DCOTD: Un-excused absence

Slacked off again. Bad kitty. No sardine.

Photo: By Clavecin. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Aack!

11:30? When did that happen? OK, gotta find junk, gotta find junk... OK, there we go.

Target: Bathroom

Casualties:

• A tube of face cleanser that smells nice but made red irritated spots on my face.
• A concealer wand. I'm never going to use it.
• And, hey! I just remembered, I gave away the remains of a tiny decant of Fendi Theorema, because I bought myself a bottle.

Girly Potions: Gone!

Photo of cosmetics spoon by Rama. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Phoning It In

Well, it is one thing.

Target: Hunter-gatherer.

Casualties:

• Another gift bag.

Gift Bag: Trashed!

Photo: ETC Corp. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Post-Christmas Miscellaneous

Not much excitement, but it's stuff gone:

Target: Post-Christmas chaos.

Casualties:

• Christmas package boxes.
• A gift bag. We tend to keep these until summer and then declutter them; this time, I decided to eliminate the delay.
• Yams and duck and brussels sprouts eaten. Seriously. We have a bad habit of keeping leftovers until they turn furry. So I'm giving myself credit for eating these before the fur arrived.

Pending:

• Three self-help type books.

Lessons Learned:  

• If you know from experience that it's going to go, dump it before it gets dusty or furry or buried deep in a box. It's much easier that way.

Guilt Rejection:

• I've never yet found gift bags when it was time to use them. So, feh. Toss 'em.

Boxes: Recycled!
Gift Bags: Trashed!
Food: Eaten!

Photo: Kelvin Kay. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Excused Absence

We threw another party! Woohoo!

I still consider the fact that we entertain at all to be a major accomplishment, and perhaps also evidence that we've been taken over by aliens. So I'm pleased, and disconcerted, at the same time.

Photo by Tama Leaver. Wikimedia Commons. 

DCOTD: Back on track!

I didn't declutter on Christmas either. Bad me.

So it's time to get back to basics. That means, get rid of at least one extra thing ("extra" meaning that ordinary everyday trash doesn't count) every day. Not a boxful, not a bagful, not a roomful, just a minimum of one.

Target: Hunter/gatherer run.

Casualties:

• One pair of socks.

Pending:

• Three murder mysteries, added to the sell/donate pile.

Socks: Trashed!

Photo: By Lienhard Shulz. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Un-excused Absence

Thursday, there was no decluttering, and no entertaining to excuse this failure. And I didn't even post! (I'm backdating this to place it in the correct position in the log.)

This slacking must stop!

(And, no, the picture has nothing whatsoever to do with this post. But isn't it great?)

Picture: Wikimedia Commons

DCOTD: Excused Absence

There was no decluttering today. But we had a Christmas party!

I find myself excusing the lack of decluttering. We declutter to make our home more usable by ourselves and by our friends. And a party is a major incident of, well, using it. Decluttering is prep, party is implementation. So no decluttering is required on party day.

So I'm off. There are cookies.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Dead Food

Target: The refrigerator

Casualties:

• Jars of jam and jelly of unknown age.
• Chinese takeout of known but excessively advanced age.
• Tandoori sauce of...you get the idea.
• Barbecue sauce.
• Cookie dough.
• Furry leftovers.
• An inch of olive oil.
• Half an inch of honey.

Dead Food: Trashed!

Photograph: By Liftarn. Wikimedia Commons.

Links: Clutter and Hoarding and Housekeeping, Oh, My!

I'm on vacation (woohoo!) and therefore have some time to flesh out the blog a bit. So, some handy links, soon to be in a link list:

• One of the best decluttering, as opposed to hoarding, forums is the Decluttering, Organizing & Simplifying forum at Mothering.com.
• On the other hand, Squalor Survivors is one of the best sites for dehoarding. At least, it always used to be, back when I was closer to the hoarding side of this pond, and I don't see why it shouldn't still be.
• I'm only a few posts in, but Confessions of a Hoarder looks very good.
• Although it never quite worked for me, many people swear by Flylady for advice that drives them to get their home under control.
• Other folks swear by Sandra Felton and her Messies concept.
• I always liked Don Aslett's books, though they look like the kind of book I'd hate. He doesn't seem to have a clutter-related site (his website is about his cleaning company), but there's a post here that points to some information and an interview.

Photo: By 4028mdk09. Wikimedia Commons.

Answers: Rambling about Definitions

It occurs to me to clarify my definitions of cluttering and hoarding - or, really, decluttering and dehoarding. I'm not claiming that these are the right definitions, only that these are the ones that I'm using in my rambling in this blog.

For me, decluttering is an only moderately emotional process of evaluating what you use and what you can get rid of, forming storage strategies, choosing priorities, arranging disposal of stuff that didn't make the priority cut, and so on.

Decluttering can be emotional, occasionally very emotional - nobody enjoys informing themselves that they haven't used the much-loved cookie cutter collection in ten years, and perhaps it's time to consider passing it on so that it's possible to keep the food processor in the kitchen instead of on top of the dryer - but the emotion is not overwhelming or paralyzing.

Hoarding, or perhaps I should say dehoarding, is the much more emotional process of learning to tear away an overstrong connection to stuff - some stuff, or all your stuff. It's the process of learning that you're not going to die, or be an evil person, if you get rid of that stuff.

At least, that's how I see it.

For now, this blog is more focused on decluttering. I have hoardish thoughts about some of my stuff, but there's a lot of other stuff to get rid of before I get down to that bedrock.

DCOTD: Kitchen Cleanout

Cleaning continues. Insufficient decluttering continues. Ah, well.

Target: Kitchen

Casualties:

• Rock-hard brown sugar.
• All those Chinese takeout soy and mustard packets.

Useless Food: Trashed!

Photo: By Lienyearcck. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Christmas cleaning continues

Target: That last messy room.

I should note that when I say "last", I don't mean that the decluttering effort is done just as I start the blog. Far from it. We've done a lot of decluttering, but there's still tons of stuff in the garage and "attic" just waiting to expand into the house.

And the storage areas of the house are all full to the gills. My goal is to thin them to at least thirty percent empty at least once a year. That way, they can slowly fatten up between thinnings, without spilling over into other areas.

Casualties:

• Bunches of Christmas light boxes. I never fold the lights up all nice into the box at the end of the season anyway, so I'll just stuff the lights into Ziplocs at the end of the season.
• Boxes from flats of bottled drinks that we've been keeping junk in. Apparently I thinned the junk sometime in the past few months, because I was able to compress a bunch of half-empty boxes into full boxes and break down and recycle the resulting empties.

That's about all. None of this feels like "real" decluttering, because it's packaging, but, well, it had volume, it wasn't everyday trash, and it's gone.

Packaging: Trashed and recycled.

Photo: Copyright BrokenSphere. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Miscellaneous again

I spent much of today cleaning and tidying, without a lot of focus on decluttering. The master bedroom and the back room are tidy and dusted and draped with little white lights. The kitchen is decent, though more work is needed tomorrow. The tidiness of my den and the living room have been maintained. I'm one room and one bathroom away from Christmas tidiness.

But, again, not a lot of decluttering focus. I had to study the overflowing trashcans to see if I dumped anything that qualifies.

Target: Everywhere

Casualties:

• Bubble wrap, brown paper, and cardboard that's been packaging something that's been waiting to be unpackaged and used. Unpackaged and used happened. So does it count? I decree that it does.
• Um... well... that's about it. Oh, there was other packaging, and recycled soda bottles, and cardboard, but that's all normal everyday disposal. So I'm not counting it.

Packaging: Trashed and Recycled.

Photo: Smial. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: The Den

We're on vacaaaaaaaaation! Woohoo!

For some reason, vacation generally means Deep Tidying. Deep Tidying means that I actually go through entire shelves and drawers and baskets and boxes, and even dust them. Oh, my.

Target: My den. My den is a little room about the size of a medium-sized bathroom. In this room, I store a large percentage of my books. And some fabric and patterns. And my jewelry and scarves. And perfume and decant bottle and funnels and baggies and atomizers. And the boxes for every perfume bottle I own. And some vases.

It's pretty orderly after this evening's tidying, and actually has some (very small) empty spaces on the shelves. I will shortly put up Christmas lights. Yay!

Casualties:

• A half-trashcan of miscellaneous papers, receipts, wrappings, cardboard boxes. Normally I wouldn't count these, but since they've been lurking in the depths of the den for months, I'm decreeing that they count.

Pending:

• One paperback
• One children's book

Both in the pile of books to sell or give away.

Trash: Trashed!

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Nothing

Ack! Missed a day!

Not only did I fail to post, I forgot to get rid of anything*. I'm backdating this post so that it'll be linked to the correct day. But it's half past midnight right now, and nothing got decluttered.

Ah, well. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Actually, today is tomorrow.

(*Anything extra. Normal everyday trashcan stuff doesn't count as DCOTD, by my rules, because I get rid of that as part of my daily routine anyway.)

Photo: Fsphil. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Cardboard

So what are the rules of this game? Does getting rid of recently arrived packaging count? Does getting rid of stuff count if I didn't do it all myself or it wasn't all mine?

I decree that anything counts if I know, from past experience, that that thing might sit around the house for a while. And if I helped at all in getting it out of the house. So, yes. I may raise my standards later. Or I may not.

Target: Garage

Casualties:

• A whole bunch of recently arrived cardboard boxes. Yes, Himself pushed to get them into the car trunk for recycling. I'm taking a share of the credit anyway. So there.

Boxes: Recycled!

Photo of papier mache masks by Doron. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Misc

Panic! Panic! Eighteen minutes! Panic! Something's gotta goooooo!

Target: Hunter gatherer again.

Casualties:

• A nylon compressible backpack thingie with a shredded seam.
• Expired echinacea and Claritin.
• Free Gift With Purchase toothpaste of unknown age.
• A Pack O Bobby Pins. 
• Empty pill bottle.

Lessons Learned:  

• Start decluttering earlier in the day?

Guilt Rejection:

• "You could use those..." Oh, never mind. I can't dredge up guilt about bobby pins or unrepairable nylon. I just can't.

Misc Misc: Trashed!

Photo: By Shakko. Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Bookshelves

A pretty sad haul today.

Target: The house. A hunter-gatherer run around the shelves.

Casualties:

• A package of non-waterproof earplugs that I bought when I wanted waterproof earplugs.
• Sample packs of Tea of Unknown Age.

Pending:

• Ten used paperback murder mysteries, added to the Books To Sell shelf. They don't count as gone until they permanently leave the house.

Lessons Learned:

• None, really. Erroneous small junk is going to appear now and then. And the murder mysteries are standard practice - I buy them used, I read them, I sell them right back again.

Guilt Rejection:

• "That stuff is Perfectly Good!" Yeah. Don't care. Neither item is going to have any impact on anyone's life. (OK, maybe there are some people who have to work in noisy environments and can't afford earplugs. I'm unlikely to find those people.)

Misc Misc: Trashed!

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

DCOTD: Bathroom Potions

So, let's get right to the decluttering, shall we? Only seventeen minutes to get the DCOTD done!

Target: Bathroom

Casualties:

• Five empty Bath Potion bottles.
• A deodorant stick with an intolerably perky fragrance.
• A lovely and expensive jar of hand cream in one of my favorite scents that has gone bad.
• More stale hand cream, and still more stale hand cream, and a stale Bee Bar. (What's a Bee Bar? Solid hand cream.)  
• Three Free Gifts With Purchase of... hand cream. OK, hand cream, face cream, and body cream. What's the difference? I suspect that I'm supposed to know.
• Free Gifts With Purchase of makeup, powder, lipgloss, blush, and "fine liquid hand wash". Oh, and exfoliator. And lip plumper. I'm keeping one concealer stick. That's as close as I ever get to actually using makeup.

Lessons Learned:  

• I don't use hand cream until the skin on my hands is threatening to peel off, usually only when it's the depths of winter and I'm cooking a lot. So I need to stop buying the expensive stuff, and if I unwarily accept a Free Gift With Purchase, give it away fast if I'm ever going to.
• I don't use makeup at all. Same as above. (So how, you may ask, do I get all those Free Gifts With Purchase if I don't Purchase makeup? It's the perfume.)

Guilt Rejection:

• "You paid good money for that hand cream!" Yeah, and it's stale. The end.
• "You could have donated those to a woman's shelter." There was a Cathy cartoon about diapers that ended with the phrase 'Buy disposable and send a contribution to Greenpeace.' If I feel guilty about not supporting a women's shelter, I will write a check.

Cosmetic jumble: Trashed!

Picture: Wikimedia Commons.

Meta: Welcome To The Clutter Log

I have another blog, ChickenFreak's Obsessions. That's my main blog. It's where the fried chicken and perfume are.

I post about a lot of thoughts over there, including thoughts about decluttering and hoarding. But when I considered posting about the really nitty-gritty aspects of decluttering ("finally gave away all those extra gloves"), it just didn't seem to fit. I think that asking people who are mainly interested in perfume or gardening to read what will eventually be a daily chronicle of decluttering would be excessive.

So here we are. Blog number two. Ta da!

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.