Moving on up

to the East side, or actually merging this back into my home blog.

More paper recycling. I have been trying to take Flylady's 15 minute declutter to heart and one of my constant issues is paper build up. These went into the recycling bag and I won't take them
(and the rest I have gathered since Sunday) down to the Keller until Thursday night; maybe I will follow some other examples and start weighing my decluttering to see how much I am lightening the house:-).

(I am not showing the normal paper recycling— the daily newspaper, cereal boxes, yogurt containers, advertising sections and so on.)

Worn out

One of the interesting parts of not buying new clothes is that clothes that still fit actually wear out: the dye leaves the fabric and washing actually degrades the weave enough for holes to open.
This is the 3rd of my Target t-shirts to hit the trash: my drawers are getting emptier!

Paper multiplies when allowed respite.

I'm a little sad that I can't post the full bag of papers that we de-cluttered today (they had already been taken to recycling): this is just what I found during the commercial break when I was watching Bones. (Our Valentine's Day was watching TV together— we will try for a movie out next weekend, when it will be easier to get a babysitter.)

It seems that no matter how often we go through the stacked paperwork (which grows on a weekly basis) that after we have dealt with what needs to be dealt with and filed what needs to be filed, we have lots of paperwork to be recycled, shredded and/or discarded.

Sometimes it feels like a Sisyphean task, but today I had a pleasant reminder that we are actually reaching deeper into the piles than we have before, even though they grow weekly: I found a check written to me by a friend in the US two years which she had sent to me here and which I had clearly not sent back to the US to be deposited. So after a quick e-mail conversation, we have plans to meet up again this year in NY, where she can hand me a replacement and save herself the cost of an airmail stamp!:-)

These socks aren't made for walking

because they have been looking for their mates for an indeterminate period of time. Twelve unpaired socks left the house today and my sock bag is the lighter for it.

Accumulating Declutter

It's been a while since I've posted here, but that's because I have been accumulating my declutter.

Today I dropped off 54 books that accumulated in my to-be-donate/given away box, while on Monday I dropped off two overflowing bags of clothing at the local charity shop.

And yesterday, these hit the trash. Strangely enough, I had put them in the trash on Wednesday, but my youngest saw them and took them out (even though they are too small and have been replaced), so when I put them back, I made certain that they were thoroughly covered and no longer visible.