practice discardia

throw out all that crap!

I donated a pair of jeans that were baggy; it’s a promise to myself that I won’t gain weight.

I donated a sweater that made me feel old. Why do I need to wear something that doesn’t make me feel fabulous?

I donated a purse that was awkward to carry. It was a handsome purse; I loved the color and the way it looked when I set it on a desk, but it just didn’t fit me. It gave me an ache in my neck when I attempted to keep the strap balanced on my shoulder. So, I’ve released it to the world in the hopes that it fits someone else beautifully. Good-bye beautiful purse; hello healthy neck.

Also, I donated a Franklin planner that I bought at a garage sale. Again, here’s an object of beautiful design, but it just wasn’t practical to use or to carry, based on the way I organize myself. I thought I wanted to try this system, but I had it for months and all it did was create anxiety of how I was going to implement something that I did not even need to change. (Note to self: Avoid garage sales!)

I took the old broken computer monitor to Staples to be recycled. There was a $10 fee, but I was glad to pay it, with the hope that it gets disposed of properly…I wonder if it will end up in a poor part of the world where some desperate soul melts down the valuable materials in the same bowl that his family cooks from…I pray that it will not.

Eeks! I found several items in the fridge and pantry with expiration dates of long ago. You are outta there!

I like how it freed up some space in the refrigerator.

Discardia is a splendid way to avoid everything being so crammed in. Ugh. (I dislike a crammed in area.)

I recycled two more magazines. I donated more bags to the thrift shop (I went through our collection a second time and was ruthless this time).

I removed two files in the filing cabinet that are no longer needed. (I’m sure there are many more to release, but I took action on these two as soon as I came across them.)

I found some unneeded items in our cabinets and set them aside, getting them ready to donate to the thrift shop today.

I’ve been reading my books on decluttering. They are very inspirational. I believe that I’ll extend the “official” end-point of the autumnal discardia to include all of the rest of 2009. It’s time to regain those beautiful margins around our prized belongings.

Toilet Bowl Brushes: I tossed out the old, rust-stained brushes and holders. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get them to look clean. I got one to replace the three. Now I have a new system to clean all the toilets at once. I’ll make sure it dries completely so that the rust stains are avoided.

- trashed a pile of weekly to-do lists from 2006 or 2007
- trashed a pile of weekly menus, probably from the same period
- trashed several floppy disks and floppy disk storage boxes
- shredded a pile of documents containing financial and/or personal data
- prepared a bunch of things to take back to my parents (including my Dad’s math books that I used in high school and university – it’s hard to imagine any other discipline where you could use the same books for over 30 years!)

And with that, I’ve officially gone over all of the stuff I moved to this place, found a place for everything and either put stuff in its place or gave/threw it away. Yay!

My DH and I went through the garage and found boxes to recycle as well as trash that needed to be sent along its merry way.

And yesterday after work I donated shopping bags to the thrift store, leaving the amount that I keep around down to a manageable number.

I’m doing this in conjunction with my appreciate autumn goal, since this season has one of the longest discardia periods I’ve seen in awhile.

So what I’ve discarded since last week: 11 magazines, 10 of which I gave myself permission to recycle without that kooky step of “going through them” to see what articles I want to save for future reference. If I really need the information in the future, I can research it and have more updated sources.

Looking to more discardia activities this weekend!

- threw away about a 100 cds
- packed a huge bag of clothes to donate (including some of my favorite clothes, forever lost to gods of wrong-washing-machine-settings)

Moved the rest of my stuff from my old place to my new place! WHOOHOOO!!

_{ohgawd I hope I haven’t forgotten anything}

And, as this is a discard-ia goal after all:
- threw away three more bags of trash
- gave away a scratchy, ugly orange blanket I’ve never liked
- urm, put away a box of chocolates :D