Paper

Went through pikes of paper work and pulled out the trash and no longer needed- paper recycling and garbage.

The Crayon Box

It seems that every week or so I look through the bin the children keeps their pens, crayons, markers and colored pencils in. These are dried-out and unusable. I seem to keep throwing them out, but the bin never gets emptier.

It's a miracle!

One pocket at a time

Trash

Just grabbing things and throwing them away. The hope is, if I do it every day, one day there will be less of it!

Treasure Kiste

Thing1 made this treasure chest at a party and used it for several years. Now the hinges are stripped and she has a new jewelry box and this one heads for the Orange bin, where small pieces of wood go.

Odds and Ends

Just clearing out some drawers. Everything went into the trash

Tidying Up

Sometimes decluttering is not just about discarding things: sometimes, it means organizing them. The girls' hair ornaments are a constant struggle. Today, I made a small dent.


I started with everything here, and what remains is this one, organized, group. Everything else was discarded as either broken, unnecessary, or causing damage to the childrens' hair.

Getting ready for tax season

More papers to recycling

Strangely, when I start looking for paper to put the taxes together, I always find an awful lot that can be recycled.

Paper to recycling

A bit of this and a bit of that.

 A bit of this and a bit of that. T2 constructed a tower and we took a photo before it "went away".









A bit of electronic debris to the Orange Bin.




And some worn out clothes to the Orange Bin as well.

Still going.

Even though this blog has been quiet, the decluttering has been continuing.

1. Childrens' tchotchkes in the trash
2. Clothes in the donation bin.
3. Clothing to be recycled
4. Papers in the paper recycling
5. More donated clothing
6. and a broken kite in the trash.
   

Pens and paper

We went through the children's school and art supplies and these pens are dry. To the garbage, with the broken tchotcke as well.

More paperwork pulled out of the piles for the recycling bin.

Trolley and Telephone

This numbering system isn't really working for me. So now I find a bunch of photos that I haven't posted, but they would be numerically incorrect if I posted them where they belong. I'll have to consider what to do about that. So, this would be 63,64, 65? A broken child's suitcase/trolley, a broken handy and the concomitant attachments. These went to the recycling hof, where the usual folks took the electronics (I assume to refurbish and resell).

Broken Umbrella62

How annoying- this umbrella was a favor at a party I was at last month, I pulled it out for the first time, and it was defective. wasn't certain if it was recyclable, so in the garbage it went.

20-61. Clothes and more.

20-22. A belt, a pair of pants so unfashionable s to not be donatable, and a pair of pants (sob) that T2 has outgrown just since January!

23-32. 3 bibs, 2 burp clothes, a baby hooded towel, 2 baby washcloths and a crib mattress cover. To belisted for donation.

33. A broken carry-on, dropped in the recycling hof.

34-60, and 61: 26 foam letters :-), and a memory game to be left outside with a Zu Verschenk sign

Shoes, books and beeswax 12-17

• A pair of house shoes too well-loved to donate:12
  

• Some beeswax and comb (really!) from an apiary that the children visited. 13
  

• Two large infant books to hand along (14,15)

• A DVD of a TV show I recorded long ago (and now own the season of)16 and although that may just seem like paper clutter, there are magazines (and toy catalogs) down there that I have winkled from the girls' bookshelves (as well as the Swiss Miss box that I finally cleared out- stocking the remaining packs in my tea box) 17.
  

Bags and more (6-11)

• 6-9. Bags given to my daughter's kita. I won't count the many plastic bags seen here, in the canvas bag- I accumulate them and pass them along to the kita on a standard basis. I'm counting the 4 permanent bags, including the canvas one in which they are packed, which I passed on today (after asking if they would like them).

• 10. I wouldn't normally count this (plastic container), but since I have had it here in Germany, brought from the US, for 4 years and emptied it out into another, permanent gift wrap container, I will.

• 11. One might think this was normal trash, but since the girls held onto it for 6 months, removal counts as decluttering.
  

A few things

I still wonder how it can be possible to pass stockings down: my girls can barely make it through a season with them. To the orange bin.

A crafts project dissolved and a bow to the trash.

On the way out.

Before we get to Disney, it's important to know exactly how many Princess shoes we have in stock: it would be silly to get a pair that we already have. Here are two left shoes and a right, all unmatched, all too small: into the Orange bin they go.
Below, a bag of stones gathered from various jacket pockets and doors: into the garbage.
And a few torn and out-grown clothes, also to the orange bin.

Tidying Up

It's been a few months since we have done a thorough tidying in the girls'room. Since we are thinking about what they will need from the US, it seemed like a good time to go through and see what is actually still of use and what needs to be discarded, recycled or given away.

• So, here's a piece of electronics that is too young for the girls and
• too technologically obsolescent to be desired: one day outside with a note saying" Free for the taking", then the Orange bin.

Here are the crayons and pencils that I cleaned out of their art box.

• This entire bag is filled with broken pieces of toys, tchotchkes from Überaschungeier, toys from fast food chains or that come attached to children's magazines, and the equivalent.
• 
  

Here are various odds and ends, broken school materials, broken headphones, more tchotchkes.

• Here are magazines, catalogs and other printed material that has been cluttering up my shelves

Empty Boxes

Going through the seasonal turn over, getting rid of the broken boxes. In total, we took four of these to the recycling station.

Seasonal Change-over

Doing the standard seasonal change-over (as our heat kicked on this week) is a great time to pull clothes out that aren't worth packing away. All the clothes went to the Orange recycling bin.

• T2's favorite yellow dress bites the dust as I can't remove the paint stains after four separate attempts (with all kinds of stain removers)
• 3 more stained dresses
• 3 frayed outfits and
• some hand-me-down underwear that I felt was both too dingy and inappropriate for the age group
  

And here were a few damaged odds-and-ends of toys. I pulled them out of circulation for a few days to make certain the girls wouldn't notice then they went into the trash.