Ruthless Decluttering

Yeah, I'm still here. Most of what I've wanted to blog about involves photos of things I've made, but I lost that wire that connects the camera to the computer. We had carpeting installed (berber in neutrals--I love it) and several rooms were topsy-turvy. I'm still looking for things despite the fact I really tried to keep it all in some kind of order.

It flips me out how much you can accumulate. It doesn't look like all that much when it's in drawers, baskets and closets.

Worse than the wire is that I can't find a paycheck, either. I might have to ask my boss to rewrite it for me, but I'll keep looking.

Having to plow through all this stuff, I got it into my head to up my decluttering. As I've posted before, we'll be downsizing from 11-ish rooms to maybe 5 or 6 within the next year or two, so I have to get rid of things!

I was looking at my shelves of fabric scraps. They are nicely organized by color in bins that generally match--pink in a pink bin, blue in a blue basket. You get the picture. But I've got 25 or so photo albums stored up in the attic that I want to bring down. I need a place to put them.

So here's the ruthless part...I managed to get rid of about 90% of my scraps! Yeah, really! Honestly, if you haven't used it in...uh, five? Seven?...years, you ain't never gonna use it!

So donate it to charity! I have 2 huge bags of nice scraps (and I'm talking decent sized, at least to combine for a quilt or to make doll clothes) to bring to the Salvation Army Store this week.

Not sure yet what I'll do with the empty baskets but they'll find a place or be donated, too.

Oh, and I also got the nutty idea to clean out my crafts closet today. I reorganized, got rid of stuff and put it back in a way that makes it easier to find things. I'm not done yet, but the biggest thing I did (and here's being ruthless again) is that I cut back on my yarn by about 30%. I simply got rid of those half-balls of leftover yarn and yarns I didn't like working with. I don't like baby weight or bulky, fancy yarns. So out they went.

The back of my SUV looks like I live in it. But my office is 75% cleaner. This is more than a one day project, but I got a good start.

BTW: today is my youngest son's 20th birthday! We gave him a digital camera. I also bought a metal bucket at Christmas Tree Shops (cool store) that I filled with treats like Pringles chips and hot fudge sauce and candy. That made him very happy because he wasn't expecting it.