365 Less Things

Reducing our stuff one day at a time.

Friday’s Favourites ~ 15March2013

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On Fridays at 365 Less Things I share with you my favourite comments from my wonderful readers and my favourite web finds of the week. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.

Favourite Comments. Enjoy!

Here is a great comment from over at the 365 Facebook page from Jenny Adamson. Giving things away can bring more joy than keeping them.

Here is a thought about the shopping high from Idealistin.

Cat’sMeow has some great advice about treating yourself without causing clutter in this comment.

Brenda sent us this comment with a great quote to live by.

And while we are on the subject of quotes here is a message Cindy sent me this week that I wanted to share with you all. If you can identify who the quote was made by we would appreciate it.

Does this quote ring any bells with you? “I never dreamed that when I grew up I’d have so much crap that all I did was take care of it?” I know that’s not exactly right, but it came from this blog post that I loved and cannot re-locate. The author, who is a woman, is imagining sitting with her idealist college friends and never saying things like “I hope I have so much junk when I grow up that I have debts.” and “I hope I have to buy a bigger and bigger house to store all my belongings.”

Favourite Web Finds. Happy reading!

Here is a link sent in by Sanna for your enjoyment and mine ~ Just a little less ~ Making Room ~ The junk-room

And  Cindy sent in this link that is good for parents or even grandparents to read ~ www.parents.com ~ The to-do gift

I enjoyed this post from Tohami at Midway Simplicity ~ 25-simplicity-quotes-to-live-by-illustrated-with-pictures

Willow sent us in this link ~ www.nytimes.com ~ Living-with-less-a-lot-less

The Minimalists ~ 3 REASONS PEOPLE SEEK OUT OTHER POVS

Here is a link to a post by one of your fellow 365ers, Mard Adam Douglas.

Today’s Mini Mission

 Declutter some odd little thing that, up until now, has escaped your notice because it isn’t outstanding in any way. Yesterday I checked my bra drawer and in the bottom I found four little plastic baggies of extra bra straps that had come with bras that have long since worn out.

Eco Tip For The Day

If you use a cleaning service ask them about switching to using eco friendly cleaning products or consider switching to one that does.

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

Comments

  2. Colleen, another good list of Friday.s Favorites. I had the same experience as Jenny when giving away my scrapbooking supplies. the person I gave them to was so excited she had two friends come over and help her organize her scrapbooking supplies. Her first baby is due in a month and she has all of these plans. I agree with Cat’s Meow that splurging on something consumable is better than buying things. I hope she can find the table and chairs she needs. We found at a garage sale a small round table that has fold down sides so it becomes a skinny rectangle. It came with 4 chairs. Best $20 we’ve spent in a long time. I still think Brenda’s quite is great.

    The links were really good too. the “Just a Little Less” article about the junk room was good. I wish I could take you all through S’s house as she processes through things. It is an amazing thing to see but she’s really got it down now and is going gung ho. I think the article at Parents about giving experiences is really good. I wish everyone would do this. I would much rather have dinner out with friends or go see a museum or do something with people (even sit at their home and play a game) than get a Thing. The quotes at Midway Simplicity are great. Mohamed did a great job of collecting them. I enjoyed the article by Graham at Sunday Review. I think it is always interesting to hear the story of someone who went through “downward mobility” on purpose. Like Mark, I like to think I am a Voice of Reason to others on this journey with decluttering and on other journeys.

    It’s been another great week at 365.

    • I have not gotten into scrapbooking but managed to pick up some paper and embellishments over the past few years. I went through them the other day and let go of some of the paper and embellishments and took them to the Goodwill. When I did that, I imagined someone finding them and being so excited, as I don’t think that those items would be found easily at most Goodwill stores. When I can let go of something that maybe other people cannot splurge on, especially at full price, it really makes me feel good.

    • I am so pleases that S is able to declutter independently now. I imagine that once she could see the light at the end of the tunnel she was better able to cope with changes she needed to make. You have been a great teacher and an inspiration not only to her but also your fellow 365ers. Thanks Deb.

      • She still runs things by me and we will eventually get back in there and reorganize the craft room to make it even better. We also will get into the office and set it up better once it is decluttered. I would love to be right in there with her but the asthma triggers are still there too much for me to do that. I’m just glad our other friend can help her.

        • Talking about craft decluttering inspired me to start going through my paper supply again. I have weeded out about another 100 sheet to give to the daughter of a friend.

  3. Regarding the quote Cindy mentioned, I remember it but can’t remember the source, unfortunately. I had the vague thought that it was something in the Friday links from Colleen – maybe one of the established minimalist blogs like Get Rich Slowly, although that’s a lot of territory to cover! That’s not much help, I know. If I have a brain wave, I’ll be back 🙂

  4. I now have a new quote to add to my pinboard of post-it notes – “Unncessary possessions are unncessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them”

    The other quotes are good – and one is already on my pinboard – but I only add ones that speak to me on the day. 🙂

    However, as the pinboard is on the to be decluttered list, I’m going to have to find a different way to keep these in site.

    I was looking for some specific information on decluttering for a friend yesterday and found an article, but it wasn’t until page 3 that I realised that it was written by Peter Walsh – there was a generic photo of a woman on the front page and I hadn’t noticed his name beneath the title. Anyway, it turns out it is a review by Peter of one of his books and by coincidence one that Colleen has said she will do a review on so I won’t say too much – but he refers to clutter as the ‘fat’ of the household. Wow that caught my attention. As I went about my housework last night moving around the house I’d see something and think to myself “hmmmm, could do with some lipo here” or “could do with a wee bit of a workout here”.

    I am very pleased with the progress I have made with my house, but I am still amazed at how much stuff still manages to leave the household.

    • Moni, maybe you could get one of those digital picture frames and put all the quotes into it. A simple, uncluttered way of keeping the quotes in your life. Cheers

      • Wendy F – I have a digital picture frame that was a gift 4 years ago and has never been used – why I don’t know!

    • Hi Moni, you could always store your quotes in a word doc on your computer. Or make a poster of them and put them in the inside of your dunny door ~ always a great place for reading and reflecting, among other things. 😉

      I won’t be doing that review on Peter Walsh’s book ~ Does this clutter make my butt look fat. I have to admit that after all the kerfuffle over even suggesting writing on this subject myself I couldn’t even be bother finishing the book. He wasn’t telling me anything I don’t already know. I do however think it is worth reading for anyone who would like to read more on the subject. People with open minds that is.

      • Colleen – such a shame as there were soooo many yes please write it requests. As someone who needed to shift some kilos, I read the review and had several light bulb moments. Unfortunately its not in our city library and I can’t get it as an e-book in NZ. Horror! I might have to buy a physical book as I know someone who this could hold the key to her situation.
        I read a quote the other day: Solutions are usually where you don’t want look or consider.

      • Colleen – I’m not kidding, Peter Walsh’s e-books came online to NZ today! Its a sign! Happy reading!

      • Hi Janetta – I’ve wondered what Pinterest is. Is it just a personal collection of pictures?

        • It’s a lot more than that. You can pin anything from the internet. You can have as many boards as you like, these are public for anyone to see. You can search, eg sewing tips and all the pictures with sewing tips will come up. Be careful, it’s addictive… some people appear to spend hours a day on it they have so many boards! You also can have a couple of private boards.

          I find it useful, when I see something I like / think I might need to do / etc simply pin it and know it’s there when you want it.

          It’s free to join. Have a look, it’s a lot of fun.

  5. My mom and I decluttered a stack of cookbooks! It all started because my daughter wanted a bigger bookshelf for her room. There were two (homemade) bookshelves in the office and my mom offered her the smaller of the two. My daughter accepted so we cleared off the smaller one by moving everything on it to the bigger shelves. In the process of doing that, we went through all the recipe books and got rid of probably half.

    That then led to us starting to sort out the desk area in the office – which has been in desperate need of a good sorting. Yay for decluttering! Yay for repurposing!

    • Well done to you and your mom Rachel W. I got rid of all but two of my cookbooks. One I will keep because it is the selfmade one that has all my favourite recipes and old family recipes in. The other was a gift from my daughter which I will allow her to take when she moves out.

      I am glad you brought up this subject because I promised my son I would send him a digital copy of the selfmade cookbook last night. I had better go do that now.

      Good luck with the desk area.

  6. Oh my! Some people are just so good at putting it into words aren’t they? The Minimalists hit the nail on the head! This week, a friend was distressed by having a different point of view on an issue than her sister. Totally opposite in fact, and her sister was very cruel to my friend. My friend’s point of view was validated by others as well as myself. It is sad that we can be intimidated into the ‘crowd think’ to avoid conflict.
    I also like to think my hubby is my voice of reason too.
    My favorite bit of Idealistin’s comment was; Just as you can’t have the crazy love affair and the stable relationship at the same time. Sometimes that is so true!
    Lots more to read and think about as usual, thanks guys.
    Cheers

    • Yes Wendy F, I learn a lot from other people’s points of view and their ideas as well. Like sewing two smaller microfibre cloths together to make a big one into a tea-towel when the ones advertised at Aldi don’t actually exist. Good thinking 99!

      That crazy love affair analogy was a good one.

  8. Great comments and links again this week. I love the link that Willow sent. It just verifies that although money is necessary to live in this world, the things that we purchase with them rarely bring happiness into our lives. I don’t have a junk room, but I do know people who like to turn their spare bedroom into one. Love the quotes too. All of the links were very inspiring today.

    • It must be the first Friday in a long time that one of your comments wasn’t in it Jen. 😉

      I did the opposite with my, now, spare bedroom. It was full of stuff when it was my son’s room and now that he is gone it is pristine.

      • I certainly appreciate all of the comments that you do post. I usually read all of the comments on a daily basis (it is a highlight of my day) but I do miss some from time to time. There is so much to be learned and we all have such different perspectives. I find it all so valuable. It helps me stay focused. It has been a busy week here but I still found time to locate one or more items to declutter each day.

        I thought the room was pristine as well. I really enjoy before and after pictures. I have always heard that anything else in your bedroom, beyond essentials for resting, only interrupts your ability to sleep peacefully.

  9. Hi Colleen! I really liked this quote: “He who hoards much loses much”– Laotse. I was watching Hoarders 2 years ago and there was this woman who had loads of stuff because she had been robbed once. She justified, saying that now no burglar could take her things away because she had a lot. At the time I was at a standpoint in my decluttering. And her thoughts sounded kind of logical. However I still decluttered a lot and kept looking for blogs and articles to inspire me. And as my decluttering progressed and I accessed the real value of stuff I thought she was just in panic for things that could be replaced. Last week I thought about that woman again (it marked me very much), but as I looked at my clean kitchen I thought: “The less I have, the less I have to replace in case of a burglary.” And this quote was a direct reminder of that. As for Mark’s post “Voice of Reason” I do have to say here that Colleen has been my voice of reason for this last 2 years. I first arrived here needing some validation and help to move forward where I wanted to go. I must have decluttered more than 1000 items in the last 2 years, counting every individual piece of clutter that has left this house. Throughout this journey, which has been difficult at times, but has been also proving very satisfying in the long run, I had the support and help that I needed here. I also am happy to say that I added a new friend, Moni, to help and cheer me on. In the comments, whenever I am saying something, relating a victory, or whining for something I could not do, I get support and help. So I would like to say thank you all, for being my Voice of Reason.

    • Thank you for that comment Andréia and I am sure Moni will appreciate it as well. You may have required a voice of reason now and again but it was you own open minded ness that had you listen to the voice. Good for you my friend, you have certainly come a long way.

    • Andreia – 1000 items – you ROCK girl! You such a sweetie, yup gal-pal, we’ll get there in the end!

    • It’s funny because when I think about being robbed I would rather have very little to be stolen as Miss Minimalist did “His take: a portable CD player, an empty purse, a lipstick (!), and a ziplock bag of Canadian coins. When I think back on the incident, I still picture a cross-dressing burglar, jamming to some tunes, heading north to spend approximately three dollars of Canadian money.” http://www.missminimalist.com/2010/05/nothing-to-steal/

      I would love to thwart criminals by having nothing they want to steal. It would make it so much easier when filling out the paperwork with the police and insurance company.

  10. Ideealistin’s words were wise indeed! The way we get sucked back into cluttering up our lives is when we finally have our clear, serene home, all clutter free and nice, and then we think we can just add this one piece of furniture, just this one piece of clothing, only one vase or painting.. and so it keeps on going until at some point in the future, perhaps the next time we are packing to move, when we realize that we again have too much stuff. It really is like that: We can’t have the clear, un-cluttered or minimalist home, and the constant high of accumulating. Being clutter-free really takes vigilance of just refusing most things. The one-in -one-out is really great, but I wonder how many people actually live by it? It would really be great at preventing clutter if we could stick to it. The donations bag is my staple and I find it really helps.

    • Hi Cat’sMeow, I can assure you I stick to the one in one out principle but then I don’t have growing children anymore or babies on the way so that is easier for me. In fact I am still sending more out that is coming in, although my husband is not so vigilant on that. No entirely happy about that either, I can tell you.

  11. Thanks for posting about my comment! I’m happy to say that I haven’t wasted any more time mourning the loss of my seldom-used craft items after the initial pang of, “But they are my pretty things!” had faded. And I like to think of that young woman and her little children with their heads bent over the kitchen table doing exciting things with glue and glitter 🙂

    My week has been quite overwhelming as we are packing up everything into a shipping container prior to having earthquake repairs done (we were only given three weeks’ notice, which is not much time to get everything sorted and find somewhere else to live). I am so grateful that this site helped me to get rid of a lot of my stuff over the last few months, but the packing process has made it very obvious that my journey has hardly begun.

    We have almost filled the shipping container – to the point where I am starting to be concerned about the last bits of furniture not being able to fit – despite being a household of two and also despite being able to leave everything in our kitchen and bedroom cupboards and conservatory. There is no reason for two people with no special needs to have so much stuff around them. I am quite tempted to leave most of the boxes sealed after our repairs are done, and just biff them if they still aren’t open by this time next year!

    • Hi Jenny, I understand it must be a stressful time for you. We were only given four weeks notice when we moved to America with two young children. We knew it was coming sometime but we thought sometime was going to be about fours months later. We did you we always did and just made it up as we went along. We are still doing that after 26 years of marriage. This year is another one of those up in the air sort of years. Kids moving out, several possible changes with my husbands job and decisions to be made about whether we buy a new home or not. Right now I am happy to just allow fate to make some of the decision for us and then deal with the rest appropriately. We are just going with the flow. Best to pretend it is just another adventure and just chill out.

      Good luck!

      • Oh Colleen, I can’t even imagine doing what you did with such a big move at short notice, and with small children! At least the challenges you are facing now don’t seem to involve little people and all the trappings they come with. Going with the flow seems like an excellent approach too.

        I’m much more relaxed now that we have found somewhere to live. We only found the rental place on Thursday morning and have to move out of our house on Monday afternoon, so it was a bit too close for comfort! Rentals are very thin on the ground in Christchurch at the moment because so many people are dealing with temporary moves for earthquake repairs, and at the same time there is a massive influx of construction workers who all need somewhere to live. We are grateful that our insurance company is picking up the tab because rents have skyrocketed across the city.

        But still, if I am ever again in the position of moving to a new home for any length of time then I’m determined to have less stuff to bring with me when it happens.

        • Hi Jenny, my move may sound daunting to you but I think the degree of difficulty you are working with is much more worrisome. We had our government taking care of us and footing the bill. And our kids were used to moving.

          I can imagine how much of an influence this situations has had on your feelings towards stuff. Not so enamoured with it now I am sure. This is one of those probortunity situations where what is an unpleasant problems has become an opportunity to change your life for the better. Embrace it my friend.

          • Yes, you are so right. I need to remember this as we unpack, and make sure that I don’t slip back into old ways. It’s not just me, though – my husband has always blamed me for the clutter, but he is the one who spent yesterday throwing out unopened paperwork from many years ago before we even met each other, and donating piles of clothing still new with the tags on that he is never going to wear! We are both heartily sick of packing by this stage so I think he’ll be just as keen as me to finally pare down properly.

    • Jenny – I can appreciate the accommodation situation in Christchurch, have family down there. When we first moved to Mt Maunganui our son (now 18) was a baby and being a ‘just-starting-out-couple’ we didn’t have a lot (which I now realise was probably just the right amount) and we rented while saved a deposit. We seemed to have to move a lot during the next 20 months as several houses were sold and we were given notice to move, one needed the house for family returning to the area, one needed leaky-building repairs etc etc, and over summer the landlords could get triple rent from holiday makers – so we shifted a lot. One day Adrian had gone to see a house and the landlord-to-be said we could have it (and it was hard to find a rental) if we moved in that night (she’d had a problem with vandals whenever it was empty a few days between tenants) and she’d give us a rent holiday until the following week. I was about to start dinner when Adrian came home and told me he’d agreed to this. Fortunately we’d had a lot of practice with shifting and as I said, we didn’t have a lot. Worse case scenario he could stay at the new house and I could stay at the current house, but I wasn’t keen on that. We packed while we waited for my bro-in-law to arrive and fortunately Adrian had a work van. I went into J’s room, pushed everything on top of the drawers into the drawer and taped the drawers shut. Toy basket and nappy stacker into the cot, anything in the wardrobe into the cot and rolled it and the change table out to the lounge. Kitchen – by then I was so over shifting that I didn’t bother to wrap every item, all straight into the box (we kept a supply of banana boxes) and stacked in the back of my car. And so on and so on around the house. We were in our new home, set up 4 hours later – eating a Chinese takeaway.
      The irony is that at the time, I saw this light living as a reflection of our financial status. Eventually we bought a small house and stayed put for 9 years and when we shifted to this house 7 years ago, it took a lot of us 2 days to shift and I was secretly pleased with our show of permanant living – and this was before things got really cluttered at this house!

      Granted these days there are five of us and a much bigger house requires more furinture, and we have BBQ and outdoor furniture as well, pot plants etc – but I’d like to get back to a point where it wouldn’t be stressful or daunting to have to shift again. As our kids are approaching the age of leaving home (or at least, leaving home for the first time) I’d like to try some different housing options – like duplex, townhouse, apartment just to mix it up a little, so while this is at least 2 years off, that is my goal.

      • Wow, Moni, you really had the quick move nailed! We aren’t bothering to properly pack the things that we are taking to the rental house for the next six weeks (it’s furnished, so we don’t need to take a huge amount but I do want my nice Le Creuset pots and our spice racks and that sort of thing) but the things in the shipping container need to be in boxes so we can stack them.

        I like your idea of trying out different living styles once you are freer to move from place to place. I often thought it would be quite romantic to live in a very small place like a mobile home or cute little cottage, if I could pare down enough. However we were faced with the prospect of maybe having to live in a studio apartment for the next few weeks, with the bed in the lounge, and the thought of that quickly removed any romance for me! I was so glad when we found a townhouse instead.

  12. Fascinating stories about moving in a hurry! We’ve moved our daughter’s things from apartment to apartment, and apartment-home-apartment, always in a tight time frame, so we’ve had to get over the “wrap everything and put in boxes” mindset too. I’m hoping she has a chance after this semester to go through things so there’s less to move. I mentioned this one move ago, and I think she’s on board.

  13. Colleen, Any luck with the quote. I thought it was from Small Notebook, but couldn’t find it on the site.

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