did you know “cull” has a specific definition regarding herd/population control? If that doesn’t describe decluttering, or at least my experience with it…

I looked at the books and was still having trouble getting them down to a smaller group. So instead, I went to the books I already have unpacked in my house and went through and got rid of some of those instead. I know there are other books out there somewhere…ones I know I own that are so far not in my house and not in what I went through today. That frightens me a little…how many other boxes of books do I have?

In any case, along with tossing some pictures and combining my fabric down to ONE suitcase instead of a suitcase and a tote of sorts, I have two EMPTY totes in the garage, two very large shopping bags for good will, and one shopping bag for my mom (of stuff that I am returning to her or letting her take a look at before they go to goodwill).

Oh, i also moved my paper-y craft stuff into a cute antique suitcase I have that I flat out will not get rid of (but also never use that often). The paper stuff was earlier in a weird shaped plastic thing that didn’t work that well for it anyway.

I think I’m going to start actually posting some pictures of the progress I’ve made, because I really have made progress!

2, instead of infinitely further down…

Today is my day off. I knew I was going to pull out a box of books from outside to get two books I told a friend that I had and was going to give her. I pulled them out. I got the huge tote of books down to at about 40%, the ther 60% in a bag to go to goodwill. there are a few others that I know I should get rid of but am having trouble committing to that… I first off need to decide where these are going to go. Space in this house, especially for books I’m not currently reading, is at a premium.

I also have a few stacks of books that belong to other people, and one that I’m going to mail back to someone because I still know where he works. I like when I can actually get them back to where they belong. Feels more like “putting away” than just getting rid of.

i know this has made a dent, because with my possession notebook, I know that I have for sure not brought in four boxes of anything anytime recently (edibles not included)

I also found a few books that can tie this goal in with my faith. Unfortunately, they are just rare enough that my library doesn’t have them. But I’m going to order one used from half.com and I think it will be a book that will be easy to pass on to a friend.

I received mail and a CD every month for a small donation, but I can access the resources for free on the internet and was behind in listening to the CDs anyway. I’m going to add the donation I was sending there to my savings account and feel happy that I eliminated one thing coming into the house.

Is that if you have the panel that goes all the way up to your ceiling over the cupboards, or if you don’t and it’s just open space? I don’t know the semantics, I guess, but I have cupboards with open space above. We are tall, so we can actually use this space if needed. Which is bad, because it ends up looking like a dogs breakfast all the time. We have done a good job at limited extra appliances to only what we actually use, so those aren’t up there, but we’ve never had an open cabinet that is tall enough for things like cereal boxes, unopened bags of chips, etc. Which meant today, when I decided to clear off the top of the cabinets, I had to clear out a cabinet to hold that stuff. That meant tackling the one above the fridge, filled with an inordinate amount of plastic water bottles and awkward grill tools (currently, not in use, as it’s winter).

So I rearranged some things, went through some things, and we now have our chips and cereal off the tops of the cupboards. AND I decided to clean out under the sink while I was at it. When you look in the kitchen, it just looks nice and clean up there instead of full of random junk. Huge improvement.

I tend to not like to put things away if it’s hard to put them away, like if the drawer is constantly overflowing. If I have room to put things away, then it’s easy. Knowing this, I decided to tackle my sock drawer last night, which constantly is overflowing (could having over a month’s worth of socks have something to do with it?) I took out my gym socks, as I only ever wear those for working out, and put them with my other gym clothes. I also took out 8 to 10 pair. And then I went through underwear drawer and threw out the ones that aren’t comfortable or I never wear anyway.

I also wore a pair of jeans yesterday to see why i never wear them. It became quite obvious (they are too tight on the hips, so they always slide up around the waist). I felt fine finally getting rid of them knowing I wore them for a full day and was uncomfortable for most of it.

I swear, girl stuff multiplies like squirrels. I don’t even have that much girl stuff (lotion, hair spray, etc.) but I feel like there are just millions of half empty bottles of it everywhere all the time. I did a good job this afternoon cleaning out my cupboard…the eye shadow that I meant to replace and finally did replace and just never threw away, etc. The weird gel I got for free that makes my hair kind of sticky… Not as enviro friendly, but man, bathroom stuff makes the best sounding “clump” when it lands in your garbage can. Makes you feel like something has been accomplished.

After browsing around this weekend, I’ve decided to fill up a notebook (another goal of mine, filling up all my notebooks) with all my purchases…allowing me to easier look back to see if it was a purchase I later deem worthwhile or necessary (which I think will allow for better future changes in less purchases of stupid things). I’ve been trying to be very cognizant lately, but a few things that I’ve recently picked up I’m going to log and keep on to see if I really do buy as little as I think I buy.

A couple emailed me this afternoon and finally came and took it off my hands! Spending money for our upcoming trip, and the best part, it doesn’t have to go back into the garage!!

I also mailed another book out via bookmooch today…I hope to go through a bin of books in my garage this weekend and further release them to the world.

This is a cool site. I don’t think I would want to do this with all my books, but today I posted three books and two of them went instantly, giving me the credit I needed to get two books I need for my spring semester class for free! You can’t really beat that. There are certain books too that i know are a little more rare and someone would specifically want them instead of me just giving them to the thrift store, so I am putting some of them up there.

I also posted two books that I was able to get a more substantial amount of money on half.com and sold both of those. Gotta love getting paid to clean out.