Get rid of things I don't need or love

As things cease to please me, I either toss, recycle, donate or give them away.

I could keep marking my progress on this, but it’s become a pattern and there are just too many parties to go to this season to keep this on my list.

I’m making a stack of books for my guests (tonight and tomorrow, two different couples) to go through. They can take what they want with them.

Got rid of pounds and pounds of them yesterday, in preparation for last minute guests. My tables are clear of all but the most recent issues.

Maybe I can make a box in the garage or in the trunk of my car to put old issues in as they become old issues, and then I can donate them more easily.

To get rid of old eyeshadow. She wants to use it for a project. Very cool. I’m getting friends to contribute theirs too!

It gave me a huge rush to go to the coffee house and scatter books around. They are on outside tables and newspaper racks where people will see them.

This makes me happy.

My friend Braveheart is always giving me the stuff that she doesn’t need or love, and I have a hard time saying no. Although I must say that I am proud of myself for leaving the orange linen jacket at her house when I left last Wednesday. It’s a gorgeous color of orange, but orange is really not a color I should wear. She says the jacket’s for someone bustier than her, but I am pretty sure that busty-moi would look like a big pumpkin in it.

Actually, the reason I’m writing this is to pat myself on the back for getting rid of a big nice basket she gave me about a year ago. I filled it with nice glassware that we never use and put a free sign on it and put it on the sidewalk in front of my house. I love that someone is getting a kick out of it. I just hope his wife doesn’t find it annoying!

I think this is an ongoing process. When cleaning this weekend, I pulled out some magazines to share at work and some books to offer to my writing group. If nobody wants the books, I’ll set them free via Bookcrossings.

This was a bit of a struggle for me. I don’t know if I’m going to continue to be comfortable with this. Something in me feels that it’s the thing to do, to subscribe to a newspaper. I want them to continue to be published, and I do enjoy them. And I feel like subscribing to a newspaper and reading it is one of those things one does to be an adult.

But I feel like lately my Friday-Saturday-Sunday subscription has been sucking away a lot of time I could be spending reading other things. I can’t seem to just ignore them.

So today I called and cancelled my subscription to the Los Angeles Times. The way they cater to the rich depresses me sometimes, anyway. I usually go back and forth between the Times and the Daily News because neither of them really serves my community. The Antelope Valley Press tries, but it’s kind of rinky-dink. Guess I’ll settle for the little free newspaper The Agua Dulce/Acton Country Journal which does a good job of covering very local news, like town council meetings, etc. And I’ll get the rest online.

Anyone have a favorite news site to recommend? I’m figuring to check the Daily News and maybe the New York Times. What’s good for the liberal-minded adult who wants to stay on top of it? Something global to recommend?

Three jackets that I don’t wear anymore. One of which was a nice suede blazer that I bought with money from my first real job, and which hasn’t fit me for several thousand years. Also some very nice tee shirts that just aren’t flattering. And a pair of high heels that I bought on sale, never wore, and should have known better than to bring home, but… You know, those days when you see yourself looking all cute… Sigh.

The usual grumpy Goodwill woman was not there, and the nice man was really happy to see me roll in with something for him to do at 6:15 in the morning.

I don’t know if this really fits here, because it’s stuff I clearly don’t want, rather than just accumulated stuff I once thought I wanted or some one gave me.

Anyway…Last fall I removed the big useless (connected to nothing) pvc piles from the top of our slope, where they were just an eyesore. I suspect that technically they may have belonged to our neighbors, but since they were lying on the footwide strip of land on our side of their garage and back yard wall-which I get to weed and tend-I figured they weren’t even aware of them. And they were rotting in the sun. Anyway, I moved them from there to the basically south side of our house where they can’t be seen except from the open hillside if you’re looking right into our yard.

The frame from a big formerly glass topped table and our old front door were also back there. Stuff that’s too big to set out on garbage day.

Our fabulous homeowner’s association rents a HUGE dumpster a couple of times of year and it’s open for us to get rid of big itms… So this morning D gathered it together (while I cooked for potlucks) and then we both loaded it into the Tahoe, along with the remnants of an old weight bench from the garage (the parts the garbage men wouldn’t take) and got rid of it all!

Aside from me dropping the old front door on my foot and tearing my newish sneakers, it was fun throwing stuff deep into the dumpster.

If you ever have a chance to go throw stuff into a landfill, do it. I’ve done this and it’s really kind of fun to throw big items into a huge pile that will be bulldozed over.