Decluttering one item a day thread number 18 – quickly stashing our clutter in charity shops now we can let people back inside our houses

[stealthninjamum]

Here we are again, still decluttering and still chatting and sometimes getting rid of some clutter.

This is a group of mumsnetters who aspire to live in a lovely clutterfree environment, usually scuppered by husbands, children, dogs and in my house ‘valuable’ bits of twig and stone or origami versions of aardvarks and komodo dragons.

We are slowly decluttering our houses, chatting and updating each other on our slow progress as we go. We only aim to get rid of one a day but often manage more. Newbies are welcome to join us.

Since the last thread charity shops reopened and things got closer to normal. I’ve now invited friends over for the end of June so have a month to get the house ‘guest ready’.

Previous thread here.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/4183135-Decluttering-one-item-a-day-and-counting-down-til-the-opening-of-charity-shops-thread-number-17?pg=38

My newest to do list had about 30 jobs on it again despite us getting through about 25 the other week . A bit depressing but we are getting through them now again at a slightly slower pace .a lot of them seemed to be pending but I’ve identified about half we’ve either crossed off now or should be able to in the near future . On the plus side our puppy’s kennel cough that we noticed end of last week and that ruined plans of his grooming and neutering plus made us have to cancel doggy daycare etc is very luckily getting better quickly and we haven’t heard him cough for 4 d now so in about 10 we can then resume everything according to the vet . So I will try to rebook a grooming and the neutering after that soon . Other thing cheering me up in my general gloom is that DD finished her old school on a real high . She got to have her party last weekend after missing last y , they had a surprise fair on playground organised by the lovely PTA even cotton candy and popcorn , today a few leavers moms organised an aft school picnic complete with cup cakes , doughnuts and a “ corona “ piñata 😆filled with candy . She also blew me out of the water by getting her second prize for lots of mentions in a special book she was the only one to do that , she got a second badge for a different school subject after getting one in fall term already ( normally get one a y ) , got a prize for the most valuable player in a sport this term and another sport certificate, and topped it all off with a very good school report . Her friends made her a lovely leavers book as well and her teacher wrote me a nice message . Tomorrow she’s having one last birthday party of 3 school friends . We went to that school for a long time with both kids and it’s sad to leave although I’m ready to move on personally so it’s wonderful to be able to make her last days there so special and get all this fab feedback on her . She’s very shy and insecure doesn’t realise her own value despite us trying to boost her self esteem her whole life that other people praising her is so valuable . I hope she one day grows to understand she can do things abs is good enough !

And we’ll done for your flying start incessant!!!

@IncessantNameChanger ditto others “only 33”?!?! Mate!!! Good job!

Thanks to all the healthy wishes. I’m bored out of my mind. And irritated because i last had contact on Wednesday. And still no track and trace notification that I legally have to isolate and still no test. You can’t just book tests here you have to wait to be allocated one.

T&T will take up to 72 hours to get in touch with me and until then I’ve no legal obligation to isolate. But once I get the text i have to isolate by law or face a £10k fine.

I’ve been staying in since weds though. In the hopes that once I do get contacted my isolation period will be shorter. People have said it starts the day I get the text. And is for 10 days. However I believe it should be from last contact. So when I speak to them it could be as early as next Friday im out of official isolation.

ememem84 I think from other threads that your isolation start date is when you come into contact with someone. Track and trace are so slow that often people only have a couple of days left of the isolation when they’re called.

A busy weekend, dcs social life is picking up so I’m dropping them off at play dates and parties. Priority is to do a bit more Room of Doom. There are large piles of papers which I will file / shred. I want to finish it by next weekend but it’s really boring and also emotional as I get rid of old letters, wedding cards etc.

DD has gone to a party too and should be gone until about 3.30-4 so I’m intending to start looking through her detritus in the livingroom where DS his carrying her baskets to. We are now doing dump tomorrow so I’m hoping to add to that load .

@stealthninjamum that’s what I thought. Will see once they get in touch. Apparently according to our governments website (Channel Islands here) there’s a fault in the tech so there might be a wait on being called. No shit!

Outs today. Dds changing bag. She’s moved out of “babies” at nursery to “toddlers” so she’s got a new bag and the change bag has gone.

Also outs a bag with reins and some seperate reins as we just don’t use them anymore.

Also two pairs of dds outgrown shoes. And some Wellies packed away.

All of the charity, rags etc bags went out today.

I also grabbed five things that was brand new with tags that I had bought and forgotten about for dd that's she has out grown. I would normally sell them but they got donated too. It felt amazing.

I feel so much lighter. I really can see the end now. But I know it will be ongoing for a while and more importantly, move into a maintenance routine.

I also had another person on FB contact me about 12 kids leggings for £6 when has in the past asked me met him in town. I dont want to drive into town and wait for someone for so many reasons. So that has further validated that donating nicer bits and the clothes recycling bin for anything not in great condition is just so much easier.

ememem84 that’s irritating you’d think after a year they’d get the technology right.

incessant there’s a woman on my Facebook who I have sold a few bits to and given bits to but she always asks me to deliver and I just don’t want to.

I might’ve found the missing pyjama tops as I held an amnesty of dc pyjamas. Dd1 had several pairs with holes and some to pass to dd2 but there’s a whole bag going to charity shops, but I will buy a couple more pairs. I’ve cut down, I’m sure each child used to have about 10 or 12 pairs, now dd1 has 3 pairs and dd2 about a dozen.

@IncessantNameChanger it’s a nightmare isn’t it? I tried to sell something on fb a while back and the buyer said he’d meet me in town. Fair enough as I was going to the office. So I said 845 at x place. He the. Kept insisting I met at 930. I got there at 845 and waited 10 minutes because work. I’d told him this is what Id do. He didn’t show up.

But at 930 I had a message demanding to know where I was and if I didn’t show up he’d report me to Facebook and the police. I ignored it. All for a £5 dvd.

@stealthninjamum I think part of the reason for the delay is that the contact tracing people/helpline people were all initially on short term contracts. So given we were meant to have out “freedom” day a week ago a lot of them have left and found new jobs. So understaffing.

The fact we had the British lions here three weeks ago and there were lots of gatherings and tourism has kicked off again has meant a huge rise in cases (as our gov aren’t insisting that people have a negative test before travel…)

So 370 cases from 2 in the space of 2 weeks, over 3000 direct contacts identified by contact tracing. Nightmare.

Ememem84 your amazing getting rid of your change bag. I held onto mine under mine was on reception. Too emotional to say baby days was over.

Dd needed some new trainers. So I bought them in the h&m sale. I also got five pairs of shorts for next year for a total of £10. So I must remember that at ££2 each at the first place and they might do her a few summers they have no monetary worth to me.

Also as H&M is free delivery online I dodged going in town and picking up more things. I did say I wasnt going to buy dd clothes except school things. So I was a bit naughty but these will go straight into her box under the bed.

However I do hope to God there isnt another x Pairs in any of our hand me downs / stashed for the future boxes.

I think that it today and tomorrows task. Sort those out for summer things so I know what she has.

My mil and bil was all going on holiday but got tested at the airport ( dont live in the uk) and are now facing enforced 2 weeks quarantine.

It's so strict. Really quite upsetting really as the kids are separated from.the parents and taken away.

@IncessantNameChanger to be fair I’ve only done it because I bought Dd a new bag for nursery. She’s almost 2. So doesn’t really need to carry as much stuff now when we go out. So a cute backpack is much better for her.

I’m not emotional that the baby days are over. I don’t like babies much. Although babies were easier than toddlers….. but can’t wait for Dd to be potty trained. Then hoorah! No mor babies for me. Phew. Just snuggles with other peoples babies. I love other people’s babies. You can give them back.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my two. But man they were hard work!

I get really upset that my dd is my last dispite having four. Mind you having lived through teenage years I should be thanking God 😂

My middle two wasnt typically toddlers so that down to grief as well.

ememem84 ahh that makes sense. Wow that's a lot of new cases. I assume you've all had your vaccines? It's scary over here (UK) because there's now 25K cases a day and it feels weird that things are likely to open up with such high numbers. Today I got told that dd1 has to isolate because of positive cases in her school. I'm actually really fed up with it, I am going to have to spend the next week or so supervising her home schooling and doing lots of extra cooking, cleaning etc when I have a load of jobs to do before dd2 breaks up on Friday.

Today I spent an hour in the Room of Doom. It has loads of piles of papers at the moment and I sorted through 3 filing and shredding them. It's made a difference. I wonder how much I'll be able to do now with dd1 at home. I think I'll be lucky to do any decluttering now until September.

I also started to unpick some badges from a martial arts suit of dd2's. I'm intending to put the badges in her memory box but throw the suit away / donate it as rags.

So in the end we did DD room over two days . Yesterday there was a 3 school friends party and piano lesson as well and today DH went to the dump. We also celebrated 4 th of July with hotdogs ,and Mississippi Mudpie and Pecan Pie ( DD was born in the States so we acknowledge that heritage too on Thanksgiving and on 4th of July ). I also looked through the rest of her section in DS big wardrobe I had already done her seasonal and a too big clothing boxes and coats there so it was 27 boxes of shoes ( 4 too small only thankfully ) one of which was for DS , a rucksack we’re keeping and her karate bag ( belts kept old one for memory box but gi will be washed then going to rags ,she needs a new one if continuing when we move new school doesn’t offer it but another martial art so we’ll see ) . Also there were too big clothes that were meant to go into the box for those but they’d just been dumped on the shoeboxes by DS or DH and then there were new pants and socks in a bag I’d put aside for trips for kids and a bag of brand new uniform items i’d donated if I’d known but DH hadn’t looked properly when i asked . Might contact a few people and ask if they want them and the school winter coat they can have them as long as they’ll come get them otherwise going to charity .
To dump yesterday and stuff waiting to
go later to dump and charity :

• a table lamp that’s been replaced in the living room
• 3 big storage boxes and lids
• 5 ex toy storage baskets 3 large one small ( today another small one added to the next dump pile ) that were bent and breaking moved most things to clippy lidded see through boxes to avoid dust and getting new storage for new house later
• 25 kids books went today + located another 15 later some going to charity some to dump book collection
• bobbly uniform , old socks etc to rag bank
• DD too small clothing to clothing bank
• at least 3 pairs DD school related shoes
• school bags ; rucksack, boot bag , music bag ( new sports bag that remained unused I’ll donate )
• 3 manky pencil cases and lots of manky stationary from school and DD room
• 3 bags of recycling from DD room and from her wardrobe ( shoeboxes and endless paper junk, magazines ,ten notebooks , crosswords and word searches , sticker books ,puzzles missing pieces etc )
• 2 bags of trash ( broken toys and just endless crap she’s been hoarding in the last y )
• wooden blocks finally went but I let her keep play food at least for the summer

-4 pairs of new too small shoes to charity

• a few DS too small t-shirts from the clean laundry pile to charity
• a picture frame
• a notebook to charity
• a soft Jessie from toy story to charity
• some of DD crafts and a shoebox project to bin and recycling we’ve displayed them for over 6 or longer
• old cards etc from her notice board to

recycling

• a broken photo album I’ll replace

I have one category left to look through and there aren’t too many ; soft toys . I’m hoping to find a few to go but a lot of them are sentimental like a Teddybear from my parents etc so can’t go atm at least . I feel super tired still picking up a few last bits off the floor in the living room but I’m so happy we did it ,I don’t then have too much left to declutter here since her room was the biggest top floor job !

DH also deep cleaned the whole room vacuuming all the nooks and crannies , wiping surfaced and dusting all the bigger built lego models he didn’t carry down for me to look at and clean like everything else ,with my super soft dusting brush that’s great for that and lampshades etc . I’m
so glad I already had done her wardrobe . All the other stuff was enough work ! Under DH non watchful eye unlike when her bedroom was on the same floor as my master one ( and thankfully will be again in the new house so I can keep an eye on her ) DD had made an absolute all mighty mess into every single receptacle in her room that was originally organised by category by me when we moved here over a year ago . I had after that gone to sort her room out a few times as well but not actually gutted the whole room like now . Every drawer , box and basket was a similar mixture of stationary , hair accessories and trinkets , lego , clothing mainly balls of clean socks 😳? bits of paper , endless little plastic crap
even though we haven’t bought her any magazines with them anymore , pieces of string or garden twine , books and more books , colouring books and then the actual
Things that were meant to be there like say puzzles or play food or soft toys . It’s like she’s made a big mixture of it all in some huge pot and poured it pretty evenly every where with the actual bigger toys . She’s done this in her old room too if I’ve left it too long but never to this extent . I looked through every bit , removed stuff and cleaned and organised everything. I didn’t throw all of her treasurers away even though
If I could choose I would get rid of more . She can keep most of her little bits but they’ll be contained and organised and I’ll keep a close eye on her since she can’t be trusted to manage it herself . DS room isn’t like this he has much less and better order he is 7 y older though and I spent years sorting out
his room in the past . I feel like DD is worse with it though . I think she takes after my DH who doesn’t care or see it in the same way than me . I need to go to bed now . More jobs tomorrow when DD is on summer holiday so at least no more school run for DH .

Not as much done here over the weekend. I'm going to be doing more downstairs housework jobs anyway until Thursday as the disability socail worker is coming on Wednesday.

Time for more motivational photos I guess

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. I can't believe it's Monday again... Didn't do as much as I hoped at home, but I did sort out my clothes which was a huge job. A big box for the charity shop and several bags for the textiles recycling bank - I will get DH to take them tomorrow.

Quick Monday check-in. Sadly I didn’t get any decluttering done over the weekend, but DH got another load of sorting and shredding done, so his pile of paperwork is greatly reduced

I have mentioned before that I really struggle to get rid of DD’s old clothes, but over this weekend I have been thinking that I could make a start by getting rid of summer clothes from last year. Oddly, it seems easier for me to get rid of her more recent stuff, like school uniform - I think it’s because it’s not very far away from where she is now, if that makes sense? For example, some of her summer dresses are the same as last years because I bought them in the next size up, so it’s like I’m not losing them.

So I’m going to try to sort through them this week and see how that feels.

@EllieQ that makes total sense. i can understand why the baby stages are more difficult to get rid of, as opposed to the "right now" ones. although i have been ruthless and passed all the baby baby clothes on to a friend for her 6m old. somehow that's a bit easier than just charity shopping them.

so far today - i've done a quick refill hour - coffee jar, sugar pot, tea bags, laundry capsules and have ditched the packaging. i'm also getting rid of some more of the dc's artwork and a couple of magic painting books

EllieQ I totally understand which is why I'm.trying to stay on to of what outgrown each season now. In the end I gave about ten bin bags of baby and toddler stuff sorted into ages to the clothing bank charity. Painful but I'm glad it's all gone now.

I have mostly just been tidying this morning but 30 pairs of dd pants and socks are ready to go. I will try s nursery then it will be the clothing bank bin.

A big bag of random socks to. I replaced all of boys socks with either black mens socks or blue ones for the youngest boy. Dd still has a right mixture of socks.

212 out last week!

I found the baby clothes hard to get rid of too but I think when youngest dd2 was about 7 or 8 I couldn’t really remember which child had worn them or who had bought them so I felt less attached to them. I also find that now dds choose their own clothes I have lost my feeling of attachment to them so it’s easy to get rid of them. Dd1 lives in jeans and hoodies which I hate and dd2 wears colourful dresses with non matching multicoloured leggings and jumpers - and sometimes a pair of dd1s jeans - so I’m happy to get rid of them!

In fact today’s out is a much loved dress that dd2 squeezed into yesterday and admitted that it was probably too small for her so i washed it and it’s in the charity shop pile which is pretty massively now.

I’m homeschooling and it’s bloody awful, I can’t get anything done, I have to watch dd1 or she starts watching YouTube.

Good going everyone ! I’m half asleep here having been up all night post the decluttering marathon in DD room and her extra wardrobe . Haven’t even had the take out lunch which is just sitting here getting cold . My eyes are closing as we speak I’m actually in bed . DD is entertaining herself thankfully and DH working ,the puppy chilling and DS out with a friend after walking home from school . Should do admin and calls , those few soft toys but nothing is getting done , we’ve only payed the piano teacher so far . I’m elated after my monster efforts on that horrible room that I’d been dreading though so it doesn’t matter there’s always tomorrow and todays job besides the soft toys can be finishing folding the clean laundry I started yesterday and washing more of it like we do daily . Will play more board games with DD too I love doing that and we still have lots left after decluttering them regularly. Will try to get rid of a few more this summer .

As I’ve said before I find getting rid of kids clothes especially the small ones very hard and have kept years and years worth of all the good ones in labeled boxes now in storage . I am now putting most of the recent outgrown ones to charity or clothes bank , although I have kept a few pretty practically new expensive dresses etc I didn’t have the heart to just give to charity shop yet . I dont want the work of selling so I’m just hanging onto a few for now until I’m ready . Have been thinking maybe I could look through some baby boxes from storage and give some away at least now that we are moving . I can’t bear to see any of them on the old local high street so couldn’t do that before for that and many other reasons . I’m getting slightly less attached to them
while time goes by as I become more at peace with the though of no third child but the puppy instead .

I spent about ten minutes in the Room of Doom. Sorted through (filed or shredded) another pile of papers so that's a bit more carpet that's visible. I also chucked some bits away, found an orchard game that I'm going to give to a charity shop as I can't be bothered to sell it, and put away a few bits of stray stationery.