The Challenge-Are YOU Up For It?? - Page 2

[mommaof3boz]

ABSOLUTELY paper counts. Paper is one of the worst cluttery things possible. You decide if you want to count every piece or count it as one or whatever.

[ParisApril]

I started early! The kids and I went through all their dolls and we decided they would keep their favourite 5 dolls and 10 are going to the second hand store and 3 dolls are going to Grandma's house.

Can I count the 10 give away + 3 take to Grandma's house dolls in my total?

[Plaid Leopard]

i'm in!

I've been trying to declutter for ages but I have a very resistant DH. For me it's like one thing out and ten things in. Ugh!

However, it looks like we will be moving into a smaller house soon so we MUST get rid of all this junk.

I went through my kids stuff and got rid of a small trash-can worth of junk, plus have a few things to take to the charity shop. I've got a stack of paperbacks waiting to go to the book-exchange. I'm also planning to go through the kitchen cupboards soon. Already threw out a few things yesterday.

YAY for decluttering and THANK YOU for the inspiration!

[AngelBee]

In.

[jrabbit]

i'll do it, too - is it going to be "this" thread, or a new one on Dec 26?

[MonkeyPrincess]

May have to modify the rules a bit to fit how I declutter best, but I'm in. These challenges are so motivating!

[Hopefulmama]

Totally in! Since we just majorly downsized and most of our stuff is still in a POD, when we get it back it will super easy to get rid of 150 things, if not more! Thanks for the motivation though.

[mommaof3boz]

Whatever works best for everyone on the thread. I can start one when the challenge begins or just use this one so no one will have to resubscribe. Our tree is beautiful and so are our decorations. However we still have things to go when we take down the christmas decor. I will do that Dec 26th and then the challenge IS ON.

I started early! The kids and I went through all their dolls and we decided they would keep their favourite 5 dolls and 10 are going to the second hand store and 3 dolls are going to Grandma's house.

Can I count the 10 give away + 3 take to Grandma's house dolls in my total?

Most certainly. if you weren't able to participate in the 100 thing challenge, please do. We are kindly around these here parts to any sorts of decluttering. Tee hee.

[LionTigerBear]

Hmm.

Hmmmm.

Can I do this???

I'm scared . . .

Okay, I'm in! Eeeep!

[CariOfOz]

I'll play!

[Gray's Mommy]

Yes, I am getting crazy

but I made a poster board chart for the side of my fridge (I don't allow anything on the front) for keeping track of how much stuff my family purges this year. We'll start with this challenge & just keep track of how many things in the categories (household, outdoors/miscellaneous, children, baby, Mom & Dad).

I really want to be clutter free by the end of 2010~ I can't imagine my household running well with a new baby, 4 pets, and 4 other people in this house without some type of clutter diet!

[Gray's Mommy]

Originally Posted by mommaof3boz

ABSOLUTELY paper counts. Paper is one of the worst cluttery things possible. You decide if you want to count every piece or count it as one or whatever.

I count every 10 pieces of paper as 1. It motivates me to recycle more paper

[VisionaryMom]

I'm in! We've been moving more and more toward a minimalist lifestyle, so this can be a good start.

[sparklebean]

I'm in! I was inspired by the last challenge and got rid of way more than 100 things. It felt really good, and I got an unexpected surprise! My SO started de-cluttering along with me, and our relationship has never been better!

I really want a crafting space, but I need to be essentially "clutter free" before bringing in a lot of project-in-progress stuff.

So excited!

[minkin03]

i'll give it a try.

[lucifugous]

OK I can do this! We have very little STUFF where we are now, but unnecessary things have started to creep in here and there. I haven't been very motivated to get through it because 1) only a bedroom is mine to declutter, the only things of ours that "live" in the common areas are kitchen items (totally pared down, none added in a long time), library books (I get rid of those frequently :P) and a stroller.. oh and our coats! Perfect time to donate! 2) it ALL fits in the bedroom closet- literally everything but the bed, small empty table, and a small cabinet with D's toys. 3) she is a toddler, always with me, and only naps in the bed so I can't clean out the closet when she is napping.. and I don't have an out-of-reach place to set stuff while I rearrange...
SO here is my plan to counteract these tiny hurdles: Pass on as much of our clothes as possible (already have a few things set aside). If I pull out a pile of towels/blankets (which also needs paring down!) I will have plenty of room to do some rearranging while D plays in the room. I have papers to sort (will pull them out for after bedtime). Some toys can probably go. I considered the goal of having our coats fit in our bedroom closet, but I don't think this is in our best interest. If anything I need better access to my hanging clothes instead of always reaching for the shelved T-shirts. The coats do need to be pared down some but they can stay in the hall closet.
be back to finish later, good luck mamas!

[MommyKelly]

I am so in! As a recovering packrat with 9 kids, I so need this!

[Manonash]

I'm getting really excited about this. We've already had a couple of our Christmas's (with our families, it's split into 3 different ones), and as my daughter was getting some toys, I was saying to myself, that'll be one! We get so much stuff she can't/won't play with.

I used to be such a packrat, and now I'm mostly recovered. Where I have difficulty is with my daughter's things. I'm keeping what she really loves/loved, and a few things that I really loved and everything else I'm taking a digital picture of to remember it if I want to and then letting it go. DH's mom is not very sentimental and got rid of almost EVERYTHING that was his growing up and he wishes he had a few of his favorite things. I just don't want DD to feel a loss of power with her things. She's too young to really tell me I want this and not that, so I am getting rid of some stuff without asking, but it's only stuff that she never has used much (which is most of it). It would have ripped my heart out as a kid to have things taken from under me and feeling like I had no say if I got to keep something or not, and I can imagine it backfiring in some cases later on and creating a packrat. That didn't happen with DH, but I'm sure it can. I'm actually in the reverse of what happened to him, in that I really kept too much and now have the task of going through all this stuff and deciding what I want and what I don't. It has been really freeing to let go of a lot of it. So, I want to find the right balance of keep/get rid of with DD's stuff.

Shonda

[VisionaryMom]

Shonda, I struggle with what/how much to keep of our children's items. I have kept a few sentimental items - things they wore home (we had hospital births) and some cute clothes they wore a good bit. I also admit to keeping (to his future embarrassment, I'm sure) some of DS's first "big boy" underwear. They're just so adorable! I thought of taking the digital photos, but then the process just became so overwhelming. My family tends to overbuy by a tremendous amount, so we have lots of clothes, and they didn't even wear all of them!

So part of me hates just to give all of that up, but OTOH, I feel that I want to remember DC and the things they did, not the afternoons I spent tearfully taking pictures. I read once in a book on simplicity that many people spend more time preserving memories than making them. One group of DH's family is like that. They told us that they have 3500(!) pictures from a 12-hour labor & delivery. How could Dad have been really "in" the process at all? He was taking pictures constantly! They're extreme (I hope), but I don't want to be like that. I watch them, and so much of their lives are staged. I don't believe I've seen candid shots of them; they go to elaborate lengths to make everything *look* as if they were having fun. The end resul (from my perspective) is that personality is lost in all of the memory-capturing.

I also - to add to the emotional side of this - had my house burn down when I was 8. Most of my baby pictures and reels of film (ah, the old days) are gone now. I think that snapped much of my sentimentality away - or at least makes me fearful when I think of it. Though I didn't care so much about baby pictures at 8, I did care about other things in the house, especially trophies I'd won.

Anyway, we are definitely doing the 5 things a day challenge, and we're going to try to get rid of 2,010 items in 2010. I figure either we'll get rid of tons, or our entire house will be clutter-free.

[kathirynne]

Ooooooh! I am so in!