<p>I tackled the guest room today and sorted all our bed linens. I had a stack to take to Goodwill, including some juvenile prints I figured no one would want to keep. When my son was getting ready to leave for a church retreat, I noticed one of these pillowcases on his pillow. “Mom, you weren’t going to get rid of those, were you?” Sigh!</p>
<p>I actually made a point of keeping one set each of my kid’s bed sheets from when they were kids. Thought it would be nice to use their sheets if any grandkids ever appear (looking less likely that will happen). </p>
<p>Finally pretty much finished the master bath except for a bunch of stuff on these weird kind of shelves in the big shower. Feels really good to have got that one room decluttered but also a bit overwhelming to realize that is probably the easiest room in the house and it was quite a challenge. It does look so much better and getting rid of the clutter made it easier to give it a good clean.</p>
<p>My son arrives tomorrow for a visit and then next week I leave for the UK for 20 days so my decluttering will grind to a halt for now. Hope my son and husband follow through with their plans to get rid of some of the junk in the front yard. This thread has been a great inspiration and I will be back in July to continue.</p>
<p>Working on clearing things out is making me much less resentful of the advertiser’s focus on the 18-49 year-old demographic. It’s simple logic. About 6 years ago last December, I looked around the house, and realized that what I really wanted for Christmas was “less.”</p>
<p>Thanks to all who are helping to keep me motivated, and making me feel that I have company!</p>
<p>This morning Mr B looked at the kitchen counter and noticed the set of wooden cutting boards I got as a future gift for my friend (who is nuts about natural-looking objects and scouts ebay and discounters for such things). He commented how said friend would soon drown in stuff and how we needed to keep on decluttering out lives. High five! Stage two of organizational change accomplished. :D</p>
<p>That’s great, BunsenBurner!</p>
<p>No “bags” this week as my son is visiting. He and his dad had plans to work on the junk yard our front yard has become (4 unuseable vehicles, 2 boats that my husband got somewhere with plans to repair so we could use them and never did, our old 5th wheel camper that sadly is toast because we didn’t realize the roof was leaking until it basically imploded, tons of junk ranging from old water heaters & lawn mowers some of which I have no idea where he got them to all sorts of rubbish). Plans were somewhat scuppered when my daughter wrecked her car 2 weeks ago. She and her husband were without a vehicle so we lent them our truck (we live in an area with no public transportation) leaving us with one car between 3 of us once my son arrived ( a major pain when you live out in the country). Finally switched and daughter has my car. </p>
<p>On Friday they took the old camper to the junk yard. Kind of sad as there were many memories from the kids childhood but also a relief as I was worried it would deteriorate enough it would be impossible to move and I did not know how we would get rid of if then. A bunch of old LPs went home with my daughter and her husband (apparently old style record players have become popular and they have bought one - their home is getting worse than ours as they seem to be accumulating junk quicker than we are disposing of it). Tomorrow, my husband & son are planning to do something about the junk vehicles but they may have left it a bit late as Son goes to the city Tuesday to spend some time with a friend. We will pick him up Wednesday evening and drive to Dallas where they will drop me at the airport Thursday for my trip home to the UK. They will go on to Florida for a family wedding and then on to SC where my son lives. Husband will spend a few days there before returning and hopefully continuing with the outside dejunking ( not holding my breath). It’s a pretty good start though.</p>
<p>I really want to move closer to the coast in the next couple of years - it has always been my dream and I do not like the area we live and really don’t want to spend my remaining years here. I finally plucked up the courage and asked my son how he would feel if we moved to the part of the world he lives in and he likes the idea, so now my husband is coming round to the idea of moving. Once I get back from my trip, I’m going to really try and work harder on paring down to only what we will want to move across country and into a MUCH smaller home (house prices are much higher plus I really dream of a smaller home that is clutter free and easy to maintain).</p>
<p>Hope I can post tomorrow that more vehicles are gone!!</p>
<p>Several hours in the gargage today resulted in another call to goodwill for a pick up. So freeing to have the clutter going. </p>
<p>When my mom passed away, as a food hoarder, she had tons of food stocked in her pantry with expiration dates written on the tops of the cans in Sharpie. Some of it was stuff I would never use and that was donated to a food pantry. Some was stuff I might use and that came home and went to the basement. The rest was stuff I would definitely use and that went to my kitchen cupboards. Wellllllll, I never used some of the stuff from the basement and it was time to pitch it this weekend. She passed away in September 2007. Yeah, even canned goods are nasty after that long! Yuk. That was two contractor bags full of stuff. </p>
<p>Swimcatsmom, I think you did the equivalent of MANY bags!</p>
<p>I did! No more today. He did call a guy about picking up the junk cars 
It will be after he gets back from SC but hopefully before I get back from England. Definitely progress - never thought the outside would get cleared up before the inside. Should inspire me when I get home.</p>
<p>I took a load to the local auction lady this morning - full trunk and backseat. Part of me felt like I needed to finish going through the house, but it feels so good to get rid of what had piled up in son’s room during the last few months. Now I just need to keep going. What I really need is for both kids to buy homes and take the stuff they want to keep, particularly all the Star Wars toys & memorabilia that son purchased in high school when the second wave of movies came out. 
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<p>I persuaded D1 to take her old toys after I found dead scorpions in some of the Rubbermaid bins in our basement garage. (I cleaned out the bins first.) Her home harbors spiders sometimes, but never scorpions.</p>
<p>A bad storm prompted dh to clean out a garage last week. We had friends coming for dinner and wanted them to be able to park in the garage so they wouldn’t get drenched. I couldn’t believe all the trash and junk he tossed.
He was so proud, he sent a photo of the clean garage to our kids. </p>
<p>Our trash service picks up garbage once a week and recycling twice a month, per the contract. However, the guy on our route has emptied our (totally full) recycling cart every week since we got serious about decluttering. Dh has spent 20 minutes each week breaking down cardboard boxes until the cart is full.</p>
<p>Two boxes of old paperbacks to the Friends of the Library sale. Now I don’t have any more bookshelves with books double-deep the entire width of the shelf…</p>
<p>It’s funny how the process feels smothering and hard at first and empowering later on. </p>
<p>I asked my whole family to take the bag a week pledge. We have a shredding truck coming to work on Saturday, so paper is first on the list!</p>
<p>Saturday is paper. Sunday is clothes. Monday is shoes. Tuesday is kitchen. Wednesday is garage. Thursday is office. Friday is hoarder’s choice!!!</p>
<p>8 years of saved Martha Stewart Living issues to recycling today along with the normal load. While we don’t have curbside recycling, the work release inmates unload everything from your car, so that makes things a little easier. That was many pounds of magazines to get from the playroom to the garage. Glad I didn’t have to lug them farther:)</p>
<p>Our library loves old magazine donations for their “store” section. They resell them for .25-.75 each.</p>
<p>I did think that all those issues might have value to someone, but our local recycling center operates on a shoestring. The local water district has given them space to operate, but they are being evicted within the year. The city did a comprehensive survey last year and recycling was rated very high on the response list of things people wanted to see promoted/funded. The city is trying to help them find a new home, but they have to be self-sufficient in terms of soliciting donations from local businesses & individuals to add to their revenues from recyclable materials. I finally decided to just send them there and hope that they get revenue for all their paper based on the pound. Those things weighed a ton 
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<p>In the last two weeks, I have taken 7 boxes to Goodwill, and put out 29 boxes plus 6 trash bags for trash pick-up.</p>
<p>Sadly, I am still feeling rather Smaug-like when I look at the basement. I need to recategorize some toys from the F.A.O. Schwartz equivalent for the still-hypothetical grandchildren, and convert them into additional items for Goodwill. </p>