When it was time to dye Easter eggs, I headed to the coffee cup cabinet.
We had five colors, so I chose my five least favorite coffee cups to hold the colored water.
As I pulled those coffee cups out of the dishwasher on Monday morning (we didn’t have time to dye eggs until Sunday afternoon), I realized each cup was chosen because there was something about it I didn’t like.
One cup was an advertisement for something I don’t love.
The red one should have been perfect, but came with a little sticker that said it causes cancer in California.
So I never drank out of it.
Not even one time.
Even though I don’t live in California.
I never drank out of it . . . but kept it for three years.
Ugh.
The two big ones are too big.
While I’d love to sip that much coffee, I can’t. I’d be jittery all day.
I realized that even though I hadn’t meant to declutter, I had sorted out the five coffee cups we never, ever use.
Which made me wonder why we even had them.
So I grabbed a donate-able Donate Box and stuck them in it.
Note: I decluttered four cups even though I used five for dying eggs. The fifth could totally go, but it belongs to a family member who left it at our house. The thought of her wanting it back stopped me. She probably has no idea we have it.
Another note: If you’ve been around for long, you know about Hubby’s obsession with coffee cups. I showed him the Donate Box and he agreed (after a few pensive moments) that those four cups could go and we wouldn’t even miss them.
Note #3: I didn’t need to apply the One Year Test to these since I can use more-loved coffee cups to dye next year’s eggs.
--Nony
As long as the egg dye didn’t stain the cups then you can sure use different, more “loved” cups, for dying eggs next year. Great job Nony!
When you use more loved cups for egg dying, choose newer ones, even though your instinct is to choose older ones. The newer ones are less likely to have tiny cracks in the glaze that will let the dye through to the china and stain it.
“Things I need to give to….” used to be a BIG source of trouble and anxiety for me. I’d keep meaning to give or return something to them, but would always forget. I would like to share my simple but effective way I finally managed this.
I grabbed a shoebox, and labeled it “Give to…” Whenever I needed to return something to someone, in the box it went, WITH THEIR NAME ON IT. I trained my kids to put anything for other people (often art they made for Grandparents) in there.
Whenever we were going to see a friend of family member (or if they came over) we would check the box for “Give To” items. Recipes, lost socks from playdates, borrowed books, etc. were routinely returned with ease (and not much of ANYTHING happens routinely around here!) Anytime there was a Give To item that wouldn’t fit in the box, we put a note in the box instead (“Give Michelle the sewing machine; top shelf in hall closet.”)
The Grandparents even learned to ASK the kids if there was anything in the Give To box for them!
It gives a “home” to those transient items that you can’t put “away.” Saves a lot of searching time, too.
Great idea!!
Love this thank you!
LOVE that idea! I usually toss my “Give To…” items in shopping bags and hang them from the banister of my stairs…which looks about as lovely as you might imagine. And then I forget to give them anyway because they’re tied up in a shopping bag and I can’t see what’s in it to remember where it goes.
I usually have ‘give to’ items for my parents who live out of state. If I expect them soon, I put the items on the guest bed. If I expect to visit them, the items go in the closet by our garage door. I tend to make sure I pull anything we need to give to them before we leave the house.
Great idea! I’m going to start this immediately!
I love this idea! All the stuff that gets left at my house that belongs to others has always been an issue for me. I have a pair of shoes (not my size) that my mother in law left at our house when my oldest was a baby. She is now 9. And yes, I have seen her multiple times since then!
I LOVE this idea! Thank you so much for sharing it!
That’s great! I think that as recovering slobs that this type of thing is what we’re aiming for. The stuff that normal people do without thinking that paralyzes us. Decluttering without thinking about it and without having to set time aside specifically for it is a huge step!
On another note, over the weekend I took two HUGE boxes of books that have been laying around my apartment (no room on the shelf) to the used bookstore. They bought a handful of them, I made ten bucks and then we took them down the street and gave the to the thrift store. SUCH a huge weight off my shoulder’s and my apartment gained probably 8 square feet! Whoo!
Go you for getting those books out!!
My biggest problem right now is that I have those donate boxes but they never seem to make it to the donation station. Definitely need to work on having the decluttered items actual leave my house instead of just finding a home in a box ‘to donate’ that then sits there for months if not years!
See if anyone near you does a pick up! I used to call salvation army all the time when I lived in CA because they would pick up donations at my house. I just put the whole pile (nicely in boxes and bags of course) in my driveway before I went to bed, and in the morning, it would be gone, with a little donation receipt under my doormat!
Just did that this morning! (Post coming soon!)
Perfect! 😀
(Also, I sent you an email on the 21st… not sure if you saw it or not. Let me know if it got lost please!)
I have been looking at a bookcase that has too many books on it. I made three trips to half price books and got paid to leave my clutter behind I took five bags of stuff and clothes to goodwill this week. These articles encourage me to purge!
I to like the go to box idea. I will start doing that,too.
There’s no such thing as a “too big” coffee cup- ha!
Awesome way to declutter…subconsciously!!
I will be decluttering the corner cabinet in the kitchen next. I THOUGHT I heard something settling out in the kitchen last night, but I chose to ignore it, thinking it was just my imagination! This morning, I opened the corner cabinet to grab a coffee filter from the bottom shelf, and a whole set of 1950s Pyrex (they were Mom’s) came crashing down on me! (Felt like I was in a Chevy Chase movie!) Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt and the only item I found broken (so far) was a newer custard dish I had sitting on the counter below that cabinet. It shattered EVERYWHERE! It did motivate me though, decided THAT CABINET is my project for the coming weekend. I will go through it and get rid of all the containers etc. that I don’t use. I have several “cut glass” looking dishes from discount stores that I can donate. Got a box ready (it has a few pieces of clothing and shoes in it already) and I’ll be topping it off with the unused dishware by the end of the week!
I am developing a new decluttering strategy that’s very similar to what you did with the mugs. I call it revulsion decluttering. If I am completely out of other clean clothes and there is something in my dresser that I’d rather do laundry than wear-out it goes. If I realize that I am avoiding a particular dish or mug out it goes, right away instead of waiting for the time I’m going to go through that cabinet or my clothes.
I consider my way of as Nony says “doing the easy stuff first”. I’ve always been a prisoner to the idea that I should get all of X together (art supplies, clothes, coffee mug, hardware,) and then I’ll be able to see what I have too much of. But I finally get that it doesn’t matter whether I have 12 or 20 picture frames if I hate the one I am looking at.
So wise!
Love it!!
Great idea!
Now you have room in the cup cupboard for those polka dotted water glasses you loved so much but didn’t have room for?
Ha! Already donated those! Though coffee cups are in a different cabinet, by the coffee maker.
This is an awesome post! Your decision making and decluttering skills have come a long way baby! So proud of you 🙂 Seeing how you’ve grown truly does give me hope.
I just read this article and the entire time I’m thinking “But those are your Easter egg dyeing cups!! Why are you getting rid of them when you’ll need them next year??” I have a problem……
I ask this question from a place of wanting to understand myself more, not from a place of judging you.
Why, if you don’t like the mugs were they in the dishwasher? Was it because other family members used them?
With each of your honest posts, and with everyone’s kind comments, I feel like I’m understanding myself more and more.
Good question! I had to go back and read the post since it’s an old one! They were in the dishwasher after using them to dye the eggs.
They were in the dishwasher after they were used to dye eggs.
EVERYTHING in California says that!! Haha. Aaaaall the restaurants have signs talking a out cancer and stuff too. Freaked me out when we got stationed here!
I’m very proud of myself for decluttering my Easter egg dying cups this year. I had a whole shelf dominated by cups I only used once a year and weren’t even perfect for the job.
“Even though I don’t live in California.”
This had me cracking up! I love your sense of humor.
One of the goofy things I love about the plane is that literally EVERYTHING causes cancer in Cali. Even the parking garages have warning signs
I live in California, and no joke, everything here or brought in from somewhere else and sold here, says that. It’s the dumbest.
I wish this site had a place we can ‘like’ or ‘love’ or ‘frown’. So many people have great ideas I’d like to share my opinion on.