Tag / Decluttering

by clumpaday

Sea Change

Clump #83:  Change Summer bedspread; clear two bags from study.

I have trouble transitioning.  I should have switched out our bedspread quite a while ago.  This one is really not warm enough for the cool temperatures of late.

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One reason I’ve been lagging is that the fabric design reminds me of the beach and, in particular, this photo taken Memorial Day Weekend at Higbee Beach, NJ:

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Subconsciously, I want to go back.  Another purple plant picture taken there:

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Okay, enough of fantasy land.  Time to fess up.  I’ve had a relapse.  Readers who have been following along know I had cleared out a very onerous clutter pile in our study.  It was full of sad and sentimental things belonging to my parents, and/or related to my father’s death.  If not for this blog and the support issuing from it, I would not have had the will to accomplish the job.  After finishing, I would look into that room for inspiration to tackle other clumps, thinking, “Well, if I could do that …”

And then, the other day, I impulsively invited a good friend over so she could catch up on the latest episodes of the TV show, The Voice (we’re both addicted), which I had recorded.  The trouble was, this friend is a self-avowed clean-aholic.  So many things still in the sorting-out stage and physical to-do list box were scattered around our living areas.  They had grown arms, legs, and tentacles.  I madly pried them from many surfaces and shoveled them into the pristine study.  Defiled again!

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But I will not let this bank of flotsam and jetsam remain.  It will ebb away … one … clump … a … day.  Here was today’s clump: items taken out of cars and needing to be sorted into piles of keep (and replace), give away, or toss/shred/recycle.  Done.

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It’s funny how things happen serendipitously.  Not long ago the bristle part of my brush became unglued and flew off onto the bathroom counter, smashing this glass container filled with found beach pebbles and shells.  It had been there a long time collecting dust, and, honestly, I really didn’t notice it very much anymore; so I don’t feel the need to replace it.

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I’m trying to follow the adage that you should only have things in your home that are useful or make you smile, or both.  I won’t wait for them to be destroyed to make that determination.

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by clumpaday

Taking Control

Clump #82:  Recycle old remote controls.

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Recycling remote controls at Best Buy: easy.  Getting rid of duvet from kids’ bunk beds: difficult.  One step at a time.

My husband and I saw the movie About Time last night.  I highly recommend it.  Funny, touching, romantic, and profound.  (“I laughed, I cried …”)

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Near the end of the movie, the main character goes through two identical days, but with different results.  I was reminded of a quote I had copied down from an Honest Tea bottle cap:

Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.  –Maele Moore

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by clumpaday

Sweet Darlings

Clump #73:  Rake through and recycle old newspapers and spent tickets.

A recent whirlwind of delightful and surprising family visits caused me to let go of my newspaper-reading habit, and, like fall leaves, the papers accumulated into ever-growing piles.

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This was a bag of tickets my husband had been tabulating as the Fall Festival financial manager.  It implores: “please recycle me.”

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Okay, I will.  With the cardboard clementine box below, it reads: “Recycling Works, Darling.”

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Every time I drive through Lancaster County, PA to visit my mom, I’m buoyed by sights fascinating, beautiful, enjoyable, or all of the above.   For instance:

I adore this goose, and by extension, the person (I’m guessing woman?) who dresses her up in myriad outfits to suit the seasons.  Pictured, below, was today’s Halloween garb.  Maybe some day I’ll have the gumption to knock on the door and thank its owner and clothier in person.

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By contrast, this was the ensemble for late summer:

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Of course the visit with my mom, itself, is the main attraction, but I also love the feeling of getting out into the country.  Where else can you get big pumpkins for $2.00?

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I bought one, and this is what you find at the front wagon: the honor system.

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Last week I was snapping pictures of these adjoining houses with pumpkins over their doors.

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I thought I was being inconspicuous …

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when I noticed a piercing blue flower creeping over the sidewalk.  I tried, unsuccessfully, to get a clear image of it as it swayed to and fro in the wind …

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and suddenly a woman and her husband came out of the house.  To my great relief, instead of telling me to leave, the woman asked if I would like to have some of the plant.

I asked her if I could take a picture of her giving me the plant.  I didn’t have the nerve to say it might end up in a blog, so I didn’t photograph her face.

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I also failed to tell her that she, the goose-dresser lady, and the trusting pumpkin seller had strengthened my faith in mankind.

by clumpaday

Unlikely Box of Seeds

Clump #72: Clear out wire box of stashed clutter in bedroom.

Oh boy, have I been dreading this box, or cage, containing a mess. Here’s a good tip: don’t buy organizational equipment before you purge, recycle, shred, and — finally — see what you really need/want to keep. The temptation is to buy spiffy organizational tools and feel like you’re addressing the problem.  In this case, getting a cool box just made things worse; it turned into a procrastination bin with a long shadow of guilt.

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For anyone familiar with me and this site, you know I have a propensity for stashing away inspirational quotes. Though mostly filled with shreddable and fileable stuff, this box didn’t disappoint.

Below are two quotes that were stuck in a notebook from the box.  A three year old calendar page with the beautiful message from The Buddha, and another passage I wrote down on a receipt (maybe in a waiting room of some sort, who knows where or when?) by Sister Wendy Beckett.

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The one from Sister Wendy shocked me, because just a couple of days ago I brought the book, Sister Wendy’s 1000 Masterpieces, up from our basement.  I was looking for a big, impressive book to slip some papers in to help with a neighbor’s Halloween party scavenger hunt-type game.  Kids would come ringing the doorbell, with one in the group suffering from a comical malady, and I would read an incantation for the cure.

The book fit the bill, and I’ve had it upstairs since with the intention to read through it.  My sister gave the book to our mother, and then generously allowed me to have it when we were going through parental stuff. Amazing.

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Here is what I wrote down in my messy handwriting:

“Again and again I’ve taken quick glances and then for some reason … it’s opened up like one of those Japanese flowers that you put into water and something I thought wasn’t worth more than a casual, respectful glance begins to open up depth after depth of meaning.”   Sister Wendy Beckett

Lately I’ve been pretty drunk with the capturing of brilliant fall colors like this:

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Soon after I took that photo, I glanced down at the ground, took this one, and as Sister Wendy so perfectly described, it opened up “depth after depth of meaning.”  Something about the label of weed; the delicate down, like a gorgeous ballet costume from the Nutcracker; and the indefatigable imperative to set seed, even in the face of frost and suburban herbicides.

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This quote from a Dove chocolate, wedged in the box, wrapped things up:

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“Blessings only come to those who notice.”   –Jean, Houston, TX

by clumpaday

Blossoms and Bantams

Clump #71:  Bring left-behind belongings to younger daughter and clear out shoebox.

I had the delightful job of bringing a clump of things to my college student daughter and taking her out to lunch today. The restaurant was decorated with beautiful, energizing paintings of flowers.  I loved this fall display with the pumpkin-like urn on the floor.

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Even more lovely was a short reprieve from the recent sensation of chicks leaving the nest.  Heaven.

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But then it was back home to make another little dent in the shoe-pile remains: a shoebox that somehow became the repository of a strange assortment of objects.  More flowers: these were from a past theater experience involving our older daughter. They will adorn the next Goodwill donation pile.

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This chicken was hand-knit by the dear second wife of my husband’s father.  It sits on a green plastic egg. Must keep.  I put it away with other Easter stuff, to be enjoyed for years to come.

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I can recycle the box and my identification number from when I was on the show Let’s Make A Deal (a blast, even though I didn’t get picked to play).  We’ll hang my husband’s academic cords on his side of the closet, where he had thought they still resided.  He worked very hard for them.

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Just yesterday I had stopped to take a picture of a sign I enjoy seeing on my way to and from visiting my mom in Lancaster County, PA.  I know I’m in farm country when the roadside advertisement is for Bantams.

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I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what Bantams are, so I googled a definition: “Called the flower garden of the poultry world, Bantams are miniature chickens, usually one-fourth to one-fifth the size of standard varieties.”  Once again, flowers and chickens.

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by clumpaday

Droppings

Clump #70:  Clear out bag of trash from former shoe pile.

This site has, up until now, been free of coarse language.  I’m sorry to offend any delicate readers with the following paragraph.

My daughter has a good friend from high school whose mother used to call the store, “Linens ‘n Things,” “Sheets ‘n Shit.”  (A factor in the chain’s demise?)  Sometimes the coarsest word is the most descriptive, so I’ve been thinking of the pile I’ve been dismantling lately as “Shoes ‘n Shit.”   And here’s another pile of it.

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This project has made me think about how the influx and outgo of stuff in a house is like food in a body.  And also like the cycles of nature in the world.

My mother and I sit outside and watch the changes in season with these two maple trees above us.  We have been charting their progress and find it fascinating that the tree on the right was all leafed-out in the Spring, while the one on the left was barely budding.  But now the left one seems to be winning the race.

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And here’s another way of looking at “winning” as it relates to autumn.

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In my experience, the blazing colors right now are more riotous than mute.

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And decay is part of that big, wondrous circle of life.

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(Above photo taken at the 2013 Philadelphia Flower Show.)

by clumpaday

Worst and Best Things

Clump #69: Unclog bathroom shower drain.

Short and the opposite of sweet: first thing this morning, I finally unclogged the shower drain. Yucko.  I won’t go into disgusting detail or show graphically gross photo documentation of the contents of the bag, below.  You’re welcome.

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Mind-cleansing images … please!   A fine drizzle was coming down most of the day today, same as it was the day I picked up my younger daughter for her fall break over a week ago.  She wasn’t quite ready to go when I arrived, so I told her I would take some pictures of the yellow roses against the dark grey slate of her dormitory.

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With my rain coat hood up and creeping around a college dormitory, I was very aware of looking like a suspicious character … but was counting on my middle-aged, mom-type aura to redeem me.   As I took the pictures, I was hearing Julie Andrews singing “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens …” from the song My Favorite Things, and the movie, The Sound of Music.

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I’d like to add another line to the song:  “Blue light through bottles and speckles on pumpkins …”

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I hope you are surrounded by a few of your favorite things today.

by clumpaday

Departure and Arrival Time

Clump #67:  Take down bus card.

This is one of the smallest clumps to be documented.  But its significance is weighty.  My younger daughter has been away at college for over a year.  I should be well adjusted to the status of empty-nester. But I never quite got around to taking down her last bus card from the refrigerator, reminding me of pick-up and drop off times, her high school senior year home room teacher and room number.  My days are no longer structured within the confines of the comings and goings of yellow buses.  I see them driving around and am reminded that I’m not part of that world any longer … for better and for worse, happier and sadder.

Our refrigerator is relatively uncluttered, so this remnant from days past is not annoying or hurting anyone. It does, however, betray that I’m not fully living in the present.  Time to rip off the bandaid and embrace the now.

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I have spent the last couple of days helping with clumps of other people’s things, sorting out the toy room for our Quaker Meeting’s Fall Festival.  Before:

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And After:

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After so much contact with kids’ toys, that empty-nest thing is feeling pretty good!

by clumpaday

Going The Distance

Clump #61:  Bulldoze through Paper Mountain.

Cue another movie theme song:  the training song from Rocky.  Like Rocky Balboa, I went the distance!  30 days, 30 clumps, and (almost) 30 posts.

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It’s been a day of intense inner paper pile purging.  The really tough stuff.  I’m not as bruised and bloodied as Rocky, but I did get a mean paper cut.  I very much wanted to end this challenge with a big flourish, but I bit off more than I could chew with this clump.  I started clearing papers from one end of the house and hoped to power through to the other, but piles remain for another day.

So I don’t feel as though I won, however, the distance was maintained. I transformed this:

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To this …

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And this area:

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To this:

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Along the way, I was buoyed by finding some inspirational quotes.

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I have a fear of some of those papers, as silly as that sounds.

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But thanks to this blog, this challenge, and all who have encouraged me, I’m getting there!  Gonna Fly Now.

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