Purge my house of anything that isn't necessary, beloved or beautiful, and get rid of it any way I can

• loads of coathangers
• some ugly bookends I got off Freecycle and never used
• a weird DVD I got for free that looked personal-developmenty but turned out to be a bit cultish and religiony
• old makeup that doesn’t suit me or has dried out
• a bag from the front of a magazine which I never use
• a load of knickers which don’t fit me and are scratty and horrid
• a bunch of textbooks/worksheets from something I used to study but no longer do

I’m sure I’ve decluttered more stuff than that, but I can’t remember what. I quite like documenting the regularity with which I’m getting rid of things.

It took with it most of the mugs, all the wine glasses, and several big glass jars of dried food.

So that’s solved the problem of too many mugs, wine glasses and big glass jars of dried food.

Huh.

Or rather the “waste and recycling centre”, as it has been rebranded, not least by a massive sign proclaiming “We are NOT a tip, we are a waste and recycling centre!” They also had another sign next to it reading “Recycle now, you may benefit somehow”, which has to be the least self-assured and most self-centred exhortation to recycle I have ever seen.

Anyway, to the tip (or WARC) went two huuuuuge binbags full of flattened cardboard boxes, an old stereo which made an annoying clicking noise, an old clock radio alarm with a horrid bright green display designed to keep you awake, and half an old door which HA had been going to make something out of. Or perhaps he made something out of the other half, I forget.

Inspired, I’ve just been through my books again and sorted out another 20 or so to take to the Oxfam bookbank next time I head over Byker way. There are no cardboard boxes left in which to transport them. I shall take this as a good sign.

I have been doing the odd bit here and there though. I took a big box of books to the local charity shop this afternoon and donated them. While I was there I spotted the beauteous shoes which, ironically, has had the beneficial effect of forcing me to sort through my shoes and haul out a few pairs to donate tomorrow.

UK people, did you know you can now Giftaid when you donate items, not just money? Good, eh? I gave my books to Sue Ryder, but you can do it at Oxfam too, and probably other places too.

This afternoon I went through my wardrobe and divided it into three piles:

1. stuff for the charity shop (stuff that either doesn’t fit or which I don’t like);
2. stuff which I still like and which I would wear but which doesn’t fit me – to be stored under the bed until such time as it does;
3. stuff which fits me and which I like (enough to wear, anyway)

The third pile is, unfortunately, the smallest by far and now I have almost nothing to wear. Ouch. I was really sad to put pile two into black bags and shove it under the bed, as it contains all my favourite and funnest clothes. But having them in the wardrobe isn’t motivating at all, it just makes me feel shitty about my body, and I deserve to feel good now, dammit. I shall have to have my new shopping mentor D around for a cup of tea and a rummage through my wardrobe to see what I need to get. I’m hoping that all the Wii Fit-ing I’ve been doing lately will actually offset Christmas because at the rate my boobs are growing right now I’ll have to get several new bras before I can even think about buying any more clothes. Ooh, though, must write a goal about shopping/re-stylenating myself. I saw D last night and she looked beautiful in a one-shouldered pleated dress – she wears herself so well. I hope she can wave her magic wand over me. But I digress.

Kitchen decluttering – I really should have taken before pictures, but I’m so proud of the results I’m posting after ones anyway, cos I’ll know what they mean if no one else does.

First all the cutlery and cooking implements got hauled out of the top drawer and are now residing in cardboard boxes in the kitchen, so we can see in six weeks or so which ones we actually use. I already have my eye on several dead-cert deadbeats – a lemon squeezer, FFS. I just use a fork and my hand.

I tackled the tupperware cupboard AKA HA’s least favourite place in the universe. Before, this genuinely was hell – it was impossible to find a matching lid and receptacle, and if you opened the door, plastic pots avalanched onto your feet. Now look at it:

I’ve got rid of all the crappy old yogurt pots and unmatched bits and bobs apart from the couple in the front left, and if their partners don’t turn up in a couple of weeks I’ll assume them to be MIA and consign these to the bin too. I’ve put a bit of tape on each matched pair, sealing them closed, so after a couple of months we can see which sets’ seals are broken and so which ones actually get used, and make a decision about the rest.

As a finale, from this cupboard I also removed three huge jars I used three years ago to make pickled onions, and which have been standing empty ever since, and offered them on Freecycle. No takers as yet, but I’ll give it a couple of weeks, re-offer on another group, then recycle if I have to.

I went through the middle kitchen drawer, normally a rag-bag of tea towels, dishcloths, dusters and scourers, mixed in with rolls of foil, greaseproof paper, clingfilm, sandwich bags etc and feline medical supplies. I moved most of the cleaning cloths and the cooking-type rolls to the wire storage rack (including the kitchen paper, in the process ditching the kitchen roll holder that I inherited from an old flatmate years ago, which I don’t even like, and which is so broken, FFS, that it wouldn’t even stand up) where they’re far more accessible.

I counted up 11 dusters! EL-EV-EN! Who needs 11 dusters? I kept three, and gave the rest to a woman from Freecycle who came to pick up an old dish drainer, along with three of the 15 bags-for-life I found and half a bottle of Oil of Olay, all of which she sprang upon with glee when I offered her a kind of surprise brantub of cast-offs.

Check out my middle kitchen drawer now:

I’m so proud.

Then I dove into the bottom drawer and hauled out a load of god-knows-what, I can’t even remember now. But there’s bloody loads of room in there now, just the food processor extras, the electric whisk, the obligatory Ikea bag, and a space for the iron to live in:

In other crap-removing news, I donated my rarely used webcam to Paperfaerie so that she can chat with The Boy With Whom Love Is Happening who is currently oh so far away from here. I re-Freecycled the crappy computer that someone off Freecycle donated to me – I don’t need it at the moment cos I’m not coaching, and if I start again I’ll buy a laptop. Biiig space in the spare room now, and HA swapped the desks over for me so now I have the large desk in the room I actually need it in. Yeah! He seems to have been mildly affected (infected) by the decluttering bug too, and spent a couple of hours filing stuff in drawers and filling a bag with rubbish from his end of the study, where there is now useable floor – should I want to, I can walk right to the window, draw the newly-put-up curtains, and look out (I just don’t want to, that’s all).

Other stuff – some old chairs, an old iron, an old radio alarm clock, a few other odds and sods – are currently on Freecycle awaiting takers. I suspect they’ll end up binned

Oh, I love decluttering! Every time I get rid of something I know I don’t need or want I can feel myself breathe a little bit easier as I reclaim that space – that space I worked hard for and paid for and deserve to use for something that adds value to my life, not saps the energy from it.

..bought me ‘It’s All Too Much: Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff’ for my birthday – awesome (words of this festive season have definitely been “awesome” and “racist”). I have only glanced through it so far, but I’m going to implement some of the techniques and mental tricks in the book to get rid of some of the crap from my house.

First thing: all the contents of the kitchen drawer – cutlery, cooking implements etc – are going in a cardboard box right now. If they’ve not been used six weeks from today, they are going to the charity shop, Freecycle, or the bin. I value that space and an easy-to-navigate drawer a lot more than I value that apple corer. I don’t have an apple corer. Actually, I may, the drawer is too cluttered for me to know.

And my wardrobe… ::groan:: I am going to grit my teeth and go through it with a fine-toothed comb, weeding out all the things that are scratty or no longer fit me, and decide whether to store them or fling them. I have no doubt that one way or another my body is going to go through some changes, and all the too-small or no-longer-liked clothes in my wardrobe are nothing but clutter, remnants from a distant time which do nothing but take up space and make me feel shitty about my body and my life. Outs you go. I have enlisted my friend D to take me shopping at some point in the near future and re-rev up my shopping mojo – she’s a large and lovely lady who loves her body and loves fashion, and she could no doubt teach me a thing or two about making the best of myself.

This morning I went through my underwear drawer and dragged out 16 unpartnered or holey socks, and a solitary black glove. Where does this stuff come from? More pertinently, where did the other halves go?

Yesterday I took a huge box of unwanted stuff and five assorted and unneeded CD racks to the charity shop. The space created was immediately filled by the arrival of a huge box containing my fella’s Christmas present. I shall take this as proof of the theory that when you get rid of the junk in your life, it makes space for new shiny fun things to plug the gap.

If only I could gather the mental strength and honesty to purge my wardrobe of all the clothes that are now two (or more) sizes too small for me. I wonder what would fill that gap.

I’ve just realised, I have a car now, I can do a car boot sale any time I like! Wheeee!

The man from the charity picked them up tonight. It turns out they’re in the area every Monday night, pretty much, so any time I want rid of owt, I’ve just to call and leave a message.

This weekend has seen the removal, by Freecycle people, of an absolutely enormous amount of cardboard boxes from the spare room. There is so much more space in there now. A man also took away the horrible electric fire referenced in this old goal, and I’m also in the process of trying to hook up with the charity who’ll take away all my unwanted books. As I don’t think I can be bothered selling the big box of junk on eBay, I might just give them all that stuff too, just to get it out of the way. I’m working with my life coach on starting my business up, I’m on the verge of securing a client, and the sooner I can get a real home office sorted, the better.