The Signs of Progress!

At the beginning of the year, I put up a little table on the sidebar of the amount of rubbish bags, the donation bags filled and the donation runs I have done - and I've kept it up-to-date.

Now, look at the numbers! Aren't they fantastic? I thought to leave it up there for 5 months and see how I do. It's coming up to the end of May and I'm very pleased to see how many Donation Runs and Donation Bags Filled are up there. But Rubbish Bags are past 20! Woah! 

So, if you're keeping track of these three things in your decluttering, how many have you done? I'm curious... and we could challenge each other with it too if you'd like - see how many we get done by the end of the year to see if we could beat each other. 

Nah... it's not how many we can get done, it's a matter of how tidy our houses become. I'm just pleased to donate as much as I am donating. My house is looking better and I'm so pleased with my progress this year. 

Well, how are you doing with your progress? 

Donation Day!

On Monday, I emptied the Donation Box! Yay! First I went around to Mum and Dad's and grabbed whatever Mum wanted to get rid of and took their stuff off them and took everything to Vinnies at Underwood and donated big-time!

They were so pleased to see so much good stuff come through the doors. I took along 2 irons - which worked - and a couple of lovely prints, and also some pretty things I no longer fitted into... I know that sounds awful, but I don't see the point in keeping clothes which I don't fit into anymore. 
And Mum agreed with me. She was so pleased to see I tried on something in my wardrobe and just tossed it straight into the Donation Pile. I think it's the gym work which is making me fit into clothes differently too.

Also, since I got the new vacuum cleaner, I've been cleaning out so much more from my house so much faster than I used to - this is good! I even gave away a couple of handbags I no longer use.

Now, my little secret for donations is: if it hasn't been used in over a year, it goes into the Donation Box and it's donated. If it doesn't fit me anymore, it goes there too. 

Do you have any secrets to decluttering your house? If you do, please do share them. 

I'm always looking at Peter Walsh's Facebook page for tips and tricks to keep my house looking nice - you know the 10 minute clean-ups and the quick tidy-ups before bed and morning rituals before leaving the house kinda thing. Well, until my next post, I hope you're keeping your house nice and your decluttering is going well. Mine is going better than ever. 

Weekend Challenge Time!

I know, I haven't been around this week... but I have been cleaning up and house and totally enjoying my new little vacuum cleaner. It's such a cutie!

Well, I've also cleaned up the living room to the point where there's nothing in front of the entertainment unit or the credenza. How amazing is that?

This gives me a chance to look into this weekend challenge with something a little different.

I'm going to go through my First Aid Kit where all of my medications are. If there's anything out of date in there, put them into a bag and give them to a chemist/pharmacy and keep only the ones in date.

The pharmacy disposes of these out of date medications properly; and some of them give them to third world countries. So, there's the challenge for this weekend. Clean out your first aid kit and make sure everything in it not only is working, but the medicine there is within date. 

So, how is your cleaning out going? Mine is going really well. I'm going to do a Donation Day on Monday. I can't wait!

It's Friday!

It's coming into a long weekend here in Australia, and I thought to keep this one as light as I can.

But first, I scored a new vacuum cleaner yesterday! I traded in my old one for $10 and bought a nice new one called a Titan 2000 from a place called Godfreys. What a nice little unit it is too! It's a bagless and cost me under $150... not a bad price if you ask me. I've always wanted a bagless cleaner and it's really doing a great job too! I've already vacuumed the living room floor and it looks brand new!

Well, today, I'm going to be putting away the archive boxes and bringing in the bags to sort through from downstairs. This means I have to go out and get 2 more archive boxes. One is going to be a Memory Box for my other Memory items (from one of my other posts below) and the other one will be for storing what I need - which I haven't figured out yet, but it's good to have an extra one on hand.

Okay, it's the Weekend Challenge time! And I think it's time to clean out your shed. I do this every few months and it's a good thing to get into the habit of. You go out into your shed and sort through the items in there which are broken and unfixable. If you've got long-term unfixable things inside that garden shed, it's time to put them off to one side and label them as 'lost causes' and take them to the dump. 
Then, get in and sort out your power tools and put them in one area, so you can lay your hands on them at a moment's notice. Get out your label-maker and label each one so you can read it clearly - and so can anyone else who you know in case they need to grab it for you from your shed. There's nothing worse than going back and forth to your shed because somebody grabbed the wrong box of tools or the sander instead of the drill.
You get in and pull everything out, make sure you have a light inside the shed - which works - and everything is in there which is supposed to be there. If your work bench is unorganised and dirty, get in there and work on it so you can actually work on it, not accidentally cut yourself and not know what you did to yourself. Have your tools hanging up, in their boxes, wherever they're supposed to be all clean, not sticky, not greasy and ready to use. Make it look like it's a place you want to go to every weekend and work in... not a place to be ignored.
This weekend is the weekend to clean out shed, work out what the hell the workbench looks like and make your shed look and feel like a place for that project you've been meaning to do instead of the hiding place of all the broken tools and a junk pile with a door. Go on... I believe in your ability in being able to work out your things in that shed! Visualise your perfect work space and shed, and do it, make it a reality!

Donation Day!

Yesterday was Donation Day. I didn't get to give away much, but it was good to get my items out the door - even if they didn't fill up a whole bag.

But while I was out and about with my good friend, Elisabeth, I bought 3 balls of yarn. That's all I bought because I'm saving up for a new vacuum cleaner. My old one had bitten the dust in a such a way that I can't buy new parts for it - the company doesn't make bits for it or even vacuum cleaners anymore, and that's not a good thing. And for a 20 year old vacuum cleaner, well, I think it's not a good thing; they really should last longer. Such a pity they don't.

Well, we went off to the Variety1 store at Arndale next and I found a large plastic bucket there for just $15 and it's perfect to use as my donation box now. And I've thrown out my cardboard one. I've been able to fit in other things into the bigger one. The best thing is that I don't run into it as much as it's soft. I've already put in some prints I no longer use and other things as well. I'm looking forward to filling it up. 

What have you been up to this week to keep your place tidy? I haven't put in any Weekend Challenges lately because I think Easter and ANZAC Day can be busy times for everyone. So, next week, I'll bring them back. 

Memory Box

I have something called a 'Christmas Box' or a 'Memory Box'. This is a box I have which is filled with thing from my childhood I love and cherish. 

However, my 'Memory Box' has overflowed into two other boxes. This means, I'll have to start looking for another box - or a small suitcase - to fit my things into. This will make me throw out the three boxes I no longer need. 

Now, that's not a bad deal, right? 

Well, I hope anyway.

I've been donating things bit by bit this year, and it's going well. However, I've had a few problems with how the donations have been handled.

Recently, I donated some glass jars and other items and the young lady who took my bag upended the whole thing into a shopping trolley; instead of pulling things out and placing them in the bottom of the trolley carefully. When she came back to me with my reusable bag, I told her that two of the larger items were glass bottles and 'I hope they were broken when you threw them into the trolley.' she stared at me, asking 'What?' I took a deep breath and looked around for a supervisor who was over-seeing this young woman's actions, and called out to somebody I recognised there, 'In that trolley, over there, is some donations. But be careful, you might come across a couple of broken glass bottles. This young woman threw them in there without checking if there was anything fragile in it.' This person looked shocked at first, then glared at the young woman and shook their head, 'My god, what's wrong with you.' 
I didn't say anything else, just walked away. She had to be dealt with. But I got this same young woman at the check out and she was smarmy to me there, stuffing up my order, 'Oh, oops, my fingers slipped, sorry, you don't owe us '$47.95. It's only $14.95... he..he.' 

Sometimes I wonder about what happens with the young people who have to work for their unemployment or welfare benefits. Are they thinking they can sit back and it'll come in without working for it? And working at a local charity is a good thing to have on your CV. 

Well, until my next post, I hope you're going well with your place. And I also hope you haven't had a bad problem with your local charity as I have. 

Donation Day

Yesterday was donation day for me and another friend of mine, Elisabeth. We headed off for coffee at our usual haunt and then went to Bunnings to score some cheap plants... very cool.

Then, it was time to drop off some donations to Life Line Super Store at Logan Central. We looked around there for a little while and I scored a couple of things, nothing too expensive, but thing I haven't seen anywhere else. 
It's always nice to get out into the op-shops when you haven't been to them in a while.

But then, it's good to get home and work out where to put the things you've bought too. I bought a cribbage board and had to rub furniture polish into it to get its shine back before finding out where I had put my card games. I cleaned out that drawer and put the cards back and then added in the board. It's good to find that I've got that drawer clean now.

Then, there were 3 vinyls I bought which I've added to my collection on discogs and I've added into my real collection - now just to get in and clean them too. 

I also bought 2 Tupperware containers - old ones - and I washed them up and did out my Tupperware when I wanted to find a spot for them. It turns out I have just enough of this stuff to work in my place. Yeah, after doing it out last year, I'm not doing too badly with it all. 

The good thing is that bag by bag, my house is getting cleaned out - even if it's small loads which are being moved out. I mean, I donated a candle and replaced it with a hand-made candle-holder I bought from a local artist. It's something I'm working on in my house; to fill my home with classic items I'll use. I'm hoping to clean out the video tapes and get the put onto dvd in the next year or so one by one... and get rid of the VCR tapes. So, how's your cleaning up going? All well? I hope so.