The minimalist quiche

[educatingarti]

This is a new thread to replace the minimalist journey one which is nearly full!

They clean everything Tallulah particularly when children draw on walls

Just spent 30 min sorting through bathroom stuff - managed to toss an entire bin bag of out of date medications, manky storage boxes, random toiletries / half used packets of tissues / assorted halves of toothbrush holders / etc. Quite pleased with the amount of stuff out. Now I need to rehome the keep stuff. I'm trying not to buy any organisational boxes until I know what I want to keep and where I want to keep it, which means lots of homeless bits still about. However, I'm making progress. Maybe tomorrow I will actually manage to finish painting the bathroom!

DH started to put away some of the DVDs today -and put aside a small pile to donate. Progress. I need to go through the few I have to see if any are worth still hanging on to. I suspect not. We have netflix, so I can always find something on there should I ever have time to watch a movie again [dreaming of pre-DC free time emoticon].

Incidently my mother brought me an entire carrier bag of eraser blocks when she was last here. They are fab and I am hopeful that they will be of great help keeping my white walls white!

Progress is being made, reluctantly by DDs but OH is at last on board. I think finding a sibling's cricket bat helped, they both left home more than 30 yrs ago, haven't house shared at all, we moved abroad more than a decade ago, so WTF is his cricket bat doing cluttering up our home? T'was a lightbulb moment

So today, halved the number of teddy bears in my room (I am an adult btw) I used to collect limited editions when I was working and could justify the expense. Of course this means people buy me crap perfectly good run of the mill teddy bears because "Adora likes teddy bears". I'm now back to two shelves with just my posh bears. Fabric I bought at parent's insistence to make a table cover that I never wanted more than 20 years ago, is going to a lady I know who makes anything out of anything. The table is also going because the heat here has damaged it.

Kitchen was decluttered a couple of years ago so now I'm just keeping on top of removing damaged bits. I had a gentle word with DD1 about making things. Basically she used bottle tops out of the recycling to write names for all of us. So now we have 30 odd bottle tops on the side in the kitchen which makes me a tad stabby while I'm trying to keep surfaces clear so she now understands that while I love that she wants to do these things I need to get rid because, frankly, WTF am I going to do with these bits and pieces all over the house

Shoes have been culled, old school books are next in my sights.

Old cushions, some relegated to recycling, others kept because I really do love the size and pattern and would like to use them when we move. If they don't fit in a smaller house I'll get rid, I promise

Off to the garage now as OH found some chocolate that needs decluttering

The cricket bat made me smile adora. I can imagine my parents would have done similar. Except everything of ours was given to us when we left home. Although I have to admit to having some things in storage there which I had forgotten about. i've never had a record player since way before I left home, so I might just have to consider selling any records I left there. I've also an old bike there which I keep meaning to free cycle. But sentimentally I can't and my niece has asked to use it when she's at my parents in the holidays. I think part of that is I've had that bike since I was 11 and used it right up to the day I left home at 26. It owes me nothing and now we have a shed at ours, I have a shiny new bike.

Sokmonsta I know what you mean about the bike and I'm sure lot's of people have stuff back at mum and dad's. PILs have stuff of OH's which he's told them he doesn't want and he's tried to collect it but they suspect he just wants to get rid of it (he does) so they won't hand it over. They really can't let go of anything. This is why I'm getting the DDs on board with our decluttering, I want them to learn to let go and feel that freedom of doing so, which they did yesterday after dealing with just one cupboard. It had enough contents to fill 4/5 cupboards and now it's actually useable

Today OH has taken tons to recycling, there's too much to fit in the car, I'll take more tomorrow. We got rid of kitchen style bar stools yesterday too, OH put them on the pavement with a sign saying Free, please take, and they went. I have a one in/one out policy now. We can't buy things like furniture (FIL's particular fav) or anything that needs space unless we get rid of something to make space for it. It's working.

Adora - what excellent progress! My parents keep everything too - my mother actually had two bedside tables stacked on each other when they didn't have room after 'downsizing' to a 4 bed. She has started to get rid of some things now that she realises that we don't want their furniture (no matter how much it cost) when they die. We have our own furniture!

Today I've collected a box of random things to take to the charity shop - old canister set, old coffee maker we don't use, a few cookbooks I'm hoping DH won't notice are gone and the DVDs we culled this weekend. I've tossed in a couple of toys that don't get much use as well. The coup is donating a big happyland type train and mountain set with all the cars and people. It takes up so much space and as Dh won't agree to getting rid of the horrible giant train set from DGPs, this one has to go! So two boxes and a big ikea blue bag of stuff packed in the car and ready to go.

How, how, how do we still have so much stuff!!?? I feel at times I'm trying to hold back an avalanche and it is exhausting. I wish DH would get on board a bit more instead of clinging on to every little thing. I don't want to be the bad guy getting rid of stuff, but I also don't want to spend all my time cleaning, organising and putting stuff back. Bleurgh.

Triumph! So much good stuff going on here. Today I had a monumental dc nap which allowed me to organise and photograph the aftermath of the clothes sale stuff so that my friend can decide what she wants before it all goes out and also packed up the stereo ready to go tomorrow after selling it on eBay last night. I feel on the precipice of relief!

Not managing so much here! I did do a little bit of decluttering last night while watching obsessive compulsive cleaners!

Nothing out of the house today but I have identified things to go in the sale I'll be doing in June and put them in the same box in the basement.

There are also some things to go in the wheelie bin but I'm not making a special trip out: too cold and wet!!

This thread has reminded me that DH has a huge stamp collection that he inherited which is stored at ILs because the person who bequeathed them died when we lived in a different country. There are boxes and boxes of stamp albums. No one ever looks at them as no one in the family has a passion for stamps. DH did ask his parents to sell them but they were concerned they'd not be given the true value (because no one has any idea of the true value) and because they had the storage space they have kept them. Now I've remembered their existence I will have to work on DH to sell them sooner rather than later. It doesn't matter if we don't get the true value as long as we don't end up with them in our house one day.

There is some great work going on here still. I have not done much lately. Small amounts are leaving the house to keep up with my lent promise but no major work.

I had hoped to do some stuff yesterday but fell over in the garden and badly bruised my hip as well as getting a lump on my forehead. I'm at work today and in absolute agony. I hope by Friday (my next day off) I'll be feeling a bit better and can tackle one of the cupboards that I haven't got to yet.

Lemon I hope you feel better very soon.

PILs have already palmed furniture off on us. About 15 years ago they gave us a very long sideboard they'd had since the 60's. I told OH we didn't have space because we already had a sideboard and he did the "oh, let them give it to us" thing. It went in his garden shed because there was not space inside the house. He doesn't have a shed now and I don't know how he disposed of it. We currently have their old rug which OH has had to put in the study because there's nowhere else to put it.

I do struggle still at times, but I'm much better at letting go than I was. My problem stems from insecurity, which I've dealt with but little pockets of memory open up and I find myself thinking that I might need this or that when I know in reality that I really don't. I had a set of 6 mugs, a gift from my mother that was was supposed to be for display because "they're hand painted, you can't wash them up" they broke along with everything else when the kitchen cupboards came off the wall - don't ask- and I've managed the last 5 years without them.

I've realised I can't take the recycling today as I'm waiting in today, but it's in the car ready to go.

One thing I'm dreading about the potential move back to UK, if we can sell here, is ILs being able to buy us gifts again. It's awkward where we live so the sets of two glasses, brandy & Irish coffee etc, and little nick nacs have stopped arriving and we've recycled what we had and I don't want the yearly supply to start up again. Even before I realised I needed to declutter my sister bought me lovely miniature glass things, twice, and when she said there are 17 in the set I actually froze.

I probably sound like the DIL from hell, but I can't see why I should live in someone else's clutter and make myself ill by doing so. Plus my parents are both deceased so there's no more crapula filtering down from my side

Oh gosh, Adora, that would drive me insane. Not DIL from hell at all.

Well, I had a productive day today. I had sorted out loads of books last week and put them into boxes ready for charity shop. All well and good, but it's actually getting there that's the prob when you have two toddlers in tow and need both hands to manage the boxes and can't manage a pushchair and a 3 yo on top of that.

But I managed it today when the nanny had them and also decluttered a bin bag full of clothes. It's difficult;' I try so hard to keep clothes to a minimum, "filing" the right size for the next dc to grow into, then some kind soul gives me a load of clothing for about the third child in. Which is totally superfluous, they hang around for ages, I end up donating and feeling guilty.

I've been clearing out cloths. I was in Dunelm Mill at the weekend and they had microfibre cloth packs for 99p, so I bought a pack -they will be my bathroom cloths to give everything a wipe over in the morning. I had a canvas bag full of cloths under the sink in the kitchen - all linty ones, or those yellow dusters, so I've thrown out the whole bag. I have some microfibre cloths for glass, stainless steel etc, and normal dishcloths for washing up.

I also went through my tea towel drawer, I could barely shut it. Now I have four towels and four tea towels, the rest for the charity bag - what is it with people bringing back tea towels from where they've been on holiday?

Actually we have a dishwasher and leave the stuff we've washed up by hand to drip dry, so it's not like we use them that much anyway.

I need to go through DD2 clothes to sort out what fits. She's at school now so don't need too many casual clothes.

I cleared out the cupboard over the stairs on Saturday. DH built it last year, and we've not had any storage before, so I've been happily throwing everything in it and shutting the door. I store wrapping paper, jiffy bags etc, DDs craft sets, paperwork, large casserole dishes for occasional entertaining, picnic bags, flasks etc, spare presents for random party invitations in it.
Now it's all sorted and you can actually see the floor!

Tidying jigsaws with ds today. Since we're not doing much as also clearing up regularly after a poorly baby.

Adora thanks for the well wishes. I'm feeling a lot better today, most of the pain has gone. I've had a stressful week though as have been to a meeting with the deputy headteacher today about DS2s behaviour in the playground. He is only 5! Anyway I think we are sorted on that for now.

I hope to do some major clearing on Friday. I would like to tackle something big as I feel I haven't done much for ages.

mazzi I should probably clear out some tea towels as we allow things to air dry too. That is what I love about this thread, it makes you think about things that you hadn't previously.

Sokmonsta hope DS feels better soon

mazzi2fly well done on that cupboard.

I'm tired today, was out most of yesterday, so I'm taking a break. Tomorrow I'll take another car load of recycling. We have someone collecting excess furniture next week. Despite being tired I feel so much better for having cleared a load of stuff and got the rest of the family on board.

Yes, we air dry too and randomly end up using the ugliest, most threadbare of hand me down tea towels all the time. Time to chuck out and unearth the decent ones!

That'll teach me. I do some online shopping - a winter coat for me that I've always wanted and was at a fab price, and a replacement pair of mitts for dd, and I get 2 free gifts to re home. Never before have I looked a gift horse in the mouth, never mind book it into the knackers yard!

Hi everyone, I've been watching the thread but not posting much as I haven't been decluttering much! I do use tea towels, and find that the souvenir type ones are generally bigger and better than the normal supermarket-bought ones. I have a mixture of the two kinds though, probably about eight in total, which I'm quite happy with. They fit in the drawer nicely so they can stay.

I haven't had much success with ebay recently, have been listing things to start at 99p hoping it will attract bids, but have only sold a couple of things, so the hassle has not been worth the £ really. I have photographed a few more items that I haven't got around to listing yet, maybe I ought to have a look at some of the ebaying threads on here to motivate me. After all, there is a wedding to be paid for in May, and a baby due in August.

I had hoped to declutter some old winter clothes that have seen better days, but I'm still using them! We had gale force winds howling all night, and it's the same today but with added snow. It's alternating between being dry-ish and starting to settle, and then turning all sleety and soggy again. So the fire is lit, the TV is on, and I am not leaving the house!

Morning all. I was hoping to have some energy today to tackle something big, especially as both DSes are at after school things today so I have an extended day for getting on with things.

However the snowy blizzards have made me feel somewhat lethargic. I can't do nothing though, so I have cleared out my tea towels and cloths. The drawer that they are in is now neat and tidy, and we don't have too many. We had a one from Australia, that I have no idea who it might have come from.

I am going to try and motivate myself when DD goes down for her nap.

Afternoon everyone! Have done pathetically little for the past fortnight, but decided to buy myself a shredder today. I do all my banking and everything online, so rarely have much in the way of important paperwork these days and am quite trigger-happy at recycling junk mail and artwork. However, I have box files full of credit card statements, mobile phone bills, etc stretching back over several years and addresses, an identity fraudsters dream! So they're finally going. If I'm feeling particularly ruthless I may also present STBXH with all his tax crap and let him store it himself. Ooh, and I could 'lend' him the shredder at the same time so I don't have to store that either...

Good thinking Teddimac. We have paperwork going back eons which needs culled. Ironically the only things we have shredded might have been useful for a PPI claim had we kept hold of it. Never mind.
My ebaying is doing quite well but I have had a few higher value items on recently. I'm now back to BNWT baby clothes which are going for not much more than £1. But I am spurred on by my PayPal account balance. Tenfold less than Queen's, but still a useful amount!

Still got a poorly twin. So the most decluttering done at the moment is in the laundry basket. Unfortunately this means that the clean washing is piling up on a sofa. But I'm still being ruthless when I get 5 minutes. All sorts of tat from kids party bags is making its way out of their hidey holes and into the recycle bin. It irritates the p out of me but I know they enjoy them.

I've been really struggling today. My dad is in hospital at the moment following a fall and breaking his hip and the care he has been getting has been appalling ( way too close to North Staffs type stuff for comfort) so since finding stuff out last night I was too angry and upset to sleep well. I spent this morning contacting the duty Matron at the hospital. We have agreements that what happened was unacceptable, promises that things will be done properly from now on and that an investigation will be held. I feel somewhat better but still on edge as it is hard to 100% believe them. I've hardly managed to get any work done let alone housework and the flat is rapidly collecting dirty mugs on various surfaces. I need to do food shopping but haven't done that either!

Oh well - time to round up the mugs into the dishwasher at least!

Educatingarti I hope your dads care is improving and you are getting some support as well. Well done on reading the riot act.