A couple that purges together . . .

. . . lives in a cleaner house.  I can’t guarantee you’ll stay together but at least you’ll have one less thing to disagree on.

For the first time in the 2011 de-cluttering effort, dear husband has really engaged in it.  He starts a new job in April after a very long period of unemployment. He has not updated his work clothes in years so he had to buy a bunch of new things so that he looked professional.  In the process of putting his new clothes away, we decided to clear out some of the old stuff.   He still had shirts from when we met – 8+ years ago.  And it isn’t like those shirts were new when we met so they’re probably 10 or more years old.  He wouldn’t wear them so they got shoved to the back of the closet – never to be seen again.  I did the first run through the shirts and pulled out about eight shirts.  I gave him the option to veto, and he only vetoed one.  Then he went through the shirts again, and then his shoes and his t-shirts.  We got rid of things that looked dated or worn out, stuff that didn’t fit right, and stuff that I deemed “high maintenance”.  Since I do the ironing, I prefer as many wrinkle-free and easy care shirts as we can have.  The result was 23 items to Goodwill and 16 items to the trash.  We ran out of time and energy before we could finish with all of his clothes, but that will do for now.  I love getting him involved in this sort of thing because it trips a switch and then he’s off a cleaning and purging binge.  We love getting rid of things.  I appreciate having a spouse who shares my enthusiasm for a clean streamlined house.  Being a team makes clearing out and maintaining order a lot easier on everyone.

The Great Luggage Clean Out

I was digging through the closets looking for the appropriate bag to take on a quick trip home a few weeks ago and was struck by how many travel bags we have.  It’s not like we travel a lot these days.  Since I had suitcases and bags stuffed in three closets, it was easy to lose sight of just how much we had and easy for things to go unused.  So I pulled out all the suitcases, duffel bags and garment bags and put them all together to decide which of them needed to go.  In all we had 12 bags – three medium size duffel bags, one large duffel bag, one extra large rolling duffel bag, three garment bags (two of these were recent Christmas gifts), one extra large rolling suitcase (big enough to transport a body in if you had a need for such an item), one overhead-sized rolling suitcase, one kids rolling suitcase, one small carry one suitcase.   Twelve bags seems excessive for three people who really don’t travel by air very often.  The following items are slated for removal - the garment bag with a busted zipper; the extra large suitcase since I haven’t used it in at least 5 years (and have no need to transport a body); the small carry-on suitcase (I’m pretty sure that my grandmother gave me this 25+ years ago); and the duffel bag that my husband got as a high school graduation gift (20 years ago!).  These four go into the yard sale pile.  We kept eight bags which still seems like a lot.  However, we use all of these bags and they don’t require a ton of space to store.  The three duffel bags and the two new garment bags will fit inside the one extra large rolling duffel leaving only one bag and two rolling suitcases needing a home.  All of it can be stored in a single closet freeing up the others which were crammed full.  Next up the extensive collection of other bags – tote bags, laptop bags, briefcases, make up bags and the like.

The luggage collection before . . .

Found Treasures

I love it when I discover something that I either forgot I had or I have a new use for.  As I have embarked on the great clean out of 2011, I have found all sorts of things that we forgot we had.  Many of them ended up at Goodwill or the trash; however, occasionally I have stumbled onto something of use.

We added a digital SLR to our collection of electronics about 18 months ago.  I love our camera and am enjoying learning how to take better pictures.  In the process, we have acquired new gear as needed to explore the craft.  As part of our great clean out, I dove into the old (film) camera stuff we still have shoved into a seldom used closet.  I remember looking through this stuff when we bought the DSLR.  At that point, I was so overwhelmed with what I didn’t know that I did not really appreciate what we had or how I would use it.  Now I have had a lot of time to play with the camera and look for ways to improve,.  So I went through our old stuff again, and found a lot of useful stuff - five new (to me) filters and two lens hoods.  The value of what I found in the closet is about $250 if I bought it new.  And I got it for free just by going through our closet!  I’m looking forward to taking our “new” treasures out for a spin this weekend.

Organization is contagious

Since I have zealously embarked on the re-organization and de-cluttering task, lots of stuff has changed around here.  One, there is less stuff and we’re looking for ways to continue the trend.  My daughter’s room has been the focus of some recent organizational mini-tasks.  I added some plastic drawer bins in her closet and labeled them with my trusty Brother P-Touch label maker.  She likes that she knows where to find her doll clothes and other items. I am quite sure that she is absorbing some cleaning and organization lessons although I have not made a serious effort to teach her.  Case in point, she bought herself a couple of Barbie dolls recently.  We liberated the Barbies from the cardboard, rubber bands and plastic and found that not only do we have two new Barbies, we have about a dozen other plastic accessories many of which are tiny.  I told her that we needed to make sure that we keep all the pieces together.  She replied, “I need a box for my Barbies, and you can put a label on it.”  Exactly!