Tackle it Tuesday: Bye Bye Stuff
July 1, 2008 by Karen Weideman
Filed under Tackle It Tuesday
If you are a regular reader here, then you know that I’ll be moving in just a few weeks. This move will take us to a much smaller house. Truly, we need to get rid of some things. We have way too much stuff!!!!
It’s not every day that you make a decision to get rid of half of your belongings. As you can imagine, this process is stressful, painful, and time consuming, yet liberating. Today I had to say goodbye to my stoneware and some nice children’s books. :(
I really liked the stoneware, but didn’t use it much. I guess that’s kind of obvious since I’ve owned it for 14 years and it looks new. lol The salad bowls were perfect though. And don’t worry. I’m not selling all of my children’s books. Teaching has allowed me to collect hundreds of books. There are so many wonderful books with awesome illustrations.
That’s what I’ve been doing. Soon my house will be sparse and decluttered. Perhaps next week I can take a picture of the monster moving sale piles. Then you’ll wish you lived near by. 
What are you tackling?
image by Karen
LRN
I am tackling my bedroom. Then I’m going to declutter my sewing room/ study. To be fair, a lot of the stuff in my sewing room is from my sons moving out/in, out/in etc. Still, I have this month off from teaching and I’ll feel so much better if I get back on top of organizing my home.
You are right! I wish I did live near by. I love a monster moving sale lol. You have your work cut out for you that’s for sure. Keep it up!
Blessings,
Kim
My MIL is a recently retired grade school teacher. She still has a ton of kid books around the house. Each time we come up, each of our kids is supposed to pick out one book to take home to help her shrink the piles.
One of my favorite things about moving is being forced to get rid of all the extra stuff we never use.
Moving to a smaller home?, you’re having a good start decluttering.
Hope you make some good $, on all that “stuff”.
Keep up the good work !
It’s so smart to de-clutter BEFORE the move! We didn’t have time to do so last fall when we moved to a rental, and then ended up paying for 9 months of a storage unit for all of that “stuff”, and renting a moving truck to transport it to our new house when we closed on it in May. Fast forward a month, and now we still have nearly as many boxes to deal with and can’t imagine why we didn’t toss more of this stuff before we moved in the first place! UGH. Yard sale is July 19th and I just hope we get everything ready before that to make the most of it! Good luck with your packing and move!
That does sound so liberating! Good for you!
You could send that stoneware my way! As a military family, we have moved 10x in 15 yrs… I feel your pain.
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I want to know how much and waht all you have sold over the last few weeks up to your move! I think we will all be impressed.
It must be so hard to get rid of beautiful stoneware like that, but it is going to bring someone, somewhere such joy! Congratulations on being so giving.
Good luck with your move. It is hard to get rid of stuff. We have lived here almost 30 years.
It’s a great idea to go through all of your stuff now…hooray for getting a smaller moving truck!
Having been born into a family of pack rats, I unfortunately pick up on the bad habit. I’m 34 and there is not a word to describe the amount of “important” things I’ve stored up through my life so far.
2 years ago, my husband was given a very small 2 bedroom home that has been in the family since it was built in the 50’s. Perfect for my husband, teen daughter and me. 3/4 of the garage was converted into a game room which became my room for boxes and boxes of my fore mentioned “collection”. Then came the baby. The room had to be cleared out for the new addition to the family, so I shoved boxes in any unoccupied nook and cranny I could find. I have tried countless times to down size my collection only to get overwhelmed, find new hiding places and pretend the collection didn’t exist.
Then, I came across several blogs (thrifty mommy, declutter it, and keeping the castle) and began reading about decluttering. After a couple monthes of reading I decided to conquer my habit. Determined this time to simplify my life and make my cleaning much easier and for once not be ashamed to have company over.
In the past month I have managed to down size the baby’s room, living room (except the desk), kitchen, the teen daughter’s room and laundry room. All that is left is my bedroom, a storage closet full of old boxes and the remaining 1/4 of the garage that is storing items that where left to me when my grandmother passed, that I don’t have room in the house for but cry at the thought of letting them go. I saved the worst for last.
I am proud of the progress I have made so far. I have diminished my “collection” by at least half, throwing away the unimportant “important” items that were of no use to anyone else and donating the rest to a local shelter.
Now, for the hard part, weeding through the sentimental items I have no room for. HELP!!
Wow, Carol. Sounds like you’ve come a long way. Perhaps you can sit back and enjoy the decluttered parts of your house and just soak in how good it feels. Maybe that will give you the courage you need to go through the other things. I’m sure it is hard, but you can do it. Are there any other people in the family that would like to have your grandmother’s things? If so, that might make it easier for you to know that they’re finding good homes.
I’m so glad you got my post. I am posting from my phone. I wasn’t sure what to put in the box that said website. And when I hit submit I got an error. And when I looked at the site it didn’t show what I sent. So if you got my post in triplucate, I am sorry. I am new to blogs, but i’ll figure it out…. Some day.
Carol: It probably didn’t show up right away because you were in moderation. First time comments go there. It keeps out the spammers. Unfortunately, there are lots of people out there spamming these days.
Welcome to the blog world. There is lots of great stuff out there!