Counteracting the clutter in 2023

[Kenickie]

I think, although he wouldn't admit it, MrPG was finally swayed into accepting it needed to go a few weeks ago when his uncle sat on the propped up bit and the prop fell over, so he sunk down about 15cm. Of course my word that Uncle had fallen into the bottom of the sofa wasn't good enough, as he just could not believe that the prop would fail

I would like to repeat again- you are a saint.

He’s like this about so much isn’t he?

I just have to laugh about it, it's partly family heritage of semi-hoarding (which I have too, probably more actually).

Yesterday I asked him to get the kitchen clock down off the wall, so I could change the battery. He did, then asked if I really was sure I wanted to change the battery, since the second hand was still moving. The clock was about 2 hours slow, but what does that matter?

I only use clocks to tell the seconds, I don't know what you're complaining about.

[Little My]

It's a new month, so I think I'm going to challenge myself to revamp our cloakroom. Since we moved, things just got dumped there and it hasn't functioned well. Many things sort of belong there, but it needs a lot of decluttering. I also need to make changes to the storage, and pretty the place up a bit. It could use a coat of paint and a ceiling. That last item is a bit beyond me though.

[Morganna]

Sounds like a plan, LM. There was a downstairs loo on one of those George Clark programmes the other day. It had 70s wallpaper on all the walls, the back of the door and the ceiling. I don't recommend that as a look, though.

I got rid of two bags of furry yarn yesterday (called Frenzy or similar). I thought it was hideous, but it was snapped up at my knitting group, so that's more space cleared.

[FiveO'Clock]

I like your plan, LM and I'm going to copy it. Just as you come into our house from the garage entrance, we have a laundry room and a closet. Everyone comes in the front door, so it's not really seen but it's just collected random items and nothing can be easily found.

Good work, Morgs. I love the feeling of getting rid of things when someone else can use them.

[Squirrel]

Good work Morgs!

Yes that sounds like a good plan LM.

I’m planning to do my son’s room this weekend.

[Little My]

Good luck! My son's room is on the back burner until next week, because he has no spare time. Is G letting you have free rein?

I did a bit of cloakroom decluttering, and it does look noticeably better already. An entire grocery bag of womens sanitary products is sitting out to get donated (It was bought for a donation drive my daughter never remembered to take into school.), and a bag of clothes left from a sleepover in October needs to be returned. I'm being heavy handed with getting rid of stuff, because nobody remembers what's in there.

[Squirrel]

That sounds satisfying already.

I’ll go through stuff with G, I’m sure he’ll be happy to get rid of a fair amount.

[Squirrel]

I’m attacking doom piles today. There’s a basket that doesn’t really fit anywhere, with a load of random paperwork and things in it including a pair of G’s headphones. In fact the headphones are the only item I can name, the rest is a mystery.

[Little My]

Toss! I keep finding headphones when I tidy up. Nobody ever knows where their headphones are..

I did a little bit more decluttering in the cloakroom. I'm toying with idea of removing the hanging pole and replacing it with coat hooks, because it would open the (tiny) room up a little ,and my dearest son might stop throwing his coat on the floor.

[Squirrel]

We have hooks and people do generally hang up their coats. They still fling their shoes in with gay abandon though. Then complain they can only find one school shoe .

I’ve done quite well today - chucked some old paperwork, cleared out the basket of doom, found homes for things and chucked the rest, filed some current stuff and planned an overhaul of the filing cabinet when Mr S is away next week.

[Little My]

Very good!

Yeah, he used to hang his coat on the hooks in the mudroom at the old house. I just don't think he has much time for coathangers. I have come to the realization that my kids are visual organizers, which is the opposite of me. I like everything put away out of sight. But I prefer coats on hooks, to on the floor, so..

[Kenickie]

My cloakroom has a hanging rail and I hate it. It's so much more effort than hooks.

[Morganna]

I've done a bit of sorting, but not enough for a bag to leave the house. I plan to start again tomorrow, as I want all the books out of the kitchen by Wednesday at the latest, as my poetry group is meeting here from now on ( ), and the first meeting is then. I managed to half fill a box to be taken away when the charity people come on 15th, but mostly I have found places to put the stuff - basically creating more doomthings. I now have new cupboards do doomify, and really need to resist the temptation to do that. I bought felt cube storage boxes to put in the cupboards, so that sorting out will be easier, though.

If i get a run at it tomorrow, my aim is to finish the kitchen, get the bags to the tip before M can rescue anything, and fill a bag or two with clothes for donation. I have quite a lot on next week, so I'm hoping to get some of next week's bags covered at the weekend. I have a book club meeting on Wednesday, and have bought the book on Audible as I won't have time to read it if I do as much as i want to, but I can be listening and sorting at the same time.

[Squirrel]

I’m planning to do my son’s room this weekend.

This is done. A couple of bags for the charity shop, a couple more in the bin/recycling and we enlisted Mr S’s help with Lego and zillions of remote control everythings.

Poor G, he’s like me and absolutely hates the process but he’s good at actually letting things go so we got rid of quite a satisfying amount of things and had a good tidy of the rest.

[Little My]

That sounds satisfying.

B has gone out for the day, and I'm going to go in to take stock of how big a decluttering job it actually is. I'm fairly sure he's built some sort of cardboard den in his wardrobe. Ostensibly I'm just going in to make the bed and do a bit of cleaning. Honest.

[Texaco Shirley]

L and I started on some of the boxes from my mum’s this afternoon but I’m not sure we accomplished much. We read a lot of old pieces of paper and laughed at a lot of photos but didn’t get rid of very much.

[Morganna]

I failed today. No excuses, just a bad case of cba

[FiveO'Clock]

I'm in the cba corner with you, Morgs. I only managed to find one thing for the charity shop box - a clown wig that I don't remember buying or using.

[Texaco Shirley]

Oddly enough I’ve lost a clown wig.

[FiveO'Clock]

In addition to finding Tex's clown wig, I just sorted out the pantry and discovered three boxes of tea I thought I'd gone through, so took that off the shopping list.