We’re a month behind schedule but we’re really digging in and getting stuff done, now. Unfoturnately — we’re about to hit some difficult categories not to mention BlogHer Food 15, Michelle visiting, Thanksgiving, Holiday shopping and planning and then Christmas with some subset of the kids here. It’s going to be tough to make it through the next five categories + Elly’s room before Christmas and that was my original goal.
Think good thoughts for us.
But back to the update…
We’ve made two trips to the electronics recycling station (they are only open on Saturdays from 9am-11:30am which has been a challenge but I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made for finally getting the old electronics out of the house.) My goal is to have all the discarded electric stuff out of the house by the end of the day November 5, except of course for the stuff upstairs that’s too heavy for us to carry down and all of the laptops that need to have the hard drives cleared… My goal for that stuff is 12/31/15.
We made it through the kitchen stuff without too much trouble. I don’t seem to have written down any notes about how many things we discarded but I know we carried about six boxes of stuff to Goodwill and we threw away quite a bit of stuff as well. It’s so weird to open the cabinets and see a small number of plates and mugs and glasses… I’m always tempted to yell “KIDS, bring your dirty dishes downstairs!” Life with only what you need and what brings joy is weird, lol.
Next up we sorted through all of the tote bags. Oh the tote bags. We had 120 tote bags. We kept 50. We’ll be taking the donations down to Florida this winter and donating them to Peaceful Paths. Until then, they’re in a box in the empty bedroom.
After tote bags, we moved to luggage — which was pretty easy. Anything with a broken zipper, a rip, or a handle that didn’t work brings new joy. BUT, we’re not discarding immediately. We’ll be packing stuff in those suitcases and discarding once we unpack down south. The suitcases that bring no joy have red strips of tape on them so we’ll know immediately to discard them next spring. We kept 6 suitcases and 3 duffle bags. We have 5 suitcases in the no joy pile but we may change our mind about one very small rollerboard… we’ll see. We also kept 3 of those weird shoulder strap carry-on bags that you get when you buy 3/5 piece luggage sets. We’ve never used them but TW says we might be able to pack stuff in them. Whatevs.
Which brings us to linens and towels. Those suckers were EVERYWHERE and I spent a few days last week collecting them a little bit at a time. Oh my gosh, so much stuff that we never ever use. We ended up with 8 bags of sheets/blankets/comforters and 1 bag of towels to donate to the animal shelter. Another bag to donate to goodwill. And, one bag tossed into the trash. We also sorted through the throw pillows — we kept 3 and discarded 7 (though there are 2 more in the cold room that I can’t access right now — we’ll discard those as soon as we’re able to remove them from underneath some very heavy mirrors that are sitting on top of them. lol)
This was a long update — because we’ve made a ton of progress.
Next up… toys. You’d think that would be easy, wouldn’t you? Next up… convincing Elly to Kondo her room… that’s not going to be easy at all. I’m probably going to have to threaten to do it for her…