Cindy

I messed up my posting this week. Sorry! So I’m trying again on Saturday / Sunday as a surprise.

As you know, I just got back from a 2 week family vacation in Colorado, and I’ve been thinking about souvenirs, possibly the most unnecessary yet expensive part of many people’s vacations, both in terms of money and the time spent seeking the objects. What motivates us to spend hours combing often tacky, crowded gift stores looking at mass produced and likely Made in China shot glasses, key chains, and t-shirts for something to take home, either for ourselves or as a gift for someone who did not make the trip with us?

According to Wikipedia, “A souvenir (from French, for a remembrance or memory), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. The term souvenir brings to mind the mass-produced kitsch that is the main commodity of souvenir and gift shops in many tourist attractions around the world. But a souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler. The object itself has no real significance other than the psychological connection the possessor has with the object as a symbol of past experience. Without the owner’s input, the object’s meaning is invisible and cannot be articulated.”

I love the elegance of this definition about objects that I consider to typically be the opposite of elegant. I think the last sentence especially explains why I at least so undervalue, even resent, when someone gives me a souvenir from a trip (which hasn’t happened for years, by the way). The object has no meaning to me, and therefore I see it exactly at face value – it’s a cheap t-shirt or a unwanted bit of kitsch.

Photographs are the most common souvenir, and I do enjoy taking photos, but I try not to go overboard. One at the top of Pike’s Peak is plenty. I don’t need 45 shots, like the lady standing next to me. I also like postcards, but I buy them and send them. I don’t hang onto them as a memento.

So in honesty, what did we return from our trip toting that we did not leave with?

3 t-shirts (me, Clara, and Audra). My t-shirt was an intentional replacement for a college t-shirt that I’ve had for years and need to make into a rag. I picked it carefully, and I like it. In fact, I’m wearing it right now. Both girls have also worn their shirts again. Clara’s references Colorado, but Audra’s is a graphic of horses.

copper ring – Audra

small matted photograph – Clara

3 bars of chocolate purchased at the Celestial Seasonings gift shop (a really fun tour if you happen to pass through Boulder, Colorado) – These were given to Clara’s boyfriend, and I’m sure they are not collecting dust on his shelf!

4 boxes of tea, also purchased at Celestial Seasonings. These are being consumed.

postcards – I believe that all we purchased were mailed while we were gone. (A travel tip – buy postcard stamps before you leave and take them with you. While it’s easy to buy postcards; it’s a lot harder to find a post office while you’re traveling.)

Are you a sucker for souvenirs? A person whose heart beats faster when you learn that the tour ends with a mandatory trip through the gift shop? Do you spontaneously buy things while traveling because they’re “cute” or “fun” or “a must have”? Do you have mouse ears from Disney, a t-shirt from the Grand Canyon, drilled playing cards from Vegas, and a snow globe with the Eiffel Tower inside. Do you need these things? Do you want them? Do you feel obligated to keep them now that they’re in your house? (“But it came all the way from (far away location) Cindy!”)

Prevention is the best cure, so I challenge you to not only move along a souvenir in your home, but also to resist next time you’re vacationing, and especially to teach your children that purchasing is not an obligatory part of every vacation, trip to the zoo, or visit to Grandma’s house.

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

Deb J

All of us have varying comfort zones. There are just some items, people, ideas, and/or places that mean home to us. That doesn’t mean that home can’t be moved but when that happens there are certain accoutrements to making up “home.” This is our comfort zone. The things we fight to not change. If this is going to happen then this has to happen too. We tend to set those Comfort Zone (CZ) items in concrete. Unfortunately, many times this hinders us rather than helping us. In fact, it tends to keep us rooted in the past.

Along comes change. Someone/something wants to take us out of our CZ. We fight it. We drag our feet, wail, throw a fit, or just plant ourselves in one spot. Our CZ is just that. The things/people that bring us comfort. They give us a feeling of safety. But what if that safety is all a hoax? What if you were to find that the best time of your life was on the other side of the change you are fighting? What if you were to find that your present CZ was actually stunting your growth as a person, couple or family, was weighing you down so you couldn’t soar in your job, hobby or life, was preventing you from having the money for those bucket list items, or was just keeping you from something you never dreamed of?

I learned a lesson about this several times. Once big time was when my father died and I suddenly had a mother and her bills to take care of. It meant moving, keeping jobs I was not fond of at the beginning because I had to have a job and having less money than I would have liked. But it also led to living in places we loved, making friends we still have, and having 3 jobs that used my talents to the fullest and made me very happy.

The second time was when I went from having an upper middle class income, a challenging and interesting job, and fairly good health to a poverty level income, no job and diseases that make every day a challenge. I quickly lost many things that had been part of my life for a long time—season tickets at the symphony, enjoying a night out with friends, having a new car every two-three years, having whatever furniture or clothes I wanted. Not that I was into things that much but your lifestyle tends to follow along with the income you make.

Suddenly I no longer had any of those. In fact, I had way too much that no longer fit my life. So I started to declutter it all. Some of it was easy. Why have fancy work clothes when I didn’t need them? Some of it I fought. Why do I have to give up the symphony? Why do we have to move? Why can’t I have the doctors I want instead of having a small list to choose from? On and on it went. It has been 8 years since I was blasted out of my last CZ. It has not been easy and some of the changes have been very hard. Yet, here I am living in a new CZ. Things in my life are much different. Yes I am content. I have found I don’t need all those things I no longer have. I have found that little is much and enough. My CZ is different. It is no longer based on the things I have or how much of them, where I live, who is there. It is based on knowing I have enough to live. Oh, sure, there are some things I miss and would do again if I could but they are not so important that I get upset without them. I have a happy life because I have chosen it. All of those things I had were a way of keeping me from a path that is much more satisfying. I know that sounds odd but it is true. With fewer things to drag me down I am able to fly. It’s wonderful.

Perhaps your stuff has clipping your wings, think about it. Is your comfort zone smaller than you realise?

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

Today I am going to share with you a little story from a relative of a friend which I found most amusing. It is in relation to unwanted gifts and goes like this…

One Christmas this mother whose children were grown and left home decided to do something a little different for Christmas. At sometime previously she had ceased purchasing gifts because they neither needed nor wanted anything. So prior to the Christmas in question she collected up things from around her house that the children had left behind. She then wrapped them up and put them under the tree.

On Christmas morning as the unexpected gifts were unwrapped plenty of laughs were had. Her daughter’s response to her gift of a porcelain figurine was ~ I didn’t want this when I received it for my 21st birthday, so I sure don’t want it now. The stunt had the desired effect. It was determined that neither of her daughters wanted their gifts but the son kept and took away his shirt and video cassettes. The unwanted items went to charity. This has become a Christmas tradition. As she finds things that belong to the kids she puts them aside for the next Christmas season.

I thought this was one of the most amusing and ingenious decluttering ploys ever. And there is no reason to wait for Christmas, why not give  your kids a gift of their left-behind clutter for their next birthday.

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

Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

This week, for our mini missions, we are going to visit little nooks and crannies around the house which may have, up until now, remained untouched by human hands, or the vacuum cleaner for that matter, during our previous decluttering efforts. I will list seven places I have thought of below, but if you have already taken care of these areas or you don’t have them in your home make some up for yourself. Don’t just declutter these areas give them a clean up as well.

Monday – The bottom of your linen closet.

Tuesday – A corner of your garage, attic or basement.

Wednesday – The cupboard under the stairs.

Thursday – Under your bed or any other bed in the house.

Friday – The cupboard/space under your laundry or kitchen sink.

Saturday – The top or bottom shelf of the pantry.

Sunday – A blanket box, shoe box, toy box or tool box.

Good luck and happy decluttering

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

Deb J

I’ve been taking an inventory of what we own. I’ve never done this to the extent I am doing it right now. It’s for insurance purposes but also because I really want to know. What do we own? Do we need to own it?

I’m not listing every little thing. For instance, I listed things like 8 place settings of Corelle dishes rather than each individual one. I listed 8 place settings of Oneida stainless. I made sure to take pictures so that I could “show” what we own. I have a long way to go to finish the list as we still own lots of things.

When I started this list I took pictures first, pictures of the big pieces of furniture, shelving units, behind doors and inside drawers in cupboards, and in closets. Now I am in the listing portion. I’m excited to say that we have two empty cupboards—over the refrigerator and the stove. Then it gets complicated. We have all these other cupboards that are full. Not full to the brim but well populated.

As I was taking pictures I realized that we still had too much. That’s when I began decluttering more from the scrapbook supplies, the books, and the shed. But still we need to declutter more. Where do I see the issues? Books. Ribbon. Plastic food storage containers. Specialty dishes we haven’t used in the 20 years my father has been gone. Clothes in Mom’s closets. “Stuff” in the two bathroom closets. Stuff, stuff and more stuff.

I am glad to report that my mother is beginning to see that we have too much. It helps to have the pictures and all the pages and pages of inventory. I realized something. Anyone can see what needs to still be done in their home without going to the time and stress of making an inventory. You don’t even need to take pictures. Oh, I admit both help. But, the big thing is just looking. Really looking.

If you open a door and something at the back of the shelf has you wondering what it is, you probably don’t need it. If the only time you open a drawer is to see what is in it, you probably don’t need that stuff either. If you were to sit down and just list the hiding spots (drawers, cupboards, other storage) in a room and you don’t know what is in each one, you might need to declutter. Think about it a while. Go through your house and do a mental inventory by taking quick mental pictures. How many new things do you see that you can work on? Good luck!!

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

Cindy

My family was on vacation for two weeks. Of course, that means we returned home to an empty refrigerator, or did it? Well, there was no fruit, vegetables, milk, dairy  or meat, but there sure were a bunch on condiments. This was made even more obvious by the fact that there was nothing else in there. I decided it would be a great time to give the fridge a big wipe out, and to see what was what among the condiments.

Yikes! And it turns out that there was still more in the fridge when I took this photo. Oh my goodness. There were a few things that passed their expiration date last year, and it was easy to get rid of them. Next, I looked at what I had and combined like with like. (Why did I have 2 jars of spicy peppers?) In addition, I found one jar that unopened plus one of the same that was opened. That’s a waste of precious refrigerator space.

When I was finished, it looked like this:

Now I can see, reach, and find everything, and I know it’s all safe and fresh. When was the last time you cleaned out the condiments in your refrigerator.

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

When we think of big decluttering tasks we often get deterred before we even begin. But the truth is just about every decluttering task can be broken down into smaller tasks. Below are some suggestions as to how you might break a bigger task down into manageable and less daunting segments. These are just suggestions you, however, can tweak them to suit your circumstances or method of storing/arranging things.

Instead of thinking about decluttering…

• …a closet ~ consider breaking it down to decluttering one shelf at a time, one section of a hanging rail or one area of the floor.
• …the Garden shed ~ one day remove any stuff you can see that needs throwing in the trash. Next day sort through the big gardening tools. Next day the pots etc.
• …the kitchen ~ commit to decluttering one shelf or drawer a day until the task is complete.
• …the linen closet ~ One day sort through the bath towels, the next day the sheets, the next day the face cloths and hand towels and so on until you are done.
• … the living room ~ first sort through the DVDs, then the coffee table, then one shelf in the china cabinet… until all is done.
• …the garage ~ break it down to sporting equipment, car related stuff, separate sections of tools, paint cans, hardware supplies and so on. Or simply divide the area into quickly manageable section. For instance if you have a double garage whose floor comprises eight concrete slabs use those as your sections.
• …a bookcase ~ one shelf at a time, one author, one subject, a dozen books at a time using a marker to indicate where you left off. A ruler is good for this.
• …a desk ~ clear one drawer at a time and then the top or divide the top into sections depending or how big of messy it is.
• …filing cabinet ~ choose one hanging file at a time and declutter its contents. Leave a post-it note or similar marker to indicate which file you are up to, so the next time you have time you continue the task where you left off.

Be sure to not leave too much time between sessions or you may get confused as to where you are up to, or clutter things up again before you complete the task. Hopefully recluttering won’t be a problem because you will have learned by now not to reclutter while you declutter. This is best achieved by not bringing new stuff in.

So if you find a task too daunting just break it down and celebrate each section you complete.

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

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.

Clutter isn’t limited to the physical stuff we have crammed into all the nooks and crannies in our homes. Sometimes our minds are  just as crammed full of useless stuff we wish would go away. This week’s missions are about decluttering some of that mental clutter. Knowing you have unfinished or unattended to tasks can be very draining. The only way to make the feeling go away is to get on with it.

In karen Kingston’s Book ~ Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, she writes:- “Every promise unfulfilled or commitment has a call on your energy and pesters you to do it.” So lets get some of those tasks out of the way so we can relax a while.

Monday – Return something you have borrowed.

Tuesday – Make that phone call you have been avoiding for whatever reason.

Wednesday – Get on with those mending tasks that have been awaiting your attention.

Thursday – Repay a debt or favour.

Friday – Declutter an item that exudes more negative energy than positive. You know the one, you have been procrastinating over it for some time now but can’t decide whether you like it more than you want it gone. If it is a close decision then you might as well let it go because it isn’t adding enough to your life to allow it to clutter up space.

Saturday – Return some out of place items in your home to their rightful place or reshuffle an area that just isn’t functioning efficiently theway it is.

Sunday - Sunday is reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately, it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Deb J

We moved here to Arizona 5 years ago. We had very benevolent former owners. They just knew we could use a number of things so left them here for us. Along with a yard containing 6 fruit trees, two rosemary bushes, two grapevines, a jasmine, a honey suckle, 5 Texas Sage bushes, 3 western petunias, 8 rose bushes and a bougainvillea. They also left a couch, two garden chairs, a metal patio sink, and bunches of “construction/building” materials. Now, mind you, they had done a wonderful job of updating the house. The kitchen was “to die for” and the pantry and laundry area were very handy. They had screened the porch and then put lattice work around the patio so it was private with an arbor holding up the grapevines as the entrance to the patio from the yard. They had put in an irrigation system for all of the trees, bushes and flowers. It is a beautiful place that we bought for a song. BUT!!!! Why did they think we wanted their cast offs? Have you ever had this happen to you? You start moving into a house you think has been vacated only to find all sorts of detritus laying around. You aren’t sure what you might need and what is just junk. You don’t know the house that well yet. So what do you do?

I suggest you do what we did. We asked a couple of male friends to come over and gather all of the stuff from wherever it had been dropped. It was in the house, in the back yard, in the two sheds, and under the house in the crawl space. What was all of this stuff? Why did they leave it? Did we need it? The smart thing was to ask people to help us who knew construction and repair. They were able to decide what was important to keep and what was just junk lying around that the former owners didn’t want to take the time to dump. After a few hours the guys were able to haul off a pickup truck load of junk. One of them kept a good bit of supplies that weren’t even for our house but things that were used by the former owner who played neighborhood handyman. We still had a few things left that we didn’t need but we hung onto them for the next neighborhood rummage sale. These were things like lamps, a rug shampooer, two chairs, a side table, some indoor carpeting, some outdoor carpeting and some paint. When we were finished, the back shed was empty except for one piece of carpeting, some fencing and some replacement lattice pieces. The front shed was also empty of everything but some nails, screws, and special light bulbs. Under the house only held some extra piping for the irrigation system. The house, porch and patio were free of anything they had left behind. We found the couch to be so nicely made and comfortable that we gave our couch away and brought it in to use in our living room. It took awhile but it was soon all the detritus was cleared away and we had a nice decluttered house to move into. The next time I move I will make sure to tell the owners to take all their junk with them unless they explain why I might need something they want to leave.

Have you ever found yourself in this situation and what did you do to sort the wheat from the chaff.

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

Cindy

I am writing this post in hotel room in Amarillo, Texas, on my way home with the girls from an 11 day trip to Colorado. The girls and I drove; my husband flew. After more than two years of us having just one car, a van, I bought a Prius V a couple of months ago. I love it, and this is what we’re driving. (We kept the van for kid hauling duties and use it once a week or so.) The Prius V does not have a huge amount of storage space, as we have filled it. I keep thinking that Colleen would be appalled. She’s in the UK with Steve, and they probably have one suitcase and two backpacks total. Let’s just say the pioneers probably crossed the entire United States with less stuff than what we’ve packed.

But, let’s look at it another way. I was in the car with two kids for four days total. We cooked every meal in Colorado. We took some groceries, and we’re returning with some groceries. The only things that I packed but did not use were a rain coat and the game Apples to Apples, a couple of choices of books on CD that I check out from the library. Dan and I took pride in our “use it up challenge” of the refrigerator while on vacation. We wasted very little food; it was great.

Not bad.

What this makes me think of is all the things I have at home and can live without. Knick knacks, duplicates, books, games no one plays, excess dishes and china, craft supplies. All those things you think you can’t live without, or have to save for someday, or might use eventually. Do you really need them? Are they enhancing your life? Or are they just “stuff” that you can share with others or recycle, or maybe it’s time for a use it up challenge of your own.

Off to Palo Duro Canyon today and then home to Austin!

 

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