Getting rid of one item a day thread number 14 – where we extract precious autumn leaves, rocks and twigs from our children

[stealthninjamummy]

Well I never thought I’d still be here, on the 14th thread where a bunch of mumsnetters get rid of one item a day while we slowly declutter and reorganise our houses.

It’s autumn and some of us have commented on our children’s beloved treasures that are coming in like conkers and precious twigs that have been named. This is the thread where we focus on sneaking these things out and getting the house ready for Christmas even if we don’t know what Christmas will be like this year.

New joiners are always welcome, just get rid of one item and let us know. We’ve all different issues and challenges and it’s nice to have a friendly chat with a fellow mumsnetter.

Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/4003927-Still-throwing-an-item-away-a-day-part-13?pg=1

And for 2020 some of us are also aiming to get rid of 2020 items!

Haha glad no one is telling me to him her.

The woman never turned up for the dolls house. She said after4. I text nicely and checked after 7, she said yes, I'm still in work. No further contact. Someone else enquired and now I'm not sure what to do

I expect I would plan to post on the baby doll but would not be organised enough to do it

I moved my sofa and decluttered an extraordinary quantity of dust, bits of scrap paper, toy packaging, paper clips, rubber bands etc.

I also discarded an old, solitary sachet of laxative found in the kitchen cupboard.

Still tidying and sorting. Have been able to declutter two cardboard boxes into the recycling trolley. The stuff in them was miscellaneous muddle, and my worst habit is stash-and-dash. The fewer containers I have, the better.

@SleepingStandingUp I would have to post the baby too. Maybe it would go as a large letter?

@SleepingStandingUp

Haha glad no one is telling me to him her.

The woman never turned up for the dolls house. She said after4. I text nicely and checked after 7, she said yes, I'm still in work. No further contact. Someone else enquired and now I'm not sure what to do

Maybe text her and ask if she still wants it as you have another interested buyer, and you want it to go asap as you need the space. Has she paid for it yet?

sleepingstandingup I would also tell the buyer that someone earn is interested and ask if she’s changed her mind.

I love that we all would post the baby. It’s almost as if we’re a bunch of sentimental women who don’t like throwing things away

Three outs so far (well charity shop pile) are two coffee cups and a ‘learn to write’ book. I have also thrown out the broken laundry basket. My new cheap Argos one is small, but I quite like it, so I am going to buy a second. So much for a ‘temporary’ solution - I predict it’ll take me five years to find one I like!

Day 84: person finally got back to me about the cds after not coming or answering my messages yesterday. She rearranged to collect today and guess what...no show! She then asked me to deliver them and then gave me obscure time slots. I literally just turned up when I could and dumped them on her doorstep. I actually felt like posting all 200 of them through her letterbox one at a time.

But I was so desperate to get rid of them.

Likewise stereo man hasn't replied even though in my desperation I offered to deliver and just asked that he let me know either way. No reply. What is wrong with people?! I even said I was due to give birth soon and I really needed it gone so could he just reply. Nothing.

But the good news is we have a warehouse in the town that takes furniture and electricals so I dropped it there.

Bad news I've trapped a nerve in my back and can't move at all now. I'm blaming these two no shows for that.

Not a lot done today. Spent the working day with19 one year olds, picked up DD from work, bought a new kettle, collapsed on sofa!
Out- assorted treats ddog doesn't like (fussy little beast)
Lots of bits of painted pottery done by dds over the years
A bag of recycling

In-new kettle as old one died this morning. Old one now cluttering the place up 🙄
Two Amazon parcels containing Christmas presents

Ah well, onwards and upwards!

@footprintsintheslow - really crap you were messed around so badly. Hope your back is feeling better soon - how long do you have left before the baby’s due?

I poked around in the fridge and discovered several things that were just about to go/had just gone OOD. I cooked the ham and it’s now in the fridge for sandwiches, then cooked the mince but couldn’t decide what to do with it so I’ve put it in the fridge and will probably make a pasta sauce with it tomorrow. I used up a bag of spinach in a pasta sauce and I froze some pork belly. So hopefully nothing wasted, but I wish I could learn to be more organised.

Not a great deal achieved apart from that, though I did gather up a lot of recycling from my kitchen and put it in the recycling bin outside. I might check a few cupboards and see if there’s anything obvious to be rehomed.

footprints that’s terrible. Were you giving them away free? I would’ve been inclined to advertise them again rather than drop them off. In fact I’d have been inclined to put the CDs in the wrong boxes and hope it annoyed her . That would drive me potty, when I looked through my CDs about a fortnight ago about a dozen were in the wrong cases and I am getting angry now even thinking about it.

katef it’s just one a day. Sounds like you had a brilliant day of decluttering. The kettle must be annoying. I can only get rid of mine at the tip and so would have to make an appointment to get rid of one item.

Today’s update: Made a start on shredding/ recycling the work paperwork, and went through another years worth of grocery delivery receipts to shred tomorrow/ recycle.

Advent calendar still hasn’t arrived so I am still annoyed with DH for ordering it late. Luckily DD hasn’t realised today is 1 Dec, but I am upset that the usual tradition of getting advent calendars and decorating the mantelpiece is delayed. Also worried about a relative who is having surgery tomorrow

@Miaowse I'm due 3rd January so it was a bit of a stretch saying I'm about to go into hospital (although I do have two hospital appointments this week to see if it's going to be brought forward).

@stealthninjamummy I totally agree I wanted the cds to go to anyone but her. But I'd posted them on our local freecycle page for free and she was the only person who responded. I always leave posts up until the items are collected so I knew I had no other takers normally you get a few people saying 'can I be next in line'. But this time I had no options.

Anyway they are gone. I feel slightly sick at the thought of getting rid of music as I used to be so passionate about it years ago. I also feel sick at the amount of money I've wasted on it and now left on that woman's doorstep!!!

Main thing is they are gone.

We’re lucky as I discovered our area runs a kerbside pick up for small electricals like kettles and also batteries and textiles. You can put them out in separate bags alongside your recycling bin.

Ooh not long to go at all - hope the rest of the pregnancy goes smoothly, Footprints.

We just leave electricals and metal bits out for the tat man. I guess that counts as the Council's kerbside pick up plan

@footprintsintheslow what is wrong with people? I messaged dolls house lady and said you're obv too busy to sort this so message me when you're sorted and of its still available.... Then messaged ladi in waiting who will HOPEFULLY collect today. Got someone coming for last set of furniture this morning and if it doesn't sell, lady in waiting might take it too. That'll be £55 profit in all.

Out yesterday was a reading bag never used for books and now ripped, a sleeping bag with a broken zip I'd probably have kept under the disillusionment that I'd fix it one day, and I sorted the last of the junk bags. My condition of getting the tree out was moving the last of the crap from the rear of the room so tree out tonight.

Also Footprints my babies were due Jan 9th and their 1st birthday is in 11 days so to be you're imminently giving birth 😂

@SleepingStandingUp what are you doing for their birthday? Not sure how January birthdays work so close to Christmas. ❄️❄️❄️

Crying mainly.
First horns 1st was in hospital literally stuck to a bed but we managed home leave the week before for a christening and party so it didn't feel so bad. This year has obv been crap and they've met so few people, been cuddled by less. Were in Tier 3 so can't even do a pub lunch, too cold for Park, nowhere fun open.

So looks like a tea party here with us and MIL (support bubble) and then a joint party / christening in the early summer with their brother.

I'm end of Dec, if make it clear early on that unless the present is SPECTACULAR no, she doesn't want a joint present, she wants one on each day!!

At least the babies birthday is a Sunday so big one isn't at school. He'd be bereft

Ellie Sorry to hear about your husband's job, hope he finds something soon,

Sleeping I'd send the dolly too.

Wooly Hope the frog is going well.

Stealth Glad you have a lovely Christmas planned. Sounds like karma as got stbexh!

Stealth and Strange How are you getting on with the decorating? We have done some more. Not many outs this week, just some general tidying and the to do list.

Omg she's still in an envelope on my bag.

Ordered new boxes for the toys downstairs. Outs are a tractor DS is scared of (garage for twins later on) and a princess carriage (to his best friend's sister)

Day: 85 completely laid up with sciatica.
Panicked that I wasn't going to be keep up with my daily updates so sat and deleted 300 photos from Google and did the daily email delete.

Footprints Hope your sciatica gets better soon.

footprintsintheslow im upset that you gave your CDs to a complete bitch too, she should be so appreciative. It’s hard thinking of how much money you’ve spent but if you’re anything like me this process will make you much more thoughtful about what you spend money on. I hope your sciatica gets better and your dh is looking after you.

alexthelittlecat thank you for asking. I am so pleased with my efforts. Our landing is quite big and I have done one coat of emulsion on all the walls other than the two by the stairs that I can’t reach. Obviously it’s patchy but I painted a light cream over a much darker yellowy cream and already the landing feels so much better. I love it. I might stop now til after Xmas because it stopped me doing other stuff like the Room of Doom.

So my daily update. I was just feeling awful that I haven’t got anything out today for the first time in months, then I spotted an envelope in my bedroom that can go! It’s just one thing but that’s all I need.

So I spent today tidying, putting decorations up, wrapping presents, online present shopping, shredding and a tiny bit of time in the Room of Doom. I’m doing less and less in the R of D and I only have seven school days til dd2 finishes school. I don’t think I’m going to finish it. I’m increasingly stressed because kids and teachers in dcs schools have tested positive for covid so I want to get presents wrapped and sorted by mid next week at the latest.

Stealth i think it makes sense to concentrate on the presents right now, you can do RoD when DD is there but not so much the Christmas stuff.

The dolls house has gone, furniture lady was a no show so i sold the furniture to her too. Result.

Tidied some of DSs toys up, pulled out some ornaments that had been packed away and put them out. He went in his room, brought them down and basically told me I could have them. How did we raise a 5 year old boy who doesn't really like dinosaurs?? So they're going in the charity, along with some dinosaur night lights and a dinosaur notice board. You can tell what kind of child we THOUGHT we'd raise lol.

Few other bits and pieces in the charity bag and a few bits into the bin.

All downstairs toys now in boxes and rear of room sorted to accommodate them.

Going to get o2 company to remove the extra cylinders we've acquired lately so that will save space too and mean i can get the tree out over the weekend.

Both bins are alas full to the brim, plus a ton of cardboard packaging and bin day is Monday. Oops.

Been full of busy the last few days so I haven't really kept a tally of my outs and without looking back at my posts I can't remember what I last posted as an out.

Today we done a tip run (two actually, one for dm and one for us) and got rid of :

all the fabric from the 2 seater settee and chair (got rid of the three seater fabric a few days before)
Carpet, underlay and Lino off cuts
Plastic wrapping from new settee, chair and pouffe.

I'm pleased to say that my sitting room, passage, landing and stairs are still pristine - unpainted still

• but not a thing out of place and it feels bloody great!

My recycling bin was emptied today so I can start refilling that as I missed the collection last fortnight.

I decluttered some things from the freezer that no one seemed really keen to eat so instead of asking what they wanted I just done a mish mash of a few things and everyone (apart from dd ) was happy.

I think tomorrow I'll concentrate on the kitchen which is mainly stuff dumped of the benches that were in old unit and drawers from the sitting room so I need to find homes for them. Luckily I cleaned the cupboards and rearranged them a few months ago so they aren't too bad at the minute although I know I could get loads of crap from the bottom two drawers!

Good few days work Strange.

I'm just off to do a charity shop run but my pushchair is SO heavy and the babies are asleep so that'll be fun getting it all out. So that's two big bags of clothes, some toys, books etc going today.

I'm not sure there's much left to declutter really now, not this side of Christmas anyway, unlikely to be any big outs beyond charity shop runs / if anyone ever buys these god damn PJ Mask toys / baby clothes.

Thanks sleepingstandingup I get a bit fed up with myself because I never, ever finish a job and I really want the Room of Doom to be finished. I suppose it was an unusual year, having dc at home for so long otherwise it would be finished. Anyway I have been doing online shopping and food ordering. I’m now going to do some more Room of Doom.

strangeaddiction you’re doing so well, it must feel amazing having so much of the house clear. Do you think it’ll be finished for Xmas?