Today’s word is…

C O N S I D E R A T E

Show respect for yourself, your fellow human beings and the environment…

Be CONSIDERATE when shopping

• Constantly buying items you do not need puts a strain on the world’s resources.

Be CONSIDERATE to the environment

• To process resources to produce the items we buy puts a strain on the environment. Also the more we own the more space we need to store these items the bigger the footprint we leave on this planet.

Be CONSIDERATE to family

• In order to purchase un-necessary items requires money that has to be earned. The more you buy the harder you have to work to provide the money for those excesses. That time working is time not spent with your family.

Be CONSIDERATE to those left behind

• Nobody lives for ever and there is always someone who has to take care of  the things left behind when we leave this world. This passing is sad enough on our loved ones without the added stress of sorting through excess possessions.

Be CONSIDERATE to those less fortunate than you

• Donate your excess items to a charity so they can help others who are less fortunate than you. Better still instead of buying un-necessary items make a cash donation to a charity it will help others and you will feel good about yourself as well.

I know I have been guilty in the past of not being considerate of all of these things but I vow to be better than this now and in the future.

ITEM 178 OF 365 LESS THINGS

My husband used this sheep skin on his motorbike seat but that was years ago

This week here at 365lessthings I going to focus my posts on A Word A Day. Each day I will bring to you one word and I will give you my take on how the word relates to decluttering. The word for today is…

Less

• LESS stuff, this is clearly the main object of decluttering
• The LESS stuff you have the LESS time spent maintaining them, cleaning, organising etc.
• LESS possessions to be concerned about being lost of stolen or insured.
• Once you learn to stop accumulating unnecessary items the LESS money you will be wasting and the LESS impact you will make on the environment.
• Once you have let go of those items you no longer use you will experience LESS guilt knowing they have gone to someone who has more use for them. Plus you will no longer be reminded of how much cash you wasted on them in the first place.
• The more you declutter the LESS desire you have to ever accumulate unnecessary items again.
• The LESS clutter you have when you die the LESS of a burden it is for those left behind to deal with.
• The LESS stuff you have the LESS space you will require to accommodate it then you will need a dwelling with LESS of a environmental footprint on the earth which creates LESS waste on many levels. (Check out Slow Home)
• The LESS clutter there is the LESS time I spend looking for lost items.
• The LESS time I waste being distracted by the clutter. (Thanks Willow for these last two)

If this list isn’t reason enough to pare down your belongings then I don’t know what is!

ITEM 172 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Just another thing we don’t need

This week I used Freecycle for the first time and was delighted with the results. First of all I was amazed that the place I live even had Freecycle and secondly I was pleased that it gives me an outlet for items that would otherwise be difficult to find homes for. Let me explain…

I listed three  items, two if which were a box of baseball cards and a guitar amplifier that doesn’t work. As you can see neither of these items is suitable to send to a charity because they only want stuff in working condition and baseball cards would be a bit obscure to say the least for an Australian thrift shop to off load (baseball isn’t that popular here). I didn’t think these two items would float on ebay either so I put them on Freecycle along with a CD/DVD rack that didn’t sell on ebay.

I was expecting that the CD/DVD rack would be the most popular item but lo and behold the first thing to be claimed was the baseball cards and there was more than one person dare I say excited at the prospect. The amplifier which I listed as “for parts only does not work” was the next item to go and once again more than one person was willing. Then finally the lady who is picking up the baseball cards emailed and asked if she could also have the DVD rack if it was still available.

I am so pleased that I have now an outlet to find new purpose for items that are too good to throw away but not suitable for other methods of disposal. Just because something doesn’t work doesn’t mean it’s parts can’t be salvaged and just because something is a little obscure doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there who would love to have it. I love Freecycle and will utilise it again in the future I am sure.

ITEM 156 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This is the CD/DVD rack that went to a new home today thanks to Freecycle

Previously I mentioned how a change of  location and or lifestyle can have an impact on the necessity for certain  items around your home. Our move from Seattle in the USA back to Australia has rendered our ski gear mostly useless to us as we are now 700km from the closest ski fields. Sure we might like to take a winter holiday to the snow some time but in Australia you can hire both ski clothes and equipment should that ever happen. We also have some items that no longer fit our children anyway. So I decided to sell it all on eBay.

Now I did my homework first and checked similar completed auctions on eBay to see how this type of product was selling and it didn’t look that great but I figured I would give it a shot anyway and take what I could get. The goggles in particular weren’t performing very well.

I am pleased to be able to say my auctions have gone very well. Everything I put up for auction sold and now there is a lovely big space in one of the cupboards in our house. The combined starting price for my auctions was $108.00 and the total amount that I fetched was $312.00, “got to be happy with that”. Those 4 pair of goggles I mentioned brought in $147.87 of the total.

Altogether I sold…

• 1 adult jacket
• 3 kids jackets
• 4 kids pants
• 2 pair of kids gloves
• 4 pair of goggles (2 kids 2 adults)

I haven’t had any feed back yet but I hope the buyers will all happy with their purchases.

ITEMS 127 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I have decided to list each combined auction sale as one item because otherwise I will be boring you with ski gear for the next two weeks as it is it will take ten days to get through it all. These two items sold for a grand total of $37.50.

Remember my blog way back on Day 86 when I decided to find a way to use up all my gift wrap items that seemed to be multiplying rather than diminishing in the linen closet.

Well this weekend I attended a lovely get-together in the wine region of the Hunter Valley to celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday. The weekend which included wine and cheese tastings, a lovely lunch, a bus to take us to all our destinations  and overnight accommodation, cost us all $270 each.

I felt inclined to provide a gift even though I was sure one wasn’t expected due to the financial outlay for the event. So I decided to find something within my home rather than resort to outlaying more funds. I had a few bottles of red wine that we had been cellaring for a couple of years and a lovely decorated  cylinder for the purpose of giving wine as a gift. I have had the cylinder for about five years, it was one of those items I bought but found were too nice to give away (How silly, I know). I also had an extra pashmina my husband had picked up when buying gifts for my work friends while on a recent trip to the Middle East.

I put the wine in the lovely cylinder and the pashmina in a small gift bag from my collection of recyclable gift wrap items and felt quite satisfied with the present I had to offer and at the same time had removed 4 items from my home that had just been lying around waiting for someone to appreciate. To top it off I printed a copy of a secret family recipe she had been wanting for years ( I may be in trouble with my Mum for that) and put it in with the handmade birthday card my mother had made for her.

Needless to say it was a wonderful weekend. She was happy just to have all her friends around her and as I thought she wasn’t expecting any gifts and she enjoyed a little too much making a phone call to my mother dobbing me in for giving her the secret family recipe which she was more impressed with receiving than any other part of the gift. I am happy to have had the wonderful experience and to be four items lighter in the quest to clear my house.

ITEM 124 OF 365 LESS THINGS

It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I check the bathroom cupboards I always come up with one more thing that (or in this case three more things) that are for some reason of no use to us or past their used by date.

Now I know that uncluttering your ironing basket doesn’t actually remove anything from your house but it sure would lighten your To-Do List leaving more time for real de-cluttering. Speaking from someone who spent at least three hours slaving over a hot iron today, I am up for any suggestion as to how to reduce this workload.

It would certainly help if we bought clothes with less cotton content and more in the way of  poly/cotton blend.

I put fabric softener in all my loads to try to cut down on the wrinkles and I am sure that helps but not enough. I also hang the clothes on an airing rack inside the house so they aren’t out going stiff in the wicked heat of the sun. Drying them in the clothes dryer isn’t an option either because I have a washer dryer combo (all in one model) and I find it wrinkles the clothes even worse than hanging them. In a way this is a good thing because then I am not tempted to resort to this method because that would be a huge waste of electricity.

All I can hope for as that the current clothes will wear out and we can all buy replacements with a higher polyester content or that someone will leave home so there is one less person to iron for. The chances of that someone ironing their own clothes is about as likely as the clothes ironing themselves (now there’s a dream).

ITEM 107 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Since a photo of my pile of ironing is not an example of real de-cluttering you will find below today’s actual contribution. Yet another couple of toiletry items I unearthed when raiding the cupboards for the out of date medications from day 103

Colleen’s Helpful Hint of the Day

Denture cleaner in warm water makes a great silver and gold jewellery cleaner.

(Always test method first and never use this method on pearls)

How much un-necessary stuff do you keep in your car. My car isn’t to bad (I don’t think) but I will let you be the judge of that. Below is a list of the things that are currently in my car, I am literally sitting in it while typing this list.

In the trunk/boot

• Jumper Leads
• Blanket
• Recyclable shopping bags x 10 for grocery shopping
• Plastic crate to store the above items

Glove Compartment

• CDs x 8
• 1 pair of sunglasses
• Car size Yellow Pages
• An old rental car receipt
• Registration and Insurance papers
• Car warranty papers
• Tyre warranty plan
• Old shopping dockets x 6
• Car cell/mobile phone charger
• Pen
• Old sunglasses bags x 2 (empty)
• small snap lock bag
• Car log book

Centre Console

• Cell/mobile phone charger (different phone)
• Old shopping list
• Candy wrappers x 2
• i-Pod Jack cord

Front Passenger Door

• Pair of scissors

Driver’s Door

• Broken i-Pod jack cord
• Pizza specials flyer
• Spare reading glasses
• Whiteboard marker

Other

• Umbrella
• Windscreen sunshade

As I said “not too bad”. The items in red are items I removed while conducting this exercise. I could probably still remove a few more items but I am comfortable with things as they are.

Now go take a look at your car. How many un-necessary items can you find and while you are there remove them. If you have items that you often transport in you car such as  sporting gear, strollers, seasonal gear like snow chains  etc that aren’t always necessary try keeping them in an organised fashion near to where you park so you can quickly throw them in if you need them.

Now when you are unexpectedly required to pick up a few extra passengers or you have to rush your pet off for a emergency trip to the vet you won’t be wasting precious time trying to make space in the car.

ITEM NUMBER 104 OF THE 365LESS THINGS

Our little townhouse doesn’t have a lot of closet space so there won’t be room for this item anymore so off it goes to the donation box

Colleen’s Helpful Hint of the Day

Leather furniture needs tender loving care for it to last the test of time. Some leather particularly semi aniline needs to be cleaned every 6-8 weeks and conditioned every second time you clean it. The cleaner removes all those nasty things like sweat and dust and the conditioner replaces the polyurethane coating which protects the surface from stains etc. Different leathers need different care. A good web site to read up on this subject is http://www.texicote.com/

There are a lot of ways we go about trying to justify why we should keep the clutter that we have around out homes. Here are a selection:-

• I may use it some day.
• I am sure it will come back into fashion.
• So and so gave this to me.
• If I keep it long enough it may increase in value.
• I might loose weight and it will fit me again.
• It has sentimental value.
• Everyone has one of these.
• I paid a lot of money for it so I am not getting rid of it until I get my money’s worth out if it.
• Maybe the kids will want it when they grow up.
• Maybe the kids will want to give it to their kids when they grow up.
• I may want to read that again later on. (when I have owned it long enough that I can’t remember reading it in the first place).
• It is a piece of history.
• …and the list goes on.

You do need to remember to weigh these pros against the cons before making a rational decision. Here are some of the cons.

• I already have five of these.
• I have no-where to store this.
• I can no longer see the top of the dining room table.
• I may lose a few pounds but this will probably no longer be in fashion then anyway.
• I can always borrow this book from the library if I want to read it again.
• Maybe I could fetch a good price for this if I sell it since I don’t use it anymore.
• We can no longer have visitors because we can barely get through the door of the spare room because it is so full of clutter (not always a bad thing ha ha)
• If this does come back into fashion it will probably be inappropriate for my age by then.
• On the rare occasion I need one of these I could borrow one from so and so.
• It will deteriorate over time so someone might as well be using it now while it is still useful.
• The kids would have taken it when they left home if they wanted it.
• I am not going to forget the good times we had if I get rid of this.
• Everyone has one of these but I never use mine.
• and once again the list goes on…

So please consider both sides of the situation before you decide what stays and what goes and try to be neutral about it. You will never clear the clutter if you keep justifying keeping things.

The item making the trash bin today are two old magnetic photo albums. These things can be a killer of your precious photos and I am working on removing all of my old photos from this kind of album.

Colleen’s Helpful Hint of the Day

To save water when shaving. Part fill your bathroom basin with a little warm water. Use this water to wet your hands and wipe over your legs making them damp. Use a little body lotion or moisturiser and rub over damp legs. Now shave your legs, rinsing the razor occasionally in the basin of water. When you are done use a damp face cloth to wipe your legs and allow to air dry the rest of the way. Now you have nice smooth legs and they are moisurised as well.

Ahhh, procrastination how that can clutter up your mind and paralyze you into ineffectiveness. I can spend days on procrastinating about something that will probably physically only take ten minutes to deal with. How crazy is that.

At this moment there are four little white dishes on my craft table with unfinished projects, repair jobs and samples that await my attention or for the artistic inspiration to create something with. I look at them quite regularly and they annoy me no end yet I leave them sitting there taunting me day in day out while I find “better” things to do with my time.

At lease one of these projects is something that will be leaving my house once it is completed therefore designated to the title of  clutter while sitting there. I think today is the day to do something about it.

I challenge you to find some clutter in your house today that you have been procrastinating over and do something about it.

This is the necklace I created from one of the dishes on my craft table. I am sure my friend will love it and I am glad the procrastination is over and there is a little less stuff cluttering up my craft room. I also repaired one pair of earings, finished making a second pair, completed a necklace I had started months ago and packaged up some beads of my mum’s that I will start on today (hopefully).

Colleen’s Helpful Hint of the Day

I find the easy way to clean metal window frame channels is to use a stiff bristle artist brush and a vacuum cleaner. Scrub the channel with the brush and suck up the dust with the vacuum cleaner as you go.

I live in a townhouse so I don’t have much to care for in the way of garden or lawn but for what I do have I am endevouring to minimalise the amout of equipment and time required to maintain it.

I only purchase/aquire plants that can survive my neglect, requiring little watering or pampering in any way and hardy enough to cope with the varying climate we can get here at times.

When we first moved into the property we owned a lawn mower and an edge trimmer which seemed a little overkill for a lawn 5m long by 1.5m wide so my husband bought a rotory hand mower and gave the other items to charity.

After using the hand mower a couple of times I decided that was hard work so the next time the gardener that maintains the common areas of the property came to do his work I asked him what he would charge me to trim the edges and cut the lawn in the back of my home. He said he would do it for a carton/slab of beer at Christmas each year. “BARGAIN” deal done.

As a result of exploring options and choosing wisely when adding plants I now have a garden that requires little maintenance or equipment. Today I will send the last of the redundant gardening equipment that has been lurking in the garage to the give-away pile.

I might add we have no intention of ever again living in a propery that has big lawns and gardens so I don’t expect ever to have to replace the gardening equipment that we have purged over that last couple of years

Colleen’s Helpful Hint of the Day

If you should accidently write on a whiteboard with perminent marker just scribble over it with the whiteboard marker and it should rub right off.