The Magazine Pile

Okay, we all have one - or more than one - around the house. And it's the pile, or piles, of magazines we have stashed around the house which we either say we read or have read and think we're going to keep for another reading.

Well, I gotta say, that most of the time, I'm right about re-reading my 'Good Reading Magazine'. I'll re-read it a couple more times and then? Well, I don't do anything with it. It gets put into a pile in my living room where it gathers dust - like anything else which doesn't get used.

So, what I'm doing today and tomorrow is looking through all the magazines I have stashed around my house (and no, I don't have 'reading material' in the toilets - that's just manky and nasty!) and I'm going to go through them all. 
A lot of my magazines are about art, reading and publishing books. So, there's not a single gossip magazine to be found. This is a good thing for me, because I'll be donating my magazines to a doctors surgeries and old folks homes where the people there can read up on books and writing - something which may be of interest to some of them. I can't give away a lot of my writing magazines because I'll need them in my writing; no matter how old they are, they're still useful to me. 

So, that's my weekend challenge for myself. I'm not setting anything for you for the long weekend... it's a weekend of chilling out for Australians and respecting the ancient lands we are now living on. I'll put in another Weekend Challenge next weekend when we go back to normal again. How's your house going? Getting there? I hope so.

It's Personal

I know it's a strange thing to talk about, but when you're decluttering, you come across a lot of personal items. These are probably things you don't want to part with, and yet you're not sure if anyone in the family want either.

I'm talking about your hand-written journals, magazines you bought about famous people from the 1980's and 90's, odds and ends you thought were great and then put them away somewhere safe and forgot about them until now... so, what I'm doing is collecting together a few archive boxes in a certain colour to make them my Personal Boxes. I've labeled them 'My Life' and I'm putting things into them that my family can go through (and I can add to or subtract from) during my life.

This makes things easier for when the time comes for you to move house. You'll know which boxes are which and where they'll go in your next place. I've colour coded mine and written on them. 
Now, I've only done this because I don't have big filing cabinets, and it's the best way I can work out what is my life stuff, my banking, my car, and other things which are part of the bigger picture of everything in my office. 

So far, I'm onto my 3rd purple archive box for My Life... yeah, I'm not making them boring and beige. They're going to be colourful and useful in my house. The funny thing is that I don't know how many of the purple boxes I'll end up having by the end of my life... and that's the thing, you won't have the same number as me either. So don't fret if you've got 10 of them or only 2 ... what matters is what goes into them. It's about you, and what you want to leave to your family - what really personal things which you want them to see, which really matters. 

Weekend Challenge Time!

Okay... I didn't get time to put in a challenge yesterday because I was out all day.

But, I think it's better late than never - right? Anyway, I've looked through my towels recently, and that includes my bath towels and kitchen towels. Now, I had to make sure I didn't need the kitchen towels - and to do this, I looked at them and wondered when I used them last. 

The bath towels is a little more different... I go on how threadbare they are. And to add to this, my Aunty keeps giving me bath towels for my birthday; which is a lovely way to making sure I always do them out and change the ones in my house. 

So, this weekend's challenge is to go through all of your towels - this includes beach towels too! And figure out which ones stay, which ones go and which ones are thrown in the bin. 

Now the ones which go to charity? Well, take them to your nearest animal shelter and they'll use them for bedding. I know I did this challenge last year, but it does work out to do this just after Christmas; as sometimes we receive these kinds of things for presents. 

By The Back Door

Isn't it funny how much we use doors, and yet we ignore how much mess is next to and around them?

Well, today, I nearly tripped over something next to my back door and I knew why - there was a huge mess there I had been ignoring for over a year. So, I got in and cleaned it up.

There was 2 rubbish bins - one of which I really didn't need - and the other was full to brim with art and craft things which were supposed to be tossed out last year. So, I went through the craft gear and sorted it out, figured out what I wanted to keep, what I wanted to throw out and put everything being tossed out into a big rubbish bag.
Meanwhile, I moved a red container filled with wooden sprung clothes pegs. Yeah, in my 'Crafty Peg' days, I went kinda nuts in collecting them. Now? Well, I'll never run out of them, will I? But my plastic ones are going brittle and I'm looking whether to get in and work on a collection of wooden ones for myself - thus why I haven't given away any of these ones.

Well, swept up the area, threw out an old cockroach trap and put an empty bin back, and the container full of pegs and it looks good. What I threw out was a really old bin, anything I didn't need and it all went out into the big bin in the car port. Yep, that's another bag of rubbish out of the house! I'm so pleased!

Wardrobe Clean-Out

You know, yesterday was a big one for me.

After cleaning out under the two sinks, I opened my wardrobe and pulled out everything in it and put it all onto my bed.

And believe me, you really don't know how many clothes you truly have until you do that! I had watched an episode of Marie Kondi and found myself saying, 'Holy Crap, that's a lot of clothing right there!' Believe me it was!

And the first thing I did was start going through it all... piece by piece, I tried on all the winter jackets, found which ones I hadn't worn in over a year, which ones I hadn't see in a year (and the reason why was because they'd been hung in with the dresses and I hadn't been able to find them!). 

Then, I looked at the shirts and tops and figured out what I hadn't worn, which ones I didn't like, which ones I loved and either hung them all up or tossed them in the 'donation pile' - or the wash pile. 

Oh boy, then came my dresses! I still have my 21st dress - and I'm not letting that go! It's hand-made, gorgeously hand-sewn and dyed from New Zealand and weighs a ton! It also costed me a fortune to buy! So, no, it's not going anywhere. Then, I tried on a couple of other dresses which looked like they'd fit, but once I got them on, I couldn't get the bastards off!!! After much struggling, I finally did get those dresses off and into the 'Donation' Pile. Yep, somebody out there is going to look great in those.

After another hour or so, I had a wash pile, a donation pile and the rest of it all hung on coat hangers and folded and put away. My wardrobe looks really good! I found I have about 20 coat hangers which don't have a home.

Then, I went downstairs and went through the kitchen drawers where my towels lived for the kitchen and sorted through them and figured out which towels were going to staying here and which ones will be donated and which ones will be used in my painting gear. Only two were sent away... the rest? Stayed here - yep, they're still in good condition.

So, there was my afternoon of cleaning done and dusted. A lot was done and I'm proud to say that I have one bag of clothes to give away... and that bag will be added to soon. How are you doing with your house? Are you being as good with the cleaning out as I am? 

A New Addition

Okay... there's a new addition to the sidebar.

I've added a text box where I'll be keeping track of how many bags of rubbish - not including my kitchen rubbish for the week - I toss out while I'm cleaning out my house this year.

In addition, there's a Donation tally too, to show how many bags of donations are sent off too. 

This is going to make this so much more fun!

Sunday Morning Clean

It's a Sunday, and usually I don't do anything on these days - usually I chill out and read the paper.

But today, I had to get in and organise a few things around the living room. You see I've been given some art gear and I've yet to put the books away - and there were so many books! So, this morning, after breakfast, I got into organising them. 
First, though, I looked at them. They were gorgeous... not only that, they were all in Chinese and a study of how to paint and draw in their style. I noticed they were written in particular volumes. And so, after I separated them into their own sets, counted them and then found a place for them, I knew I needed to do more cleaning up for the living room.

I had found a place for my canvases I had received, which meant I had 2 unusuable canvases. These are canvases which I had tried to use, but they just didn't work out. The old painting either showed through my new work, or the water-based oil paint I've put over the top of the traditional oil paint just doesn't mix and I've found the canvas isn't usuable for me. So out those two canvases have had to be tossed - into the big recycling bin out the back of the unit complex.

Otherwise, I've still got a few things to get in order. I've begun to hang some of my new paintings on the walls and taken down the older ones I've done in the past. Not only will the hanging of the new paintings help them dry better, but it will help the feel of my place change too. And I'll have other canvases to either sell or reuse; as my older work is all acrylic paint.

But yesterday, I got in and cleaned under two sinks in my house - as Peter Walsh had challenged us to do on his Facebook page - and I was very successful! Not only did I throw out a big bag of rubbish, but I also filled one bag of things I added to the Donation Box too. How cool is that? Yep, I'm so happy with myself! And I found no leaks under my sinks in the kitchen and bathroom... very good indeed! How's your cleaning out doing so far this year?

Around and Around

Well, my place is going well. 

I've tossed out another bag of rubbish from around the house and I'm damned proud of my collecting of rubbish. 

I've also got a bag to take to the op-shop which I don't need as well from this week! Yes, Peter Walsh would be proud of me for being brutally strict with how I'm working on my life and changes around the house. 

But I'm not just throwing out anything I'm laying my hands on - I'm making sure I've not used it in a long time, or it's been sitting around gathering dust and become rubbish after a long time as well.

So, therefore, here's the first Weekend Challenge I'd like you take part in this year!

Get two bags - a rubbish bag and a synthetic re-usable bag and go around the house and find two different things. This will take two rounds of the house. Take the rubbish bag around the pick out all the rubbish from every nook and cranny of your house - every tissue, every docket, every single thing which is rubbish and put it into the rubbish bag. This will take a while - so don't rush. And your hands will get dirty, so wear disposable gloves. Anything which is rubbish (from the old phone books you've hoarded, to dvd cases you no longer use, to the 6-year old manuscript you've been holding onto for a friend to the bathroom waste basket and all the bins around the house included), goes into the rubbish bag. You'll find you've got that bag filled! Tie it off and put it outside. If you end up using more than one bag - great!
Now, the synthetic bag... go around and look at the things you've been meaning to give away. They might be the candles you no longer use, or a wall-hanging you were given and you're not crazy on, or a pile of books which are taking up room inside your office door. Yep, put them into the synthetic bag as you walk past. This is a walk-around for the quick look-around the house. When you find an item you don't want and has gathered a lot of dust and you know you won't miss it, it's time to get rid of it. 

Now, go... no regrets on these two things. Take your time on the second one. And put the items into your Donation Box by the door to take to the charity store.

Laundry

Okay... last October, I cleaned out my laundry and have been using my own devices to keep it organised.

For my 45th Birthday, I bought myself 2 sets of Stratco shelving and it has definitely paid off! I also bought a large red box to store all of my laundry products which normally sit around my washing machine and clutter up the tiny laundry I have - which is the size of a toilet (it honestly is!). 

Well, it's been around 6 months and I'm happy to report back to you all that my laundry is getting even better as time has progressed. The large container I normally put my laundry liquid into - and hoard it all in - has been tossed out!

Yes!

Finally today, I grabbed a bag and put that big 5 litre container - which has been empty for a long time now - into that bag along with the manky newspaper which it sits on! It's all out in the rubbish bin with a few other things I've tossed out! How cool is that? Even though it gives up about a foot of space, it doesn't do much for me in the way of giving up anything else in the way of space. 

But the red box I've put into the shelving has helped me keep my laundry liquid, vinegar, refill liquid soap and other cleaners out of the way and in view of where they are supposed to be for me.

So, how are you doing with your cleaning up and cleaning out this year so far? I'm going well. This weekend, I'm going to put in the very first Weekend Challenge for you to jump into! Yep, they're back! I hope you're willing to take part as much as I am! 

Big Clean-Out Starts!

Well, yesterday, I got in and cleaned out the newspaper holder next to my chair and threw out old newspaper, and other junk from that holder, sorted through it and moved it upstairs into my bedroom, where I changed that grey one into my office/study and moved the one in there to the living room (yes, I have more than 3 of these old newspaper holders). 

After that, I sorted through my yarn and put it into the big bag of knitting yarn (to be looked into later) and then vacuumed the living room floor and under the chair and around where the newspaper holder usually sits. Then, I put back into that holder only what is going to be used in it - and nothing else.

Now, there's 3 items in the donation box with a big bag of rubbish in the bin. And that's just from the living room. 

Today, I'm pulling down all the Christmas Ornaments and putting it all away. Then, I'm going to put some of the archive boxes away in the wardrobe in the office and organise the third archive box I've had since July last year to pack away more of my personal items from my life. Yep, today is going to be a busy day. 

So, what are you getting up to today? Are you doing what I'm doing with the decorations? Or are you picking something else to do this year? Are you looking back on another challenge from last year to jump into? 

Craft Gear Out The Door

Well... okay, it's not all going to be thrown out or given away. I've seen the light and thought to sell some of my art gear I no longer wish to have online - yep, the easy way.

The first thing I've done is grab the big bag of knitting yarn and sort it into matching sets of yarn balls and photograph them and get them organised and price them. Then, I jumped into my favourite craft group and offered them all up at $2.00 a ball - and .50c for half-used balls - with no shipping attached to any of it... and I added in the photos and now I'm going to wait and see what's going to happen. 

I hope to have some of my friends take these off my hands and enjoy the yarn this year. I do have other yarn in that bag, and that's all staying - as it's going to be used in other patterns I'm looking at. Otherwise, my craft gear is getting a big cleanout unlike it ever did in the past. But the one thing is that I may not toss out as much as I did last year because I've streamline everything so much that I know where it all is. 

So, what are you going to do with your craft gear - if you have any? And is it into the Donation Box for it or online sales this time around? Do leave a comment and let us know.