Note: I found this post when looking through my “drafts” for things I’d started writing but never finished. The only problem with posting it now is that we’re in talks/negotiations about how we’re going to celebrate this child’s 10th birthday. Which means I wrote this post almost a year ago. Whatever. I’m sharing it.
It’s a birthday banner.
Three weeks after the party, it was still hanging in my dining room.
Oops.
The hooplah from turning 9 had officially died down, and no one even noticed it was there.
Or that it was gone.
As I carried it straight to the Donate Box, I thought about how Once Upon a Time, I’d have saved it. It was completely and totally savable.
Really.
It came out of the package, was attached to the wall, and then came down again. No rips or wrinkles or anything.
And it wasn’t Nine Specific.
But I simply didn’t want to store it. At Walmart, it cost me 99 cents.
It wasn’t worth the 99 cents I’d need to spend (on the OFF chance I’d want another one EXACTLY like it in the future) to go through the hassle of determining where Future Me would look for it first. It wasn’t worth 99 cents to give up the space in my home that could otherwise be used for things we do use more than once or twice in a lifetime.
Or space we use for . . . moving around without bumping into stuff.
As I thought these things and placed it in the Donate Box, I suddenly remembered something.
Three feet away in the garage, there’s a storage chest where I keep . . . birthday stuff.
Sure enough, inside it I found another strangely similar birthday banner.
I hope someone else two other people at the thrift store will enjoy finding cute banners for their girls’ birthdays.
I just hope they don’t pay more than 99 cents.
--Nony
I wanted to cry when I read this post. My home is over run with clutter because I can’t let go of stuff like this. HOW do you let go. How do you get that mind set? I need to know the secret before I drown in clutter.
Start with the easy stuff. I know, it feels like nothing is easy. But some is. Grab a trash bag and walk around the house looking for trash. Legit trash. That will give you visible progress. Check out these steps: https://www.aslobcomesclean.com/2016/01/overwhelmed-work-through-your-clutter-with-these-non-overwhelming-steps/
Susan,
Are you keeping it because it’s too good to throw away? Notice, Nony didn’t throw hers away. She donated them.
Are you keeping it because you might need it again? Like Nony said, you can get another for 99 cents.
There’s another idea that’s helped me. If you donate, recycle and sell things, Craigslist and Ebay become your storage. You release the thing you have right now, and then when you need it again, you can get it from Craigslist or Ebay where it and things like it are stored by lots of people. It’s just not in the house.
BTW, you’re not a bad person if you aren’t a minimalist. As long as you can find what you want when you want it and other people can get through your house without stepping on stuff, you’re fine. Don’t let other people make you feel bad.
“BTW, you’re not a bad person if you aren’t a minimalist.”
THAT. That right there is wonderful. That’s good to see LOL.
Susan, I know that feeling of overwhelm. Decluttering gets easier the more you do – you don’t have to do it all at once, when I started decluttering I had to talk myself through it and remind myself that the aim was less, not perfection, just less. I would open a cupboard and just look for one thing that I didn’t want, move to the next space and look for one thing. The more I did the more I wanted to do. Getting started is the hardest part but just start with the things you already know you don’t want. You can do it!
I love your blog. Finally got me in the mind set to clean my home which when I moved in 14 years ago was practically bare is now filled with stuff that I thought I might need some day. I just finished cleaning my bathroom which is used by my entire family of four. I took out four bags of garbage. In my defense there is a large vanity with six drawers and a cabinet and a huge linen closet (aka my junk closet, if you don’t know where to put it you put it in there) I feel amazingly accomplished. My husband asked me where something was and I knew exactly where to tell him to look so I didn’t have to find it myself. So much less stressful. I’m another slob coming clean. Started a month ago and slowly getting there being a full time working mom. No more excuses from me.
Yay! Welcome!!
Good for you! I am working on getting there! One thing that has helped me let go of things is something that I learned from the konmari method. She thanks the thing for it’s service and enjoyment it has brought to her and then throws it out or donates it. When I take a moment to be thankful for the item, and remember how it was useful for a time, I can let it go without feeling like I’m being ungrateful or desrespectful or wasteful. 🙂
The phrase for me was ‘space in my home….for things we do use more than once or twice in a lifetime.’
And the Slob Sisters reminder that we can use thrift stores to retrieve most anything we may have made the mistake of donating. Which is very likely going to be rare or non-existent. IOW, let the second hand stores/sellers, store it as Sarah said. Ha!
I changed my mindset by deciding that I could buy that thing I was agonizing over again, if I needed it. Once I thought that, my mind went directly to “but WOULD I buy it again?” Most of the time, the answer is no. But just KNOWING I could, gave me permission to toss it into the donate box (or trash can).
The banner from my baby shower 9 years ago just went into the donate box.
Wow — this made me feel so good and so motivated! Thank you!! And thank you to all the comments too — they all made me feel better about my own situation!
I love this! I’m sure that we have several of these b-day banners…somewhere…in the mounds of clutter that is my home! This example was perfect & motivational! Thanks for re-sharing!!!
How about this one? Yes, I do have a birthday banner that I kept for use in future years. I know exactly where it is, safe and sound and as perfect as the day I put it away.
Here’s the point…How many times have I used it since that first time?
Answer? NEVER!!!
Why? Because we don’t decorate for birthday parties. That banner had to be for one of my kids parties at some point, some “special year” probably. When I get to that drawer, it’s going right into the donate box!
And I’ll have to remember that I can buy it again if it’s cheap enough, especially if it’s something I’ll rarely use in the future.
Thank you, Dana, for all of your tips and tricks! I can see myself in you and 99.9% of everything that you say and explain. You help me to move forward and feel like I’ve made progress. Sure it’s a slow progress. But progress is progress, and slow and steady wins the race.
Your strategy to have a donate container and a garbage bag each time I’m decluttering is GENIUS! No mess left behind; brilliant!
I don’t have a birthday banner (well, maybe one homemade one, that went into the son’s school papers file box), but I DO have a box of wrapping paper saved from my bridal shower and wedding. I have been married FORTY-SEVEN YEARS. Yikes. I have to screw up the courage to climb up to the top shelf of the closet – using my step stool, of course – to pull that box down. Right now, it’s out of sight/reach, out of mind, but it’s still there and still clutter and I will NEVER, EVER use that paper. Maybe grandkids’ crafts?? LOL
This is such a hard topic! I am from an era where everything was saved from wrapping paper to ribbon to string…my parents saved everything! Boxes of donatables later and I still feel panic when I put something I have stored in my giveaway box. It really helps to think of the person it will bless. I have the tried a time will tell box and I almost never go back through it. Out of sight is out of mind for me. I don’t know if decluttering will ever get easier for me but my house is more liveable than it has ever been and I love my new reality. I know I have to choose between stuff and being at peace in my home.
I am with you on that Lori! And it was amplified by the pandemic shortages! I am trying to move to “I have what I need,and need what I have. ” And let go of stuff. Having a yard sale next week to help benefit a non profit.
Yes!! I fight the urges to save all those things! Still! And still drowning but working through it 1 box at a time
I love the idea of letting the local buy nothing group be the storage container for the items I might need ‘one day’.
I am gradually seeing an improvement in the base level of my kitchen (the place I have begun). It is never perfect but it is always better, before I have to stop because I ran out of energy. I don’t always finish the dishes.
But, but, but…many of the things that I keep are (fabrics, specific prints that would need to hunt for are not easy to buy again. The hunting in the shops (shopping is very time consuming, stressful and overwhelming. I avoid it as much as possible and have loved the reduced interactions that COVID has made acceptable). It takes more energy to go shopping and look for things than to keep what I have already hunted and gathered and know that I have got.
That said, yes! I am slowly going through and removing the stuff that is really rubbish, giving away what I will not use (synthetic fibre fabrics) and putting like with like of the things I do have so I can find them (If I can’t find them quickly or don’t actually have them accessible, I don’t really have them, they are just clutter that fills a space!)
I dreamed a few nights ago that there were a few things on the table, I saw them, picked each up and put them away (where I would look for them first, right now) and felt glad. This is HUGE. Forever, I have watched in amazement as other people cleared a table. They seemed to know what to pick up and to put it away without dithering or putting things back down and others up and getting confused…the table became clear under their hands. I saw a blur of objects and like playing pickup sticks I pulled one item at a time from the edges to reduce it, sometimes succeeding but often failing miserably and running out of energy before the blur resolved into a clear table (which is what my mind thinks is there). Now I am beginning to see the items in the blur and removing those. I am able to clear the table!
Thank you Dana for a better kitchen and the hope of better throughout the house.
I saved leftover Christmas paper each year to use the next year. When my niece asked why Santa wrapped her gifts in the same paper as last year it was a wakeup call. I immediately trash any leftover paper when I’m done wrapping.