Cleaning Out & Decluttering

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It seems like the beginning of each year is a great time to purge old items that you don’t use anymore.  This year (or last year now, I guess), I started just after the holidays. I had to find a place to put that great new stuff that I got (thanks everybody), so it seemed reasonable to start going through the other things that I had and decide what I did and didn’t want to keep.

It was also convenient that the Handmade Home recently started their Lazy Gal’s Guide to De-cluttering. I think it will be full of great ideas to help me get my space in order.

I feel like I’ve already made a big dent, even if most of it is in places that most people don’t see.  Now, I just have to keep from piling things back into those areas just because it’s easy.

closet

Areas Cleaned So Far:

  • Hall closet
  • Linen closet
  • Master bedroom closet (partial)
  • DVD drawer
  • Drawer that used to hold manuals for household items- now contains all my anxiety workbooks
  • Living room bookcase shelves
  • My big box of files

Sold:

  • 3 vintage hats
  • 1 vintage top
  • 1 vintage purse
  • 1 vintage jacket
  • 1 vintage coat

Donated:

  • 1 bag of hats, belts, scarves and purses
  • 1 bag of clothes
  • 1 box dishrags and towels still in good condition that we never use

Thrown Out:

  • 1 box of DVD cases from movies that have been condensed into a CD case. Thanks to The Handmade Home for the idea!
  • Old rags and towels
  • Lots and lots of old paperwork. No, I don’t think I need information on the car I haven’t had since 2008, or insurance paperwork from when I was in college.

dvd drawer

Sharing over at:
Inspiration Monday at I Should be Mopping the Floor, Made by You Monday at Skip to 
My Lou, Much Ado About Monday at Huckleberry Love

2 Comments

  1. anna on January 19, 2015 at 9:21 am

    Remember I said I did nothing great over Christmas but rested? Well I guess I charged my batteries. It’s surprising what I got done in the past 24 hrs. in spite of short sleep (10 pm-4 am) and getting blood drawn this morning at 8! Organised a cupboard and got shelf mats cut to size and put down, did some mending and have 3.5 hrs of class yet to do. The ladies in my church gave me some things to mend for the clothing bank, and my pastor’s wife asked me to set a new zipper in a skirt for her. I don’t think she knows which end of a needle to hold. As she is older than me by several years, it’s obviously a point of pride as women of her generation in Spain were raised to be Little Suzy Homemakers. (I have no idea if she can cook.)

    I thought of you last night, I made my own ghee (clarified butter) for the first time. I think I tried to do too much in one batch, 1 kg instead of 500g. And of course someone I haven’t spoken to in about a year called for a chat when I was halfway through the process. Thank goodness for cordless phones–but isn’t that always how it goes?

    We Suzy Homemakers have to stick together!

    • Andrea on January 19, 2015 at 1:46 pm

      I hope your butter turned out ok, even with the larger portion. I actually did more cleaning today. It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in the states, and mom and I both had the day off so she came over and helped me clean out my kitchen cabinets. It’s nice to have her come help, because I can’t get things off of the top shelf without a step stool. She’s also much better at looking at the dates on the boxes than I am.

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