should happen.

As I said in my disclaimer this is just a little anecdote that amused me but that being said it does raise a serious fact to consider and that is if you don’t get your clutter under control someone else is going to be stuck with the task when you are gone and you never know when that might happen. It is enough to bare the grief of someone’s passing without having to make awkward decisions about what should happen to the personal effects they leave behind.

ITEM 163 OF 365 LESS THINGS

My hubby is working on digitising his record collection and then selling the old records on ebay. These three fetched $6.80 I might add that once again we used recycled cardboard to make the packaging for mailing these items.

Due to all I have learned since starting my 365lessthings resolution where I have taken a relaxed approach to a job that could otherwise be quite unpleasant I am really starting to mellow and learn to savour the good feelings evoked during the process rather than just being satisfied when I am done. Through links to minimalism and inspirational web sites that I have discovered along the way I am learning to live in the moment and enjoy the process.

If you approach an event with dread, determined that you will not get any enjoyment out of it, chances are it is going to live up to all your expectations. If you resign yourself to the fact that an event may not be your favourite way to spend your time but are determined to make the most of the situation there is a chance you may be pleasantly surprised.

For example, I set aside one day a week to do the bulk of my housecleaning, dusting, vacuuming, toilets, basins, showers etc. Every week I dread this day simply because it is what it is, a crappy job but someone has to do it. I have taken this attitude for the last 20 years which is quite pointless because I love the end result. I like the feel of the house being clean and tidy around me but I could not stop thinking this way until now.

Since I have learned to savour the moment my attitude to doing my housework is changing dramatically.  I find myself feeling the atmosphere clearing while I vacuum the floor as if the the vacuum cleaner is filtering the air as I work. I am noticing how my micro-fibre cloths start to glide more smoothly over the surfaces as they meet less resistance as the grime is wiped away. I delight in knowing that the freshness is returning as the clothes tumble around in the washing machine.

Strangely enough these kinds of feeling were there from the beginning when it came to my decluttering project simply because I was determined from the get go to take a calm and steady approach. I receive so much satisfaction from knowing that with each effort I make, my home is getting more clear and efficient. There is another level of satisfaction knowing that most of the items I no longer have use for found new purpose for someone else.

ITEM 162 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I had procrastinated for months over buying new bed linen. The old down comforter had seen better days  and the cover was too dark for our now tiny bedroom.  I finally made a decision but  now these cushions no longer match and I am sick of putting them on and taking them off the bed anyway so off they go to Lifeline.