Declutter for five minutes each day

I have been doing it for a week now and so far so good. In no particular order–large and small projects:

• sun room
• living room bookcase
• kitchen top cabinets
• kitchen base cabinets
• countertops
• junk drawer
• key basket
• linen closet
• toys
• hall bath closet
• closet
• tops of dressers
• nightstands
• fireplace bookshelves
• boys clothes
• dresser
• basement countertop
• spare room closet
• office
• basement bookshelves
• desk
• kitchen utensil drawer

With the exception of buying books for the kids, I have definitely moved away from purchasing books in recent years, favoring the library.  For Christmas, I bought E several early readers.  I wish I had visited Blue Plate Books where I could have gotten virtually new books for a third of the price.

The owner took about half of the books, paying me $18.00.  Not a huge amount of money but more than what they were doing for me on the shelf.  The other half he will take to the library for its large book sale.

Most of the books were my college books from English literature and history.  It was hard giving them away.  Those books symbolize a happy time in my life and activities that I don’t do much of anymore (reading literature and intellectual conversation).  I loved going to class and learning.  As corny as it sounds though, I felt like it was time though to let the books back into the world, so they could bring someone else joy, leaving space on those shelves for something new in my life.

To start with I drug all of the toys from every place in the house and put them in one place in the basement.

Then I:

• threw away all of the broken toys
• pulled out all of the baby toys they had outgrown
• grouped all of the like items together
• reunited the pieces of toys with each other

After I got all of that accomplished, I filled one bin of toys and put it in the storage room to be swapped out in a few weeks with the toys that are out now. I moved a selection of toys into their room for easy access. Selection being the operative word there as I really limited what was out at one time. I threw away one whole bag of trash and broken toys and donated one box of toys to my sister for the families with whom she works. We had a huge number of trucks and other play vehicles, so I picked out a few of their favorites and put the rest in the large toy box for cycling in and out different items.

I’m excited about the improvement and hope that I can maintain it. The trick will be to keep the toys fresh by shifting them in and out of service rather than having everything out all at once. I also invested in some higher quality handmade toys from Etsy for Christmas which can replace some of the boys’ existing things.

BEFORE

AFTER

I had two tubs of baby toys, the baby crib set, and some infant clothes (with the tags still on!) that I wanted to get rid of.

I was poking around Craig’s List to see if that might be a good avenue to sell the items.  I happened upon a link to a consignment sale though Kid’s Closet Connection.  I had never heard about it before, but it sounded great.

They hold sales twice a year.  You sign up to be a consignor through the web site, log in your the items that you want to sell, print out tags, affix them to the items, and drop off at the sale.  You don’t have to be present to sell the items.

The part I liked the best was the web site where you could check the status of all of your items during the sale.  On the last day, you can choose to mark your items down 50% or leave them at the full price.  You can also choose to have the unsold items donated at the end of the sale or pick them back up.

I sold all but 4 items and made $60.00.  Not too bad.  For me, I was more interested in finding homes for the items than making money.  The last time I took things to Goodwill and saw them thrown into a pile as big as a football field, my heart sank.  I like knowing that the items will continue to be useful or to bring joy to another family.

I also found some great clothes for L.  He had very few summer items, so I got him some really cute short outfits, and E got a few things as well.

It definitely takes some time to get the items cleaned, organized, price, and tagged, but I really enjoyed the experience.  Would highly recommend.

I’ve been unhappy with the dirtiness/messiness of the house lately, yet not wanting to spend hours on housekeeping–usually on the weekends, so I decided to take a different approach.

I made a chart with the 7 days of the week.  I assigned a room to each day, and I spend 15 minutes on one room a day.  Fifteen minutes doesn’t sound like very long, but I actually have been able to get quite a bit done during that time.  It’s been working well this week; the house is a bit cleaner than normal, and I’m not so angry about having to do the cleaning since it’s only 15 minutes a day.

Sad thing is the party really isn’t that big of a deal–just family coming over for chili.

I know though that my mother-in-law will notice the fingerprints on the French doors.  She won’t say anything, but she will notice and that drives me CRAZY.

In preschool, they are teaching STAR–Stop, Take a Breath, and Relax.  Maybe I should go back to school.

It had fallen down into one of our basement window wells and could not get out.  Thank goodness Evan saw it.

My mom climbed down there, scooped him/her out, and sent the little one on its way.

So far, this is what we have started using:

• BioKleen’s Soy Cream Cleaner
• 7th generation dishwasher gel
• Tom’s of Maine toothpaste
• 7th generation laundry detergent
• Mrs. Meyer’s liquid hand soap

I have to say that I have been pleased with all of the products, so far.  The toothpaste though has been the most surprising.  Having been a Crest girl my whole life, I wasn’t sure about switching, and I wasn’t sure how E would like it.  Turns out that he LOVES it.  Cinnamint rocks!

W’s Custom Carpentry $10.00

What an awesome husband I have.  I just gave him the PB picture, and he made almost exactly the same item for next to nothing.  This will be great for housing all of the books E likes to keep in his bed.

End of one chapter.

Really not too sad about it.  The bins of baby clothes will be harder to part with.  They’re all just so darn cute.   It’s stupid though to have them taking up space when there are people that could really use them.