Weekend Update
As previously mentioned, Saturday was spent running errands and buying myself my lone Christmas presents this year.
Since I consider Sunday to be the start of the week, I got started on one of my New Year’s goals, which is doing a little bit of purging every week to try to reduce the amount of stuff in my house. As a recovering pack rat, clearing out the house feels a bit daunting. But I figure if I make a commitment to do a little bit (maybe an hour) every week, by the end of the year it should really add up. A week or so ago I made up a list of 52 things to sort through and purge (some areas of the house got more than one entry because they’re big jobs) and today I printed them out and cut them up and put them in a glass jar. Every week I’ll pick one slip and spend at least an hour on sorting/purging that area. Hopefully this will result in boxes and bags heading out the door to the Goodwill/dumpster/used bookstore. And significantly less stuff a year from now.
But first I went through the closet and turned all the hangers around backwards. When I wear things, I’ll turn the hangers around the correct way. This time next year I’ll be able to tell what I’ve worn and what I haven’t in my closet. (A brilliant idea which was number 16 on this list of 26 ways to get organized that I read yesterday.)
Then I pulled down the two baskets that sit on the shelf over the washer and dryer. If you’ve been to Frogholm, you may have seen them. I use that area as my “linen closet” and one basket is my spare towels and one is extra sheets. On top of them is also a tray that holds my spare blankets. When ravena_kade came to visit the other day, I realized I have so much stuff up there that it’s getting hard to get things down when I need them. Time to weed.
I pulled out all the old beach towels. Really, I haven’t gone to the beach all that often, and some of them are getting to be threadbare. I’d rather donate them to the local animal shelter and buy one or two nice new fluffy towels. I also chucked the nasty cheap towels that I bought at Wal-Mart to take to Pennsic a couple of years ago. They started to disintegrate after their very first trip through the wash. Not worth holding onto.
I weeded the sheets, discarding incomplete sets and the twin sheets I used when I went to boarding school. I haven’t owned a twin bed in over twenty years. And besides, when I was on vacation in Maine last summer I unexpectedly ended up sleeping on the twin bed because it was the only bed with a box spring, so I bought a new set of twin sheets. I kept the new ones. Now that I’ve discovered the luxury of high thread count sheets, I have no real love for my old sheets. I have no idea how I ended up with eight (eight!) mismatched purple pillowcases. Those all went in the donate box. And I keep getting fleece blankets embroidered with company logos as swag from places that I work. I kept the nicest one and the rest went into the donation box. By the time I was done, I’d filled a big black 30 gallon trash bag. Go me!
Here’s hoping all my weeding and purging weekends are as successful.
Since I consider Sunday to be the start of the week, I got started on one of my New Year’s goals, which is doing a little bit of purging every week to try to reduce the amount of stuff in my house. As a recovering pack rat, clearing out the house feels a bit daunting. But I figure if I make a commitment to do a little bit (maybe an hour) every week, by the end of the year it should really add up. A week or so ago I made up a list of 52 things to sort through and purge (some areas of the house got more than one entry because they’re big jobs) and today I printed them out and cut them up and put them in a glass jar. Every week I’ll pick one slip and spend at least an hour on sorting/purging that area. Hopefully this will result in boxes and bags heading out the door to the Goodwill/dumpster/used bookstore. And significantly less stuff a year from now.
But first I went through the closet and turned all the hangers around backwards. When I wear things, I’ll turn the hangers around the correct way. This time next year I’ll be able to tell what I’ve worn and what I haven’t in my closet. (A brilliant idea which was number 16 on this list of 26 ways to get organized that I read yesterday.)
Then I pulled down the two baskets that sit on the shelf over the washer and dryer. If you’ve been to Frogholm, you may have seen them. I use that area as my “linen closet” and one basket is my spare towels and one is extra sheets. On top of them is also a tray that holds my spare blankets. When ravena_kade came to visit the other day, I realized I have so much stuff up there that it’s getting hard to get things down when I need them. Time to weed.
I pulled out all the old beach towels. Really, I haven’t gone to the beach all that often, and some of them are getting to be threadbare. I’d rather donate them to the local animal shelter and buy one or two nice new fluffy towels. I also chucked the nasty cheap towels that I bought at Wal-Mart to take to Pennsic a couple of years ago. They started to disintegrate after their very first trip through the wash. Not worth holding onto.
I weeded the sheets, discarding incomplete sets and the twin sheets I used when I went to boarding school. I haven’t owned a twin bed in over twenty years. And besides, when I was on vacation in Maine last summer I unexpectedly ended up sleeping on the twin bed because it was the only bed with a box spring, so I bought a new set of twin sheets. I kept the new ones. Now that I’ve discovered the luxury of high thread count sheets, I have no real love for my old sheets. I have no idea how I ended up with eight (eight!) mismatched purple pillowcases. Those all went in the donate box. And I keep getting fleece blankets embroidered with company logos as swag from places that I work. I kept the nicest one and the rest went into the donation box. By the time I was done, I’d filled a big black 30 gallon trash bag. Go me!
Here’s hoping all my weeding and purging weekends are as successful.