Lovely containers thrill my heart.

Free lovely containers even more so.

Hubby brought that home from work after a catered breakfast.

It was big.

It had a lid.

It was fairly sturdy.

Oh . . . the possibilities.

But the fact is, I already have containers.  Lots of them.  Lots of them that are even sturdier since they’re not technically disposable.

I wanted it, but I didn’t need it.  So I stuck it in the trash.  Looking back, I should have stuck it in the Donate Box.

Oh well. No use crying over trashed . . . trash.

April was busy.

I know, because I never had a chance to share this decluttering post from the week of April 6th (my daughter’s birthday party clean-up week), and now it’s May 6th.

And it’s one of those decluttering projects that didn’t let me pretend the mess had happened overnight. Those piles were full of clutter with DATES on it.

Blech.

Sometimes I’d prefer to live within my delusions . . .

Anyway, in less-than-27 minutes, I went from this:

To this:

I know. Not exactly a great after picture.

Anyway, the point of this post is what I found at the bottom of the probably-used-to-be-a-few-piles-but-now-it’s-one-big-pile.

Can’t really pretend that’s from last week when it’s already April.

And I know coupons. So I know coupons that expired in December must have been sitting there for at least a month before that.

I was a hero for this one! My 9yo had just been looking for it just the week before.  At least it didn’t have an expiration date . . .

What “dated clutter” have you found that keeps you from pretending it hasn’t been that long?

It has been over two weeks since we celebrated my youngest’s 7th birthday.

Most of the decor is now a memory.

And then Sunday night, as I slowly (because of my injured back) made my way through the house directing my kids to get it clean for our Sunday evening home group meeting, I had a pleasant flashback of the party when I saw the pretty pink cup.

On the fireplace mantle.

And THEN I realized that the pink cup had likely been there for over two weeks now.  TWO weeks.  Hard to deny, since we don’t drink out of hot pink disposable plastic cups on a daily basis.

Irritated, but glad I caught it before it had been there for a month, I walked over to get it.

And found this:

Another item with a VERY identifiable date. Yep. That’s a handprint-Rudolph.

How is it that the fireplace mantle, at eye-level  in the middle of our most-used room, is like a Slob Vision Black Hole?