It’s 9:43.
I said that I was going to post the June Decluttering Update, with a last minute purge of five No-Brainers . . . at 10:00.
So here goes.
Packaging. Of some sort.
Part of a pirate play set that was rarely used. The rest of which was purged long ago.
A broken souvenir shell necklace from Hawaii.
I’ve never been to Hawaii.
A Doo-Lolly. One that I think went on a printer-ink cartridge while it was in the box.
And finally . . .
A headless, legless Ken.
Poor Ken.
Really, we shouldn’t still have this. My 5yo daughter was ready to get rid of it over a week ago when he lost the leg. I . . . convinced her that “maybe we could fix it.”
I know. And I call myself a slob-blogger.
It’s shameful.
Anyway, other than this quick totally-motivated-by-the-blog decluttering, (and breaking a pie plate) I didn’t do much this month to rid my home of excess stuff.
How did you do? Feel free to brag, or lament, or share a few no-brainers you’ve come up with. You can leave a comment or link up a post on your blog below. If you do link up, please be sure to link back here to A Slob Comes Clean within your post.
It’s 9:59, and I’m going to hit publish now.
ShannonP says
I added a few new items to my garage sale box after seeing your earlier post: a 1,000 piece hot air balloon puzzle that has never been opened (I think we’ve had it for 9 or 10 years), a still sealed copy of Scatergories (we have another copy that IS open that we don’t play), a fistful of DVDs I haven’t watched I don’t know how long, some of which are still sealed (The Wedding Singer, anyone?), and I am throwing out a can of canned air (that is missing the straw. And empty).
Only 2,000 more items to go……..
Nony says
Ummm, my hubby would love to have The Wedding Singer on DVD. We do still have the VHS for that . . .
The empty can of air make me laugh out loud!
ShannonP says
Noni, send me your address and The Wedding Singer is yours. 🙂 couponpeebs @ gmail.com
Nony says
Ha! Hoping my hubby doesn’t see your comment . . . because we really don’t need it!
Wendi says
I got rid of a few bags of too small clothes from the kids. We have a tiny house, and I constantly have to purge or our house would be like “Hoarders”. It’s my junk drawers that are the bane of my existence. I can never get a handle on those things. Grrr……
Nony says
A few bags here and a few there really add up. Constant purging is definitely the key!
Melissa says
I just read a book I think you mentioned in one of your posts a while back called The House That Cleans Itself or something like that. I really liked it and it gave me some good ideas, such as:
– we go swimming a lot in the summer, but always end up just draping our wet suits over the back of the dining room chairs because there’s no real good spot to let them dry… so I bought a plaque at Home Depot that has five 3-prong hooks (that’s, count ’em, FIFTEEN hooks altogether!) for less than twenty bucks and hung it in an out of the way area. Now we not only have plenty of space to hang our wet suits and towels, but we also know where to find them once they’re dry (versus kids shoving swimming suits onto the floor when they want to use a chair that it had been dring on :P)
– for items to be donated, bought 3 cheap (less than $5 each) kitchen trash cans and lined them each with a large black trash bag (our regular trash can I use white bags in, so now if I see a black bag by the front door it means to put it in my van to drop off at Salvation Army, NOT accidentally throw it in the dumpster :P). I also put a dozen or so empty black bags in the bottom of the container as spares so it will be easy to line it again when I pull out a full bag. I nailed together some shelves out of scrap boards so I can stack them vertically in our entry closet so they take up less precious floor space and labeled each of them: Donate – General (to drop off at Salvation Army), Donate – Girl (for girl clothes and toys to pass down to my best friend’s daughters) and Donate – Boy (to pass down my son’s outgrown items to another friend).
This was what I did over the holiday weekend (when we weren’t celebrating 🙂 ) and I’m looking at our apartment with a whole new set of eyes and really thinking about how to make things more efficient and EASIER for me to keep neat and organized. 🙂
Stephanie says
June was my huge declutter month! I purged both of my boy’s rooms and the kitchen. My husband and I priced the toys earlier this evening for a yard sale this weekend. I have found hat watching Hoarders helps me purge stuff haha, my house has never been as clean but my husband said he was going to ban the show because I want the Got Junk men to come to my house and take everything away 😉
Nony says
Wow, you did a lot! Go you!!!
Honey @ Sunflower Schoolhouse says
I have two boxes of stuff sitting by the front door waiting for someone to take them to the thrift store. Does that count?
We have to order all the new school supplies very soon, so that means I have to purge all the ones we won’t be using again. I am a curriculum junkie. I seriously think decluttering the homeschooling materials will help me focus better. This is my goal for July (declutter and place my order).
Loved your post.
Blessings
Honey
Nony says
That totally counts!
Jill says
I purged 5 bags of decorations (mainly tulle and artificial flowers) that were used at my wedding. I also shredded and threw away two bags of paper. My husband got rid of 6 boxes of VHS tapes.
Nony says
Jill, I have stuff like that too. And then I wonder what I thought I was going to do with it!
Livin In Duckville says
I took 3 bags of linens to the ‘Charity Drop-Off Box’ at a local church, I purged all of our gazillion VHS tapes – we don’t have a tape player anymore. The only ones I kept were our wedding & when my husband’s tractor trailer flipped in high winds & he made the 5:00 news – those we’ll have converted to CD’s. OH, almost forgot – went to a baby shower & gave the mom the rocker & the cradle that I used with my 3 kids. I also got rid of all but a very, very few school papers that my youngest brought home at the end of the year. Various little stuff went into the box for the yard sale. That’s it for me.
You’ve been so busy this month, Nony. Don’t beat yourself up. You STILL moved forward!
Nony says
Doesn’t it feel good to get rid of all those space-eating VHS tapes that don’t get used? We do still have our player, so I have a few left . . .
Melissa says
This reminds me of a project I told myself I needed to make sure I got done this summer. Before my oldest child ever started school, I decided I would save all her schoolwork for each school year and then in the summer go through them and only keep one manila folder full per grade per child and keep those folders in one paper box per child.
I still haven’t edited down her schoolwork for the past 2 years! (kindergarten and 1st grade), and now my twins are getting ready to start school too in only a month! Luckily, at least I already have in place a drawer for each child to place their schoolwork in after I’ve looked through it. Definitely need to get going on the editing down those kindergarten and 1st grade papers though before I have double kindergarten and 2nd grade papers flooding in, too! :-S
April says
I hauled off a whole truckload this month. I came to my senses on a few things. Namely the Karaoke machine and my scrapbooking supplies. I realized I’m a terrible singer and I like shopping for scrapbooking more than I like doing it.
Jeanna says
I filled an industrial size garbage bag with stuff from our rarely used so that is where everything ends up basement family room in under an hour. I can only imagine what I could do in there if I took a whole day. This cleanup was prompted by a July 4th party that we are having. I really think we need to have a party once a month and my parents over for dinner once a week in order to keep our house looking nice.
Lindsey says
I second that! My house has only been cleaner 1) before we moved in and 2) my son’s birthday party 6 weeks later. Wandering guests are great cleaning motivation.
Nony says
So true!
Nony says
So true that a party is the best motivation!
Handy Man, Crafty Woman says
great job! I had to laugh at the Ken doll…poor thing! 🙂
Slob with OCD says
Nony once again you crack me up.
One of my favorite clutter gurus is Peter Walsh, and he talks about memory clutter, and “I might need it later” clutter. In principal I’ve gotten better at both of those, but I think he left out the I-didn’t-get-around-to-throwing-it-away-clutter. Seriously I think as a true slob, when I really started pushing to keep my house clean, 90% of it was this kind of no brainer clutter, where I walked away from something in the middle without throwing something away. Somedays if I just went through the house and threw away everything that got abandoned that would be all it took to make things clean. The good news is that it’s starting to worm it’s way into my brain that it’s much less work to throw it away now.
Nony says
I think the majority of my slob-problems would be solved with adding the word “now” to all tasks!
Melissa says
My bedroom, while still a bit of a wreck, is 10 times cleaner than it used to be just based on one change: I trade the silly little rinky-dink cutesy bedroom trash can for a much taller one! (It’s actually a pretty laundry hamper on wheels that I use kitchen trash can liners in – works for me!) Now it’s not only much easier to throw stuff away when there is always plenty of room in the trash can, but also since it’s heavier it doesn’t tip over when I klutzily bump into it. 😛
RLR says
June was a great month for me! I took two bags of clothes to Goodwill, got *nearly* caught up on the laundry, got all of the junk out of my front room, rearranged furniture in three rooms (which always leads to vacuuming and dusting), and cleaned out my pantry. The house was clean enough to have a playdate and a birthday party (AT. MY. HOUSE – which hasn’t happened in three years). We’ve also had various collections of family to visit on four different occasions in the past month, spanning a total of 8 days. I am ON A ROLL, and I am NOT STOPPING!
Nony says
Wow! Keep rolling!
Brenda says
I have decluttered alot this month, my problem is I am married to a packrat. I can’t let him see me donating anything. I have to do it all behind his back. I swear he is reincarnated from the depression Era when they threw nothing away for fear of not having anything. What do your spouses say about your decluttering efforts.? Mine acts like I am personally stabbing him if I so much as throw away anything hence I have at least two broken bubblegum machines, broken clocks, broken lamps,fans etc that he will fix up for me, one day…
Dana White says
This podcast talks about that: https://www.aslobcomesclean.com/2013/12/014-husbands-and-decluttering-podcast/
Elisabeth says
We have a rule in our house that armless and legless dolls can be kept, since there are people in this world with arms and legs. But once you’ve lost your head, you’re a goner.
Dana White says
Hahaha!!!
glenda springer says
We got rid of so much when we lost our home and had to move. Learned quick what ows me vs what I own. Now need to move things from the storage unit into a bedroom we have in house we rented. Have managed to let go of even more stuff BUT have discovered after the 10th bag of shredded paper that I am a paper magnet. I own lots of food related items like 4 roasters which I use al lthe time vs oven. So have had to learn to say I need to let this go because I need that! BUT THE ONE LEGGED DOLL- if it had a head he would be popular at myhouse!!! My husband — a radical amputee and was build just like the doll so my grandchildren removed legs o purpose! So sometimes it is a good thing to keep. LOL Glenda
Kris says
I have the master-bedroom doubling as a warehouse problem. It has truly been a disheartening prospect to even begin to know where to start. It just seemed insurmountable. Well, it appears that anger is a great motivator for me. Hubby and I had a marital spat and I start mindlessly cleaning the house. Our spat was not at all related to my cleaning the house. Well, long story short, I have made a more than significant dent in our bedroom…maybe more than half. I’m so encouraged, I have remembered your advice that I can go back and do a little more every day. I feel like I have hope. If I can pick another fight after the bedroom is done, I can get going on my kitchen next…(I don’t really want to fight with my husband and need to find a better motivator than being angry and talking to myself).