<p>H and I organized all our Christmas returns - duplicates, wrong sizes, etc. It was a large bag. Does that count?<br>
I will do more on the weekend…</p>
<p>lol, alh! I am intending to return to complete Invisible Man this month–there was a long interruption in my reading in the fall and over the holidays.</p>
<p>Meow1985, great idea setting up a monthly pickup. I took 6 bags (I had 5 last night and filled up another one this morning before leaving!) to a Salvation Army drop off today, but it’s much further from my home than I thought. Regularly scheduled pickup will keep me on task.</p>
<p>I am enjoying decluttering my own home after spending last year working on mom’s hoarder house. That house will take a solid month with 5 people and 10 dumpsters to finish and it isn’t satisfying, just sad. Mine, on the other hand, has just become a little disorganized since I went back to work full time. It’s fun to imagine how streamlined things will be for the holidays at the end of the year if I stay on track.
The hardest piece, which I will save till later, is the set of filing cabinets in the basement loaded with all of the kids’ artwork and school papers. I know some people take photos of that stuff to save but I’m not sure I can do that yet. But I can probably reduce it by 50%.</p>
<p>With the kids’ artwork and schoolwork, I culled it as best as I could and put what remains into large manila envelopes marked with each kid’s name. They are stored deep in a closet. (We do have the space.) At some point I’ll hand them off the the appropriate kid, who can deal with it as he wishes.</p>
<p>I’m in! After having a number of crisis years, as well as a lot of room painting done, which means hauling all objects out of a room, stashing, and then having no time to purge, finally the painting is done in the big rooms. </p>
<p>Let the purging begin. During many busy years, I was a disabled friend’s POA and advocate. She passed away, so I spent last year clearning out her stuff. For the next six weeks, am not traveling anywhere, just going to work, so looking forward to progress. A bag of papers went out yesterday.</p>
<p>Emptied the pantry out today and threw out a full garbage bag of old (some really old) food products. It always looked fully stocked but the kids might have been right-- there really wasn’t much to eat in there!</p>
<p>Hmmmmm I have been watching this thread with interest, admiring the sentiment, but telling myself my house is too empty still to participate. Then I remembered the only reason my house is empty is because my mom’s house is still FULL TO THE BRIM with all my crap. If I don’t have that cleared out by the wedding I think my dad will burn it.</p>
<p>Not sure I could manage a trip to mom’s house every week, but maybe we’ll shoot for an average of four bags a month… I can do that all in one go.</p>
<p>The thing I have been dreading dealing with is DVD cases. My fiance won’t let me have a DVD player, he prefers to keep digital copies of everything. Fine, I have put up with that for two years, but at one point I collected DVDs and I have probably 6 square feet of DVD cases under my bed at my parents house. No clue what to do with them. I keep all the DVDs in a little zip up binder (I’m getting the stupid DVD player eventually) but have always kept the cases. Can I really throw those out!? It feels WRONG! When you collect something you want to keep it nice and perfect… but I just don’t know that I can justify the space, it’s not like I display them, they are under the bed.</p>
<p>That, and stuffed animals. I’ve never been able to throw out things that have eyes. I went through and pruned and put all the ones I didn’t love to bits into garbage bags, and then woke up at 3am in a panic that night and made my mom bring them back in from the curb. I couldn’t do it. </p>
<p>Then finally, I have a queen sized bed in my room. Brand new, I slept in it for a week before I moved in with my fiance and left it there. Ikea hemnes bed frame, hultsvik mattress. Mint condition, still smells new, not even broken in yet. I wanted to sell it for cheap or give it away to someone I knew who would come pick it up SO BAD but it’s been a year and nobody will take it. So I have to figure out how to donate it. I’ve been putting it off. Dad is going to burn it.</p>
<p>Good idea about kids’ artwork and schoolwork ,VH. I have every bit of artwork and schoolwork from nursery school through elementary school. My kids don’t tend to be sentimental, but I’ll go through it, pull out what I consider significant, trash the rest, then let them decide if they want what’s left.</p>
<p>I also have a large trash bag of stuffed animals, mainly from S2. He and Barney were inseparable at one time, but I don’t think he really cares to see him now.</p>
<p>Ema,</p>
<p>You can throw out the DVD cases. I’ve done it, and no one has come to arrest me yet. However, if you already have all the DVDs loaded on your iPod or whatever, be a good person and put the DVDs back in their cases, then donate the whole kit and kaboodle to your local library.</p>
<p>As far as your brand new queen-size bed is concerned, can that remain at your parents until you have space for it? Or do you have a sibling/friend who is about to get his/her own place and could use it? Nowadays strangers are reluctant to take mattresses due to the bed bug problem, so you probably won’t be able to sell it on Craigslist. On the other hand, if you’ve got no one close to give it or sell it to, you could try.</p>
<p>And stuffed animals – assuming they are clean – can go to small children you’re aware of. Again, because they’re soft and therefore can contain icky stuff, most people don’t want used ones. Consider donating them to an animal shelter. I say you should keep around three of them, and let the rest go.</p>
<p>I’d put the DVD cases on Craigslist, you never know. Someone made one of these for my mom–
[Make</a> Your Own Stand-up CD Jewel Case Photo Calendar | Photojojo](<a href=“Parabo Press: Homepage”>Parabo Press: Homepage)</p>
<p>I’m looking for advice. I have three classic blazers. One is cream colored cashmere, one is black wool and one is a tweedy herringbone. No, I haven’t worn them for several years. However, I have a small frame (size 2) and they fit beautifully. The black wool was my go to for winter funerals and the other two I loved to wear with jeans. Should they stay or go?</p>
<p>I’m sitting here dreaming about a size 2 frame…</p>
<p>I was lucky with that but drew the short straw on some other things. ;)</p>
<p>I had too much memorabilia–mostly kid stuff/school, some mine, a bit of hubbies.
Bought 4 plastic file boxes labeled them with a name and started weeding. Threw out tons of old school stuff and sorted the rest into the boxes. My only problem was being nostalgic…</p>
<p>Today I put in an under counter roll out drawer in one of the cabinets in my kitchen. Love it! But of course, I started cleaning out all that stuff too…gotta stay focused!</p>
<p>Ema–somebody must want that bed! I’d keep it as long as mom is okay with it being around.</p>
<p>Imoremom–if they are really classic, keep them and start wearing them again. If any, ditch the tweed. Keep the black if it’s been your “go-to” jacket. and then decide how much you love the cream. Or maybe you like the tweed better…
True confessions: My mom gave me her camel hair coat a LONG time ago. It really is classic. I wore it forever and still have it. It’ll probably never leave my closet.</p>
<p>Ditch the DVD cases unless you want to sell the DVD’s. Put them back in the case and sell or donate.
Movies are so prevalent these day through services/internet that DVD player sales are WAY down. They’ll go the way of VHS eventually.</p>
<p>I was told once that if you don’t wear a clothing item within two seasons (maybe one?), out it goes. And if you touch/shuffle a paper more than once, out it goes. I don’t adhere to that (wish I could), but figured I could pass that along.</p>
<p>Question: how much of my kids’ stuff should I save for them? If it was up to my middle son, he would say everything, which means boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff. But if I want to be realistic, seriously, how many boxes for each should I save? I think I have every page they ever brought home since preschool.</p>
<p>Stuffed animals–let mom throw them out after you’re gone. Take a picture and throw it in an album.
Make one bag and stuff them all in it–weed as you go. Wait a while (you decide)–dump them all out and keep weeding.<br>
Always think–this was my favorite, isn’t it cute!, I loved this!, It made me SO happy! and then think of some kid that would love it NOW–not stuck in your drawer.</p>
<p>That ^^^ is what I remind myself. “This” could sit unused in my closet or it could go to someone else would really use it. And I am fortunate enough that, should I really want it, I could probably buy it again. But I am still having a hard time letting go of those blazers . . .</p>
<p>limabeans–I did this. That’s the reason for the file boxes. And honestly they aren’t huge boxes. They got one each.
I saved school awards, any award!, end of year report cards (NOT everything in between), school pictures, school programs that the kids were in (one not six), ticket stubs/programs that I found that THEY had saved, Valentines they made. Some birthday cards or special cards from grandparents etc over the years.</p>
<p>Medical records so they’d have them.</p>
<p>I edited the artwork I saved–very hard (especially since D IS an artist) -but honestly not every crayon drawing needs saving–so a couple good ones are good for the file. Or 10 or 12 (hey, I’m a mom)–but not 60.
Remember that all that paper deteriorates over time. It is NOT going to last forever and horrors of horrors to moms who save everything–when is the last time you cared what you drew in kindergarten? Never.
So don’t save it. Unless there is something really special about it. My really specials are still on my wall (literally–I still laugh when I see them).
If you feel so inclined, scan some and put it on a CD and stuff it in the file. Or even faster take pictures and then pitch it.</p>
<p>I have another set of boxes for each kid beyond just paper stuff–photos of family, relatives etc. Graduation memorabilia, diplomas, ribbons, etc. So everyone has a couple boxes that I just stuff things into.</p>