SHEs Organized

Ew, Harriet, that's a bad thing for someone to do.

I'm so glad it never happened to us. We don't have enough space in our rolley cart for our stuff. Household trash doesn't fill it up but DH brings things back from jobs and fills it up. So far they haven't complained, though they're supposed to. The past several weeks we've had an extra can out and today there is extra can and a couple big cardboard boxes filled and a tall kitchen size basket. We're not supposed to do that. I hide behind the curtain when the truck comes.

Garbage is a real problem. If one is really trying to clean out their house, there just isn't enough space for everything. Our commercial landfill is a 40 min drive away and almost every time he goes down there he picks up a nail or two in his tires. We have a small recycle place pretty close but we can only go there so many times a year (they check your driver's license) and aren't allowed to take any commercial vehicles. I have seen people come by and use the dumpster at a building at the end of our street very late at night. I would not do that.

Ok, getting caught up here. Medicine cabinets and makeup drawer were done this morning. I have 3 medicine cabinets and I found a couple things to toss and a couple to move. Makeup drawer had one thing to move...but I'd recently put an organizer in that drawer and went through everything and tossed several things.

I think I may more than make up for this time not used on day 14 and 29!

Could we talk about what to do when the clutter is not yours but a spouse's? Our house is becoming really bad (outside) with DH's aluminum recycling piled up and 2 old tractors, a couple useless (in my opinion) pieces of equipment, wood stacked up at the fire pit... and I'm miserable about it and I suspect so is at least 1 neighbor and I am completely powerless to do anything about it. Plus grass not cut while he tries to grow grass seed again.

As for dh's, mine was upset because when I put things back in his cabinet, I didn't put things back exactly where he had them. I did things like put the razor and the blades next to each other. Big mistake.

The fool will now be on his hands and knees doing under the sink when that comes up!

Makeup drawer will only take me a few minutes because that's something that was done when we moved and little has changed. I will go through hair things at the same time (next drawer over.)

LOL Harriet! That was too clever!

Today was jewelry, another item that was well purged when I moved and well organized because I travel all the time so have to be able to 1) see all that I have and 2) be able to grab a subset and pack. For a regular trip, my travel 'jewelry case' is an old glasses case because I can tuck that beside my bed and I'm assuming a quicky thief won't open it if they see it in the bedside drawer. Same with someone going through my briefcase/purse while I'm going through a security line or my bag is open by my side.

Over the years, I've learned to keep my necklaces at all times in dime-bags (tiny plastic zip lock bags for a $10 "dime's worth" of cocaine although I get mine on the craft aisle of the dollar store!) That way the chains don't tangle all together during travel. Earrings seem to manage on their own as do my bracelets which I never use to wear but do now that I don't have a watch on.

I have a lovely, dresser-top jewelry chest. I went through it and tidied the contents, found a missing earring attached to a broach (yay!) and set aside one pair of earrings for the give-away pile.

I also did my hair things today (when I glanced at them yesterday I decided it was too much work) and that drawer is neater and all the cheapest hair elastics were thrown out since I haven't used that style in over 10 years. That's all that was tossed but everything I own was justified before the move. As with my necklaces, my hair clips are stored in plastic zip lock bags (but larger) not to keep them from tangling but to protect them from rubbing against each other in my travel hair bag. Several clips keep losing glued on "jewels" and the bags mean that at least the "jewels" aren't lost and I can repair when I get home.

Dd says "hi". She mused over our theme today. This is "Creeping Jewelry". I'll take it down in a few days since we don't usually post photos in this thread.
I have a jewelry "case" I found at Goodwill that will hold hanging necklaces, so I put that to use today. So much better to hang them untangled than the way I've been doing it in little drawers. I don't have much jewelry, really, and this was mostly organizing. Actually, my rings are kept in an unassuming little case in the bathroom, among very utilitarian things - I don't think a thief could figure that out because it makes so little sense.

Question asked at the Bible study today, Kathryn, was where to find little baggies, and the lady was wanting to use that for jewelry. I have always loved that idea of protection and no tangles. I told her to check out ebay. Others said a hobby store. Little baggies (extra small sizes) are just wonderful for tiny necklaces, or charm bracelets that are clunky/rough.
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Just decided to order the purse I really want but because I have to wait half the summer for it, I'll keep the one I got today. So, in the interest of decluttering, THREE of my existing purses are headed for the giveaway shelf. One is a too-small (but super cute) backpack. It worked fine when I took the car everywhere (since the car held the umbrella, water bottle, grocery bags, kleenex and book to read) but now that I have to carry everything with me when I go out, I need a larger one. The other two are purses and I'm not using purses these day. Depressingly, that leaves me with 3 purses (red, copper, black), my old super-cool daytimer purse which holds my tablet nicely, and my black backpack which I love but wanted something more colourful for summer. Not to mention my evening bag collection but that's a whole other story. I also have ladies gloves and folding fans. The sort of things formal Ladies have.

I didn't see a purse declutter day on the list although, I suppose they fall under accessories.

I'm getting behind here but will catch up. Was really surprised how long the jewelry declutter took me, and it's not done yet. I have a couple of those stackable trays that go in drawers and a large armoire for jewelry. The trays are ok as they are. Mostly I keep earrings in those. Then I went through the armoire and I found several things to give donate place. Those are mostly things we got at church, little lapel pins, etc. WWJD pin, stuff like that, questionable metal. Then I found a bunch of stuff needing shined up and those are all in a box to deal with...plus a couple chains I must see if I can untangle or if not put the things on them on better chains. When I get those other things shined I will see if some of the costume jewelry can go to DGD. I have too many "pretty" containers so some of those have to go too.

Clothes today and tomorrow. I haven't started it yet, just thinking about it. Won't likely get rid of anything since my weight is on the way down so this might be the time I get to start wearing all those things I kept for when I lost weight!

But it will do me good to go through everything and see what I'm shooting for.

I've lost 14 lbs since the beginning of April but was stretching my clothes out so badly that I haven't really gone down a size yet.

The first of our "clothes" days:
14 of my hanging separates items (skirts, pants, jackets) out - 5 tossed and 9 into Goodwill bag. Found one item that could be folded into drawer.

With 15 hangars and their items gone from my closet rod, organizing space was freed up on the rod and I began to notice I could shift things around better to see what I might be forgetting was available, or neglecting. One of the benefits of that was that I noticed a top that would be ideal for a work-top for dd, so she can borrow it one day.

I am so glad to see tomorrow as a "more clothes" day, and then yet another "underwear drawer" day, because clothing can really be such a big part of all our challenges with clutter. (I guess "accessories" could also be considered clothes : scarves, belts.)

What are ya'll seeing that is "just right" about this challenge and what are you seeing that you would have listed differently?

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Off topic delight - HRH and ds30 found me the complete U.K. How Clean Is Your House! Love those guys for remembering something I'd given up on finding. I have the DVD of the U.S. ones. This will be inspiration galore! Really sweet of HRH, since he just can't stand that dramatic fright music and the shots of spider webs, etc! He cringes! (I love it)