Monday, January 10, 2011

More Decluttering

This weekend, Hubby went camping for 3 days, so I decided to do some more decluttering. Yesterday, I went to work our master bath sink. I was pretty ruthless and filled up a plastic grocery bag with stuff to donate and another one with stuff to trash. (No one wants my grubby old makeup bags.) Would you believe we had SIX bags of cotton balls??? For some reason, Hubby would forget to take cotton balls when he went camping and then would stop somewhere and buy them. I condenced them and now have 3 bags. I told Hubby not to buy ANY MORE cotton balls. It is nice and roomy now. I found that we had a plastic shoe box FULL of travel size and hotel soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions, etc. I am going to figure out a place to put those so that we remember to use them when we go on trips.

Then, I tackled the drawers of my nightstand. I just throw stuff in them and have not gone through them since we moved. LOL! I don't know how the stuff in there seemed to accumulate like it does. Most of the stuff in there that needed to come out was just stuff to go to the dumpster. I did have fun reading through cards and letters that Hubby has sent/given me over the years. Yes, I keep them. I also had some cards and special notes from the kids. They are all still in there, but both drawers are much neater and less cluttered.

I told Hubby we need to tackle our book collection next. Though they are out of the way and neatly organized on multiple bookshelves, it is time to go through them. We plan to move to a downstairs apartment next year and I don't want to pay someone to move 30 boxes of books. I know I can find a home for some of our beloved books. I rarely read books more than once, so I will keep a few. Hubby reads some over and over again, so of course we will keep them. But the "meh" books can go to new homes.

So, that was my productive Sunday. Oh, and I also did some laundry. (Saturday was running errand day.)

9 comments:

slugmama said...

Yay you!
Why is it that getting rid of books is so hard for some people....it's like they are throwing away their children or something.lol
I'm like you, most books I read once and pass on or return to the library.
There are a few books I'll keep to reread from time to time but my Hubs is a book hoarder. O.M.G.
After the kids leave home and we move I need a place where I can limit him to 1 room of books...otherwise it will just take over and you'll never hear from me again when they swallow me up.lolol

Frances said...

Hi, Sluggy. I am definitely not a book hoarder. I haven't bought books in years. I am a big fan of hte library. And since I got my Nook, I am a big fan of finding free books to download to it. I currently have 80+ books on it and haven't paid for one!

Back to the book collection at home. I used to work for a magazine/book distributor and got a lot of hardback books when I worked there and several of them are autographed first editions. I guess I could look into selling those. Most of the collection is Hubby's. He buys only from thrift stores, so has not spent a ton of money on books. We used to go through them regularly and take them to a local used book store, so would make a little money. But that store closed down. :-(

We can donate them to one of our local thrift stores, but I think I will look for somewhere else to donate some.

I will never throw a book away, but I will give them away.

Sonya Ann said...

And now come visit my house! Well, the house is ok, its DJ's room. I would love to have you and Anna's room is open.
Keep up the good work. I found that lots of encouragement works in situations like this!LOL

Frances said...

Hi, SonyaAnn! We still have more to do at our house before I go heading off. LOL!

The sad thing is that we don't have clutter out in the open, so when we declutter, you can't tell the difference. Only Hubby and I can. LOL!

McVal said...

I need to do this too! I've got so much STUFF that we don't use. I do save some things for the kids for their futures. Just not every single little thing...

Frances said...

Hi, McVal! Thanks for coming to see me. We have some stuff from when the kids were younger. Just a couple of boxes though. We don't have to save anything FOR them, as they took what they wanted when they moved out.

I did find letters they wrote to Santa the first year we were a family. I had to keep those, but they take up so little room.

Unknown said...

Sounds like you got alot accomplished. I really need to do some decluttering around. But I will tackle that later in the year once school takes a break. Maybe over the summer.
Blessings
Diane

Together We Save said...

Souns like you are getting a lot done!! That is what I need to be doing while I am laid off.

Frances said...

Hi, Diane and Denise.

I was hoping to get to our books this weekend, but Hubby is going camping again.

Maybe I will reorganize my stockpile and see if there is any HBA I can get rid of.