Declutter Update

If you are reading my blog, you know I'm working on letting go of the excess. I say that we are blessed to have too much, rather than too little, but that it's time to share what we don't need.

I'm making progress. It's slow, but it's happening.


So far I've got a deep freeze in my hallway that's nearly ready to move on to it's next home, I've got 4 more boxes of things to take to the consignment shop (Urban Attic in Surrey - that's my plug, it's an awesome store!!), three more boxes to take to my parents garage for our yard sale later this year - maybe more as I've not boxed up everything and I'm guessing. I've also cleaned out my son's room and it's much more user friendly. My closet is cleaned, my linen cupboard is cleaned out, my hall closet is nearly there, too. I've listed a few things on craigslist and full circles (the Canadian version of freecycle that's now taking over the nation) to both sell and give away. I have two boxes of stuff to put on ebay and I've given friends some more things that they can use. This is what I've done in the past 10 days.


I'm still going to go through my son's toys for things to pass along, and I've got a little bit more culling to do with my books. We've got two bins of them in our storage room to sort and we'll let go of most of them. I also have two rubbermaid bins of clothes to sort. I kept them for when I lost the weight after the baby. Hmmm.. lost most of it, but I'm bigger than before. Sigh. I'm going to take most of it to consignment and when the time comes, I'll head back there to buy new to me things in a new to me size. I'll keep my most favourite pieces and then someone else can make use of the rest now while it's in style, instead of it sitting in storage for nothing.


You can feel the change in our home, it's feeling lighter. Now all I have to do is move on all the stuff piled at the door waiting for it's new home. That's a job for the next few weekends. I really need to cook some more or at least take some of the stuff in the freezer for my parents to cook during the week as a nearly empty freezer isn't very energywise. I've stuffed my fridge freezer full, so for another week, it'll have to do. After that, I'll take the last of it to my parents and store it in their freezer. I can hardly wait for this one to be gone!


My last task will be to tackle the kitchen. I've put all the kitchen gadgets in a bowl on the counter and as we use them, they go back into the drawers. Whatever is left will be let go of, unless it's something we usually use but didn't this past month. (i.e. the can opener) I have a sneaky feeling that the zester is going. Can't remember the last time I needed it for lemon or orange peel and I'm sure a little sharp knife could do the trick. I've still got pantry cupboards to tackle and lots of 'stuff' to make choices on in all the other kitchen places.


While I'm making the most of March, I'm not as far ahead as I'd like since we've been down sick for pretty much all month. I plug away when I'm feeling good - and that's ok. It's a process and it really never ends. Once you're done the big clear out, you always have to take a second look at what is in your life and decide if it's needed.


I wish I'd weighed what was going out, though. It would have been neat to know how many pounds of things I've been dragging around all these years that I've finally let go of. Now I'd like that to correlate to my body!!