Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

You can’t push a string…

Different people have different styles, styles of gift giving being no exception. In my family, specific (extremely specific) gift requests aren’t considered out of line. In my husband’s family, many gifts, all surprises, are the norm. Well, we all know what happens when people you rarely see or talk to give you “surprise” gifts, right?

It took me years of interacting with my in-laws before I realized that I could not control them, I could only control myself. (Some very obvious lessons are nonetheless hard to learn.) I started announcing in November that we would only be giving to charity, or that we would be giving only homemade gifts, or that we would only give food gifts. That way they knew what to expect from us and could chose to match our smaller gifts, or not, but they surely wouldn’t be surprised.  Over time, everyone has decreased their giving. Last year, each of the girls received a gift from their Aunt and Uncle, and my husband and I received a lovely box of chocolates. That was all, and it was perfect. My in-laws took the girls to the mall and bought them two gifts each. This worked for everyone because the grandparents knew they were getting something the children wanted and because the girls don’t go to the mall often (and certainly never with the grandparents, who live far away), so it was a big treat for everyone, even for Dan and I who got a few hours alone.

So how should you handle people who give differently than you would like to receive?

1. If it’s grandparents wanting to load up the kids, make your boundaries clear. You are the parent. Say, “No more than X gifts.” Or “She wants a X, but I don’t think it’s appropriate, so please do not purchase it for her.”
2. Or (one I used) “Do not buy any little plastic crap.” Yeah, maybe I should have said it nicer, but all those cute little impulse items are here one minute and gone the next – a waste of money and resources.
3. If it’s your girlfriends, suggest a meal out together or a trip to get your toes painted or something else that is fun and not material.
4. If it’s your family, suggest drawing names so that you only have to give a gift or two.

I think the biggest key is..

1.  If you’re changing your usual pattern, let those who will be affected know in advance. Now is not too soon. That gives them time to adjust too, and
2.  Remember that you can not change other people, you can only change yourself.

You can’t push and string, but you can pull it.

Today’s Declutter Item

Oh, if only making Christmas uncomplicated was as simple as pressing the Easy Button. Well you know what it isn’t that much harder, all you have to do is convince yourself and lay down as little ground work like Cindy suggests above. This button was a silly fundraising gimmick from Staple office supplies years ago and I must admit we did have fun with it for a while but it is now being passed on to a friend who also found it amusing.

The Easy Button, oh, if it where only that simple!

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I bought a nice little summer dress at the thrift store last week for $4 even though it was slightly too big. Today I used the skills my mother taught me and took it in on the side seams. The dress now fits perfectly and I am so pleased. I love it when you need something and it materialises, inexpensively and sustainably. 

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

We all want to succeed. We all want  a clutter-free, clean, and peaceful home. Yet sometimes we struggle. What are some of the stumbling blocks to success?

Making Excuses Instead Starting

“I’d like to start.” “I’ll get around to it soon.” “When things settle down, I’ll declutter.” Those are excuses, and if you’re using them, they’re getting in the way of your success. One of the beauties of one-thing-a-day decluttering is that it hardly takes any time, especially in the beginning. In the beginning (which is when excuses are their strongest) nearly anything you touch or see is a candidate for decluttering. Even people who have been steadily decluttering as long as Colleen and me rarely need more than 5 minutes to find something else that needs a new home – outside of our home. Stop making excuses and just start.

An Attack of Negative Thinking

“One thing a day? I’ll be decluttering for the rest of my life?” “What’s the use? There’s too much stuff.” “It probably won’t help anyway.” Stop! No more negative thinking! If you never get started, it won’t ever change, and even one thing less is better than one thing more. We all know that every journey begins with a single step and that a giant tree began as a tiny seedling. Your decluttering journey is no different. Stop thinking and start acting.

Stuck in Your Comfort Zone

You say you want a decluttered home, but really, you like being surrounded by all that extra stuff. Besides, what if you need it some day? Being comfortable is comfortable and wanting to change can be hard and scary. I used to work with a psychiatrist who said, “People don’t change until they’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.” How true. But if you’re here, searching the Internet for inspiration in your decluttering journey, I’m going to believe that you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired and that today is the day you’re going to make your first change. You’ll be leaving your comfort zone one step at a time, one day at a time. Don’t be afraid to take the first, small step. You may be amazed at how many steps come next.

A Second Attack of Negative Thinking

“I’m not getting anywhere.” “This isn’t working.” “It’s too slow, maybe I should just quit.” We’re not running a sprint in our decluttering, not even a marathon. This is a long, sometimes meandering journey on foot, and you won’t get from point A to point B in a single day. That’s okay. Your house didn’t get cluttered in a single day, and it’s not going to get uncluttered in a single day. Write down everything you do get rid of. You’ll be amazed at how quickly the numbers add up.

Input and Output

And if you truly, sincerely feel that you’re getting no where, start writing down the number of non-disposable items (not food, toiletries, etc.) that you purchase. If your incoming goods almost match your outgoing goods, that’s going to slow you down significantly. Purchasing excess to your needs and not purging is how we all got cluttered in the  first place (or inheriting a boatload of stuff from someone who purchased in excess to their needs and never purged). You’ve got to stem the inflow, too. As a bonus, your bank account will thank you.

Get a Goal

Maybe “to have a decluttered house” is too vague for you. How about setting a specific goal? “To have company over at any time without feeling embarassed.” “To sell my excess and use the money for XX (mortgage, vacation, private school, credit card debt).”To reduce my china until all of it fits in the china cabinet.” All these are specific, quantifiable goals that may make it easier to get on track and stay on track.

A Final Attack of Negative Thinking

“Stinkin’ thinkin’ ” is what I called this when I was a therapist. This is any thinking about yourself as a person that holds you back. “I’m not worthy” or “I made my bed, now I have to lie in it.” This type of negative thinking is hardest to detect and most insideous, because rarely do we say right out loud to ourselves, “I am not worthy.” Of course you’re worthy! We’re all worthy. Maybe you did make this bed, but you darn sure don’t have to keeping lying in it. Get up! You’re never too far off course that you can’t start to make a change, and it can start today. Say it with me “I am worthy. I can correct any mistakes I have made. I can change what does not work for me and make it better. All of these things are fully within my power. I AM worthy and I CAN do this.”

Today’s Declutter Item

Rather than waste time and effort trying to sell these last few records on ebay it is time to set them free the quick, easy way and more generous way, off to the thrift store they go.

The last of out record collection

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I think I have finally found just the right sandals. Being a conscientious consumer is hard work sometimes. I needed sandals but I wasn’t going to settle for second best, I needed them to be comfortable, versatile and cute and after trying on just about every sandal in town I think I have found a winner. Now all they have to do is pass the husband test.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

The October issue of Real Simple magazine reveals a grim statistic: 6,250 tons of landfill waste “could be avoided if half the kids in America traded Halloween costumes instead of buying new ones.” That the equivalent to the the weight of more than 3,000 mid-sized cars! Be sure and swap, sell or donate this year’s costume. Did you know there’s an official Halloween costume swap day? Of course it’s already passed, but you can mark your calendar for next year’s swap.

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

A couple of weeks ago, my church had a huge garage sale, which netted us $6000. I worked Friday putting toys out and pricing them and Saturday afternoon as the sale was winding down, increasingly slashing prices in order to unload the rest of the items before the end of the sale when the Salvation Army truck would swoop down and take the remainder away.

On Friday, while I was pricing toys, I was almost weak in the knees when a truck pulled up with trash bag after trash bag of the nicest toys you can imagine. The woman who was unloading them explained that they were from her daughter’s house. Her daughter has four girls and three sets of grandparents, and apparently every single one of them buys, buys, buys. Her daughter, bless her, had carefully put all the pieces of all the toys together and wrapped them in plastic so they’d stay together. So many very, very nice toys, most of which were in like-new condition and many of which were almost identical.

We were also inundated with stuffed animals. There is no reason for anyone to ever buy a new stuffed animals, as far as I can tell. I’m sure there were more than 100, many of which were obviously new and most of which looked like they’re hardest life task had been to adorn a shelf. (Virtually any stuffed animal can be machine washed, but they do need to be lined dried. It’s the drier that will cause the fake fur to loose its softness.)

My husband observed that people hang onto things too long, so long that they lose their appeal and attractiveness to others. He noticed that lots of the decor items were quite out-of-date, and he had plenty to say about the electronics. We had a large number of TVs, big beautiful TVs, but ones that weren’t HD compatible. Dan pointed out that when HD became the US standard, a converter box for a TV such as these could easily be purchased for $20. Now, several years later, converter boxes are $80, the same price as a smaller flat screen TV. These TVs started out being priced at $25. In the end, those that sold only fetched $5. Yes, $5 for a TV that originally cost over $500. Talk about something losing value because it sat around too long!

Someone was hoping that the church would sell his very fancy but old Macintosh computer for $250, which is more than similar units were selling for on eBay. Dan pointed out that the processor was made by IBM, which hasn’t worked with Apple in more than 5 years. The operating system is out of date, and the computer will not be able to run newer programs. Because the owner had let it sit around, it had increasingly lost value.

While Dan was surprised at the number of very aged items for sale, I was surprised by the number of brand new items, as you can see by my list of true confession purchases below. Why would someone get rid of an unopened package of baby wipes? Why would someone buy fancy lights for a party and never put them up, never return them? Did someone really believe that Beanie Babies were so collectible that they should stay in their packages? Why, why, why?

My last observation is about purchasing at the sale. I didn’t start working until 11:00, and it was soon afterwards that we started marking things down: lamps for $1, a bag of children’s clothes for $1, a bag of stuffed animals for $1. Then later, everything you could put in a smallish box for $2 or a large box for $5. I saw one man load up several books, a quilt, and a HP flat scanner for $5! People filled their boxes with stuff they really didn’t need or even especially want, because there was still space in the box.

The next day, I was teaching the 3rd to 5th grade Sunday school class. I asked all the kids if they’d gone to the sale and what they’d purchased. Several of them could name their items specifically, but a lot of them could name a couple of items and then concluded with “and some other stuff. I forgot what.” Clearly, the new treasures had been unloaded in their rooms (or maybe not even unloaded yet) and were already so insignificant that they’d been forgotten. One girl had purchased a bag of stuffed animals. When someone else expressed surprise that she’d gotten animals (usually by her age, they’re decluttering their animals), she shrugged and said, “Why not? They were only a dollar.” Clearly this girls was only thinking in terms of the bargain she got, not the cost of having yet another 10 stuffed animals in her room, being stored, collecting dust, and eventually returning to this very same sale.

In the name of full disclosure, I purchased:

• 2 (new) boogie boards (body boards) for the girls to play at the beach
• a (new) pack of 10 pencils
• 2 (new) packs of notebook paper
• a (new) package of baby wipes (Yes, I still carry these in my purse)
• a (used) boxed set of the Chronicles of Narnia
• a (new) Scrabble Apples games (already played)
• a (used) game of Boggle
• a (used) purple beaded curtain (for Clara’s purple room)
• a (used) pair of shoes for Clara
• a (used) sundress for Audra
• a (used) pair of jeans for Clara that fit neither her nor her friend Grace. They’ve already gone to the thrift store.
• and Dan would like to point out the he bought nothing

Today’s Declutter Item

I listed this old TV on Freecyle it took a while and a couple of no shows but someone finally picked up. Actually it’s not that old but it no longer fit into my son’s bedroom after we bought him a much needed larger bed. There was nowhere else in the house for it. I never watch TV during the day so there is plenty of time for Liam to play his playstation in the living room on our only TV.

Television Freecycled

Something I Am Grateful For Today

The one day of the year that all of Australia comes to a stop for at least five minute is Melbourne cup day. A horse race unites the nation. I am not one for gambling but if I am invited to a cup do I don’t mind entering a sweep. Today I won and went home $20 richer. Actually it cost me about that for the plate of cheese and crackers and the bottle of wine I took with me. So I broke even but had a great time with some lovely ladies. Win Win!!

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

How did you do with Buy Nothing New October?

Colleen ~ I was hoping to say that I bought nothing new this October and personally I feel that I have done that. I have bought nothing that I wanted to buy that’s for sure. Unfortunately though the air conditioner in my car failed on me, and I had to have the compressor and the condenser replaced. I feel rather bitter and twisted about this for a number of reasons that I won’t bore you with. Technically the compressor was replace under warranty but who’s quibbling: it’s new, and it’s now mine.

Although it doesn’t count because it isn’t new, I did buy one secondhand item, a denim skirt that I paid $1 for, which will be donated back to the thrift shop because it did not suit my needs well enough to keep.

I did discover that it is easy enough to postpone a purchase until the next month to fulfil such a pledge. Now that I have proved my shower repair from last month was a success I need a new bathmat which I have put off buying until November. I suppose though that the resistance to instant gratification is a good lesson if nothing else. I think that pledging to buy nothing new for a whole year would be a far more dedicated venture.

In total I bought acquired two new items and one secondhand one. The air-con repair isn’t added clutter because the old parts were instantly decluttered, and the secondhand item and 21 other items will have been decluttered by month’s end. So I have made good strides in decluttering, that’s for sure.

Cindy ~ I’d say I did so so. Besides, food, medicine, and household disposables, I believe I probably bought about as much as usual. I purchased eight new items:

• 5 books (3 novels, all of which have been read, and 2 writing reference books, mostly for the use of the girls)
• 1 set of “bowl bonnets,” elasticized plastic covers for putting over bowls and plates. They’re an alternative to plastic wrap. (I purchased these at this time in order to get free shipping from Amazon.)
• collar and tag for the cat, who lost his other set

Also during the month, I purchased 17 used items, more than I normally would have, because our church had a gigantic garage sale. In addition, I decluttered 36 items. 36 items out, but 25 in. That’s not as good of a ratio as I would like. Definitely something to think about.

For those of you who participated in But Nothing New October, how did you do? And remember, a bunch of you dedicated yourself to Buy Nothing November. We look forward to hearing about your successes.

And one last acticle to leave you with on the Buy Nothing New initiative.From the Sydney Morning Herald

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

I took a hiatus of a couple weeks from my decluttering. When I started back up, I found this comment on my Facebook page, “How can you have MORE to declutter?” Three other friends “liked” this comment, which means that probably even more people than those four are wondering why I’m not sitting around on the floor with no clothes on by now, like this fellow. (I’ll wait while you check it out.)

How can I have more to declutter? Easy. According to the TED video featuring Graham Hill that Colleen posted on Saturday, the average American house is now three times larger than it was 50 years ago, yet in that time, off-site storage units have become a multi-billion dollar industry. A New York Times article  from 2009 states that “…by the early ’90s, American families had, on average, twice as many possessions as they did 25 years earlier.” Twice as many possessions? Oh my, I have to declutter something right now just thinking about that!

I think the key is to recognize that there’s no “done.” There may be “done” with the big bulk of the decluttering, but like other types of housework, it needs attending to. Interests change. Hobbies come and go. Children grow up, graduate, leave, and maybe come back. There can be the addition of grandchildren or aging relatives. Plus, we apparently have twice as many belongings as our parents did 25 years ago!

In my case, Dan’s office is largely untouched. I have some boxes up in the closet in Audra’s bedroom that have never been investigated. The garage is virgin territory. The girls are always maturing and changing, so the belongings in their room need continual attention. The attic is in pretty good shape but surely can stand another culling. Maybe someday I’ll be able to get rid of my Christmas china.

In addition, it’s important to be realistic about what’s entering your house. If new things are purchased and nothing is purged, the amount of stuff grows and grows. I had a lighter decluttering month than ususal in October and predict that I will only declutter about 38 things by the end of the month. I have tracked every purchase, and 25 new things have entered my life. Eight of them are brand new, and the rest are second hand goods, so I can feel virtuous from a fiscal and environmental point of view, but it’s still only a net loss of only a dozen items for the whole month. That’s two steps forward and one step back!

I’ve written on this topic before and compared the process of decluttering with editing, a past profession of mine. You have to clear off the first layer before you can see the second layer to deal with it. Once you delve into the second layer, there will be a third, and maybe a fourth or fifth. Hard decisions that you put off the first time around need to be addressed again later. The process is a lifestyle change, not a one-time burst of cleaning.

That, my dear friends, is how I can have more to declutter.

Today’s Declutter Item

If you get an accessory with something but you don’t use it there is no point in keeping it. Dah! So these camera straps when off the the thrift shop. Goodness knows how long they have been lingering unused in the bottom of the camera bag.

Camera Straps

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I am grateful for the extended warranty on my car. The airconditioner compressor has failed which would have cost me $1400 to replace. Luckily for me it is covered under this warranty. 

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

My Grandfather passed almost exactly eight years ago, a few years after the passing of my Grandmother. They had lived on the same farm their whole married life – 64 years – although a few decades ago they built a new house steps from the old, drafty one, and knocked the old house down. Sixty-four years worth of living and six now adults kids’ worth of memories in that house. My cousins, who already had a houseful, were moving in. I helped my family try to organize the house and to make room for the cousins’ belongings.

At the end of my time in Iowa, I had a small pile of treasures – some useful items and some keepsakes – that I loaded into a picnic basket and shipped home to myself. Plus I had a wedding ring that belonged to my Great Grandmother. I put the wedding ring on my ring finger, and it’s stayed there ever since. (Ironically, I’ve learned since that she and her husband were hoarders, with the sort of house you had to weave a path through!) The rest of the stuff was waiting for me when I got home. Without opening it, I put the picnic basket in the bottom of my closet, and there it sat – noticed but unopened – for eight years. Why? I’m not sure. I can’t claim I forgot about it: My closet isn’t deep, and it’s sitting right there, in front. At first, I was sad about the passing of two of my favorite people. Then I guess habit just took over, and the picnic basket sat and sat, until last week when Audra wanted to see what was inside. I confess: It was as much of a treasure hunt for me as it was for the girls. It occurred to me that on a very small scale, this picnic basket was a lot like some of those storage units that we discussed last week.

I remembered that I had packed all the photos of my immediate family that I had come across, as well as letters from us that Grandma had saved. Here’s what else there was that I did not remember, at all: a pearl necklace, a plain woman’s watch that I do not remember my Grandmother wearing, a vinyl table cloth, a large piece of children’s fabric, a baby’s Baptism gown, two cafeteria style divided trays, a yellowed Yahtzee score pad, a bag of checkers, a piece of now molded embroidery, and a single plain cloth napkin. All I could think was: What in the world?

I put the tablecloth, the cafeteria trays, and the watch straight into the thrift store box. I can imagine that eight years ago I thought these items could be useful (mat for under the baby’s highchair, toddler dinner plates, utilitarian time piece). The embroidery went into the trash, and the napkin joined the others in the cabinet. I washed the fabric for a project that I plan to do with the girls, although I’m mystified as to what I had originally imagined I would do with it. Whose Baptism gown is this? The pearls I put into my jewelry box, the checkers pieces went upstairs because Clara thought she’d lost a piece from our set, and I put the Yahtzee pad in our game box, although we’re certainly am not in danger of running out of score sheets. But why, I have to ask myself, were these the things that I thought I needed or wanted from my Grandparent’s house? Except for the photos, letters and Baptism gown, these items obviously weren’t saved as keepsakes; I thought they were useful and valuable. Time passed, I didn’t use them, and now they’re garage sale fodder.

Next time you’re in a store, at a garage sale, or cleaning out a box that you’re struggling with, ask yourself, “If I’d not seen this item for 8 years, would I know the difference? Would I care? If I bought it today and put it away without using it, would I use it in a year or two when I got it back out?” They answer might be yes, but I think more likely, it will be no.

Today’s Declutter Item

I picked up this fishing tackle box at a garage sale years ago in Seattle. It got used to store nuts and bolts and the like. Last week my husband was bored so he had a little garage clean up, emptied all the nut and bolts out of it and I sent the box to the thrift shop. Now I just have to figure out what to put the nuts and bolts in so I can take them to the thrift shop. Perhaps we should have sent it as a job lot. Oh well, live and learn. 

Tackle Box

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Once again I am grateful to my parents for being the kind of handy folk who fixed things rather than through them away and purchase a new one. I am thankful because they handed those skills down to me. Today I had to once again do a repair on my son’s backpack. Theres is another $50 I didn’t have to spend and another item saved from landfill.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

When Colleen wrote Have Storage Will Clutter, I assumed it would be about storage units, which exist all over the US, some row after row of garages, and others (literally) high rise buildings with full heating and air conditioning services. Some people’s junk in the US lives better than many citizens.

Recently I was  at a class with my eldest daughter and was telling one of the fathers about the blog. He immediately told me that his chore for that day was cleaning out the garage. The coach then approached and asked if we were talking about cleaning out a storage unit. The man said, “No, but we have one of those that needs to be emptied too.” Then the coach shared that she has three storage units. She is going on a trip to Europe soon and noted that the units cost about a European trip per year. She claimed that she intends to clean out one unit when she returns (although I have to say, her commitment to this seemed very half baked, like one of those things that you just get used to saying like “I’m going to start exercising”). I challenged her to empty all three units. Bizarrely, she then said, “Oh no, I’m a minimalist” but had to return to coaching before I could find out how in the world having three storage units and being a minimalist could possibly be related. (Ok, truthfully, I was too busy trying not to snort loudly and rudely to find out more.)

I asked the father why he had a storage unit. He said that they intend to turn half of their garage into an exercise room. In order to work toward this goal, they’d cleaned out part of the garage and put it in storage. At least some of the stuff in the storage unit are items that will be in the exercise room. He told me that the unit was about a cheap as they come at $110 per month (about the same AUD, 81 Euro) and that he’d spent over $1000 (741 Euro) on the unit so far. One thousand dollars and no exercise room yet. The gym closest to my house is $70 a month for a family membership. They could have been working out for the past 14 months for the money that’s gone into this storage unit.

The last example of Have Storage, Will Clutter is a couple I know. Their adult children live in Texas. The parents thought that they would move from California, more than 1000 miles away, to Texas. When one of the children got a long-term overseas assignment, the parents packed up their belongings, sold their condominium, and move into their son’s house. Because the son’s house was fully furnished, they kept some of their personal items, and the rest of their belongings went into storage. This makes sense to me. Having their items in storage was cheaper than continuing to pay for a whole condominium for them, and they knew that their living arrangements were temporary. Eighteen months later, their son returned, and the parents moved back to California, leaving their stored items behind. For a while it was unclear what would happen next, but now more than five years have passed. The parents definitely aren’t moving to Texas, and their belongings are still here, still in storage. They don’t seem to have any intention of repossessing their items, which include furniture, clothing, household items, and collectibles, nor do they seem to have any intention of paying to have these items moved to California. Every year when they visit Austin for two or three days, they visit the storage unit – presumably to get something out of it, but I really don’t know. (Maybe to put something in!!) If the average unit is $100 a month, five years of storage comes to $6600 (4890 Euros). In the meantime, they’ve purchased replacement furniture and electronics for their home in California. My estimate is that this folly has cost them at least $10,000. I don’t really know what to say about this story. It truly mystifies me, but I do know that if storage units weren’t so convenient, something else would have been done with these belongings, rather than just having them sit in climate-controlled comfort year after year.

If you have a storage unit, my first advice to you is to leave the house alone and declutter the storage. You’re throwing money away when what you need to do is make some hard choices and probably many easy choices and live within the space you have available to you. All those “valuable” items you may find hard to part with because “they cost good money” are getting more and more costly each day that you pay to store them. Have storage, will clutter, indeed!

Today’s Declutter Item

I bought this carry file about 15 years ago when working as a teacher’s aide in my children’s first school. That was seven schools ago and it has hardly been used for its intended purpose since. I think it is well past time I let it go.

I

File Folder Bag

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I had a wonderful day today giving a friend a belated birthday treat. We had a coffee, went to the Hunter Valley Gardens (first time for both of us) and had our favour Tom Yum soup for lunch. Everything was perfect including the weather. See photos below.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

I believe strongly in storing things where you use them. I think that failure to store things where they are used leads to clutter, and it’s certainly less convenient. While your first thought may be “Of course I store things where I use them,” I bet you will be able to find examples in your house where this isn’t true, especially after we walk through my morning.

Let’s think of how you begin your day. You get up, probably make your bed, use the toilet, brush your teeth, take a shower, get dressed, and everything you need for those tasks is probably close at hand. Then you head to the kitchen. Are the coffee cups stored by the coffee or tea maker? Is the sweetener or creamer in easy reach? Mine are. The coffee pot is next to the refrigerator, and the coffee and little containers of sweetener are kept in the cabinet above, next to the tea bags and coffee. The mugs are in the cabinet right next door. All these frequently used items are on the lowest shelves, so I don’t have to stand on tip-toe to access them every morning.

The next thing I do is make breakfast and, simultaneously, pack my daughters’ lunches. My daughters take some medications and vitamins with their breakfast, which I store in a drawer that I frequently access during this procedure. Like a lot of parents, I am better at remembering my children’s needs than my own, so I moved my medication from my bathroom to the same drawer. Now I remember it every day.

The Medicine Drawer

I keep everything I need for lunches, which either three or four people take every day, in one drawer: lunch boxes, small storage containers, and sandwich containers are stored together. (Same drawer as the medications and vitamins.) Larger plastic containers are stored in a separate drawer. Although it might seem logical to keep all the containers together, I use the larger sizes only for leftovers after meals. I use the little ones only for lunches. They aren’t used at the same time and don’t need to be stored together. To keep the drawer from getting out of control, all the small containers are confined in a box. I also try to only have matching containers. Almost all the tops match almost all the bottoms. Over time, I’ve gotten a couple different sorts, but I don’t really like that. It’s easier if I can reach right in and grab any lid, knowing it will match the bottom.

Handy drawer for many uses

Because Clara has diabetes, a lot of her food needs to be weighed and measured. I keep all the measuring cups and spoons in the same drawer along with her scale, the list of food codes for the scale, and the carbohydrate book for anything the scale doesn’t cover. I can use the scale without even taking it out of the drawer. How handy is that? Initially, I stored it by the stove, but that wasn’t where it was used, so I ended up dragging it around the kitchen and often not putting it back. Instant clutter. What else is in this drawer? A pizza cutter and ice cream scoop. You might be thinking that I’ve lost my mind. Don’t they belong in the drawer with the wooden spoons, spatulas, and other similar tools under the cooktop? Nope. We frequently have ice cream for dessert. I can stand at this drawer, pivot 180 degrees, and grab the ice cream from the freezer. The ice cream bowls are close by too. (We use little bitty bowls for our ice cream. A serving, which is 47 grams (1/2 cup), looks like plenty in a little bowl, but it looks oh-so sad and lonely in a big cereal bowl.) It makes sense to keep the scooper right by the ice cream and the bowls. The same with the pizza cutter. We have pizza once a week – Sunday night is pizza and movie night. The pizza comes out of the oven and lands right here to be cut, so why not keep the cutter here too?

Most mornings, Clara tests her blood sugar for the first time at the kitchen island. Her extra supplies are in a cabinet just a few steps from the island, not in the bathroom. When she tests, she can check her supplies. Anything that need replenishing is just behind her.

Then it’s time to go. We grab our lunches and head toward the door. Backpacks, jackets, and instruments are stored on a bench by the front door. I keep a schedule for each girl on the wall by the bench, so we can quickly check and make sure that instruments or tennis shoes for PE (physical education) classes leave with the girls. Nothing that goes to school is stored in their rooms. That way it doesn’t get scattered about, and no one has to run back to her room. We grab them and head out.

My friend Holly’s daughters check and brush their hair before leaving the house. Rather than going back to the bathroom, or dragging hair brushes and hair ties with them from the bathroom to the front door, Holly keeps a basket of hair things by a mirror by the front door. Having the hair things at their point of use makes leaving the house easier, and it prevents clutter. Another friend lives in a unique three story house on a sharp cliff. Rather than having kids climbing back down three flights of stairs, one set of children’s toothbrushes are kept  small upstairs bathroom by the kitchen (top floor). They have another set downstairs in their bathroom closest to their bedrooms (lowest floor).

Anything that is kept where it is used prevents you from scurrying around to find it and lessens the risk that it will be left out of place, abandoned where ever you used it. Sometimes this means that you may have duplicate items. A hairbrush by the front door and one in the bathroom may make perfect sense, and that’s okay. As you go through your days this week, I encourage you to think about your routines. Notice when you backtrack to get something or observe that certain items always seem to be left out. These are probably the items that need a new home, by their point of use.

Today’s Declutter Item

It has taken me a while to decide to let this cabinet go. It is a great piece of furniture but the truth is I don’t use it any more. I don’t sew often enough to warrant the amount of space it takes up. I sold it on eBay on the weekend for $200. It made another young lady very happy and I am sure she is going to get a lot more use out of than I have of late.

Horn Sewing Cabinet

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Yesterday I got to have afternoon tea with a friend I mine that I don’t get to spend nearly enough time with. It was unexpected but very pleasant. My son enjoyed talking photography with her too.

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

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Imagine a big city, a huge, bustling city with no advertising, anywhere. The Brazilian city of São Paulo turned this imagining into reality in 2007. According to the Major:

“The Clean City Law came from a necessity to combat pollution … pollution of water, sound, air, and the visual. We decided that we should start combating pollution with the most conspicuous sector – visual pollution.”

Visual pollution, considered equal in importance to the physical pollutants of water and air. Amazing.

A Brazilian reporter noted that with the advertisements down, all sorts of ills in the city were being seen, virtually for the first time, since they were literally covered up with advertising before.

This got me thinking about my own house and my own life. I know if there are too many sounds around me, especially multiple conversations or a conversation and the TV, I get confused and feel irritable. Many odors such as air fresheners, scented candles, lotion and cologne are malodorous as far as I’m concerned. (An old boyfriend called perfume “stink” and I have to agree.) I’m probably not even aware of the impact that a big pile of clutter, or even being surrounded by stuff, has on my mood.

I was looking for photos of houses that had a bit of visual clutter, but were not really messy or deeply cluttered. Not easy to find. I did find this prize website, UglyHousePhotos.com. Let me tell you what, if your refrigerator is still covered with magnets and papers, this website will show you the error of your ways.

The first photo is a kitchen that most people would feel proud of. It is clean. It is functional. But it has a refrigerator that looks like a box of magnets was thrown on it and then the box and all its friends went to live on top. The counter on the left side is cluttered, as is the area between the microwave and the refrigerator. Just the stuff of everyday life makes a messy look.

Photo Credit ~ www.uglyhousephotos.com

The second photo is eye-popping child’s bedroom. Look how neat the closet is! Look how organized the shelves are! Yet do you feel like you drank six cups of coffee with extra sugar when you look at it? I do! Organized, not decluttered, and aggressively visually cluttered.

Photo Credit ~ www.uglyhousephotos.com

Looking at the photos of São Paulo and then the photos on the Ugly House website, I was struck by two things. The first is that visual clutter is disturbing, jarring, off putting and insidious. The second is, as Colleen and I have said before, a photograph is worth 1000 words. Think your home is peaceful and clutter free? A photo will tell you whether you’re right, or whether you’re deceiving yourself.

You can read a great article on São Paulo’s advertising ban and see photos here. Be sure to read through the interview with newspaper reporter Vinicius Galvao.

Today’s Declutter Item

Today’s mini mission was to declutter and item of clothing that no longer fits someone in your home. This is my offering, another item of clothing that no longer fits my thinner husband.

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Yesterday one of my readers, Snosie, had a scooter accident. I am grateful that she wasn’t seriously hurt. I hope your shoulder heals fast Snosie.

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