Piles of Paper: Part 1

TUESDAY'S ITEMS:

a stack of graded 10th grade essays from the beginning of the year (I'm talking August 2010)

Why do I still have these sitting on a table in my bedroom?  I have no idea.  I don't even remember why I brought them home.  They've been graded.  Why didn't I give them back to my students?  Ugh!  I guess I thought I'd give them back at some point because I kept them for the entire school year.  Well, summer is here, and the papers are gone! 

*I must point out that I did not get rid of the binder clips!  The teacher in me won't allow school supplies of any kind to be thrown away. 

On another note, I'm a little disappointed with myself for not cleaning out something that would make more of an impact in my house for the last two days.  But, being pregnant the second time around isn't quite as pleasant as it was the first time.  I seriously do not remember feeling so bad.  So, I feel like I've sort of taken the easy way out for a couple of days, but really, it's all I've felt like doing.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better. 

Just a Few Too Many

MONDAY'S ITEMS:

3 bottles of bubbles from the top of the fridge

I know your first question is going to be why we keep bubbles on top of the fridge in the first place, right?  Well, we have a 3 year old, and that's one of the few places she can't get to on her own.  And your second question is probably what kind of mean mother would throw away her child's bubbles...  Well, I threw away 3 bottles... out of 5!  Bubbles seem to be that inexpensive item that ends up in every goodie bag that makes its way home with Natalie from every single school party (birthdays, Valentine's, Easter, End of Year, etc.) they have.   Somehow, we never seem to use up an entire bottle.  We just keep opening new ones as they get here and adding them to the collection.  Well, today the collection got a little smaller.

2 Pairs Down

SUNDAY'S ITEMS:

2 pairs of old, worn out shoes

Today I decided to throw out 2 pairs of shoes that had seen better days.  I love these shoes, but I haven't worm them in months because both pairs have holes in them.  You'd think I'd have thrown them out the day they became unwearable, right?  Nope, I just kept them in my closet like they'd magically become mended in there.  Well, no more of that!  Today, I threw them both in the trash.  I wish I could have gone through more of my shoes because I still have way too many that are either old or that I just don't like anymore, but I haven't felt very well today.  I'll have to do another shoe clean out again soon. 

Bye Bye Books

SATURDAY'S ITEMS: 

55 books that I've already read and don't plan to read again



This was NOT an easy thing to hand over!

I thought I'd kick off the project right, so after I posted "The Plan" I went straight into the office to clean out the bookshelves.  If you know me, then you know that it is extremely difficult for me to part with a book once I've acquired it.  Because of this, we have books stacked everywhere.  (Some of them I haven't read in several years.)  I decided to go through my books and get rid of anything that I haven't read lately or don't think I'll ever read again.   Of the 55 books I decided to part with, 10 of them are going to my classroom library, and the other 45 went to 2nd & Charles, my favorite used bookstore.  We stopped by 2nd & Charles on the way to dinner last night, and I turned in my 45 books.  They offered me $22.50 in store credit or $10.00 cash for 25 of the books. The other 20 were returned to me since they had too many copies of those in inventory already.  Since on of my project rules is that once an item leaves the house it cannot be brought back, and since I am trying to declutter, not find new things to purchase, I took the cash and put the remaining 20 books in the FREE bins.  IT FELT GREAT!  (Joe said I was crazy for putting 20 books in the FREE bins, but my main objective here is to get rid of stuff, not to make money.)

Speaking of Joe, I explained my project idea to him last night before we left home.  At the end of my explanation, I said "So do you want to do it with me?"  Before I could finish my sentence, he'd already said "No! I like my stuff!"  It took several minutes for me to convince him that even though there were a lot of things he liked and wanted to keep that surely there was something in the house that he didn't like/want/need anymore.  After much whining on his part, he reluctantly agreed to get rid of 2 books.  2nd & Charles offered him $2.45 in store credit, which he took and used to buy a book....  so, really he only gave away 1 book.  But, that's okay.  The rule is at least one item a day, and he did that, so I'm proud of him.  As hard as it was for me to get rid of 55 books, I think it might have been harder for him to get rid of his 1 book.  I hope that he'll become more enthusiastic about this as we go.  This morning, however, when I asked him what he was giving away today, he screamed "I hate this project!" lol. 



So, that's day one.  I think it was pretty successful. 

The Plan...

For several months, I've been telling Joe that I wish we could just get rid of all of our possessions and start over. Before we got married, we both had separate houses, complete with everything needed to run a household. When we got married, we didn't get rid of anything, we just combined it all and moved into a bigger house. Almost 5 years and one child later, we have more stuff than we know what to do with or have space to store. I'm so tired of the house (and our lives) being so full of clutter - things we've moved from house to house because "we might use this one day", things that we're keeping because "I've had this since high school." It may sound silly, but I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed with the amount of "stuff" we own. With another baby on the way, I have decided that there's no way we can add another person (and all the stuff that comes along with another person) to this family without getting rid of some of the things that are already here. So, I've challenged myself to do something that some of you might find a little odd. I'm going to get rid of at least one item a day until I feel like the only things in my house are those that I absolutely NEED. I may sell them, give them away, donate them to charity, or just throw them in the trash, but they will be gone from my house!
I haven't told Joe about this decision yet. We're going to dinner tonight, and I'm going to fill him in and try to convince him to join in and do the same. While I admit that I have a ton of junk, I am not at all sentimental about a huge majority of it. Joe, on the other hand, is very sentimental, and I'm sure that this project will be much harder for him to embrace. We'll see...
About the blog... I used to write a blog, and I loved doing it, but when I went back to work a couple years ago, I got busy and neglected the blog for too long. After reading my friend Jenn's blog, I've been thinking about blog writing again, but I wasn't really sure I had anything interesting to say. After my decluttering project epiphany today, I decided that I just might have something interesting to say after all. So... I'm going to use this blog to record and sort through the emotions that are sure to go along with downsizing my possessions, to have a record of just how much I can do without, and to keep myself accountable to actually following through with the plan. Let me know what you think about all of this. I sort of feel like the crazy pregnant lady who went off the deep end after getting frustrated while trying to clean the house. :)