monthly update

Decluttering Update March 2019

declutteringthestuff 2019 in 2019, decluttering, living the life ,

I can’t believe another month has passed!  We’ve been taking little trips and really need to write about those.  This has got to be the best part of a decluttered home!

Cleaning hardly takes any time.  Laundry is now put away when it comes out of the dryer.  (I am guilty of leaving it in the dryer longer than I should!)  This almost seems like it should be a separate post!

On the decluttering front, we removed 28 items in March.  Our 2019 total is now 392 items!!

Some of the stuff removed:  holey shorts, holey tshirt, DVD player, receipts, loofah, calgon (really, when was the last time I took a bath?), empty lotion, candy found under the bed, empty box found under the bed, empty docking station box (from John’s work, why under our bed??),  book (yes, I know I already took a picture of it but it came back!  Why do people return things when you say they don’t have to??), tea strainer, weird spork.

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October Decluttering Update

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On the decluttering front, we removed 6 items from the house.   It seems silly to report this BUT we are finally accepting the idea that we are at a decluttering end point and will not count decluttered stuff next year.

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Here are a few ways we’ve decreased the inflow of stuff:

  • We filter/trash the minimal amount of mail the moment we remove it from the mail box.  No more mail piling up to declutter later!
  • We have transitioned to digital statements for most accounts.
  • We are not saving the digital statements on the computer hard drive since most companies allow you to review at least a year’s worth online.  And really, when was the last time you looked at that statement from 9 months ago?
  • We no longer get magazine or newspaper subscriptions
  • Barb uses the library instead of purchasing books
  • We have gradually been spending less money on random stuff, really thinking about purchases before we make them.
  • We have quit accepting “free” stuff.
  • I decluttered the Halloween gifts (coffee mugs and decorations) from students by placing them in the staff lounge instead of bringing them home.  Someone else is getting “joy” out of those items!  All the things were gone by the next morning!  WIN WIN

 

June 2018 Update

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Not much decluttered since we spent most of the month away from home.

9 items decluttered this month.  Here’s a pic of expired coupons.

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309 items so far in 2018 – we are getting to the point where we think we are “done” decluttering the big stuff (aka drawers, closets, counters, etc.)

Guess it’s time to go through those “memory’ boxes of pictures, old drawings the girls did, and all that kind of stuff when we get home and before school starts again.

Next post will be the continuation of our vacation!  There was some “excitement” while in Wyoming!

February 2018 Update

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February has been a roller coaster of a month for us.

On a more personal note, Barb’s dad passed away suddenly on February 26th.  Mom called about 8 am saying he fainted and she had called 911.  About 8:20 am while Barb was driving to their house, she got the phone call that he was gone.  Just like that our small corner of the world is turned upside down.

These kind of events make you evaluate what’s important – it sure isn’t all the crap you keep in the house, garage, etc.  Our decluttering sort of made this a little easier when we helped clean out the garage, closet, and dresser.  We did have to remember that not everyone was used to going through stuff and getting rid of it.

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Dad in his prime – about 50 years old here.

2017 End of Year Update

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I can’t believe another year has passed!

This is the time of year people reflect on their previous year and make plans/goals for the upcoming year.

So how did we do with last year’s goals?  Depends on how you look at it!

√-  Our decluttering goal was to rid the house of 2017 items.  We got rid of 1506 items.  That brings our total since we began counting in fall 2014 to 15,519!  Not quite our goal but better than nothing!
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More stuff gone in December (empty turbotax case and phone book we never use among the gems!)


GOAL REVIEW

√+  We wanted to have a No Spend Month.  Well we did it last February!  Surprisingly (or maybe not) we have been more aware of purchases than we were even before this experiment.   We are contemplating another one this month but with our first granddaughter due any day, I’m not willing to do no spending just yet.  We will have travel expenses to see her (I suppose we could eliminate this from the “rules” but then there will be meals out, etc to contend with.)

√-  Next, we wanted to thoroughly go through the garage.  Most of our big decluttering in January and July were due to decluttering the garage.  Not quite as much as we would like but it looks better than before Jan 2017.

X  The last big goal was to clear out enough of the garage to put a car in it and purchase a new garage door and opener.  Well, the car still parks every night in the driveway.  The big item that seems to be holding this up is the full-size Air Hockey Table.  We just need to suck it up and figure out a way to sell/give it away.  The facebook for sale and craigslist for our area has a lot of these and they aren’t moving even if the price is $0.  Not sure how we will deal with this – maybe we need to start having our air hockey championships again!  Granted, it was a lot fun when the kids and their friends were involved – just us, not sure.

On the personal goals:
√ √ 0 X  Barb is drinking more water!  She is “officially” a descendant of the Mayflower;  she didn’t gain any weight (and only lost about 5 pounds for the year); and the picture boxes are untouched.
√+ 0 X  John is tracking his blood sugar every day (like he was supposed to do all along!) and has found that alcohol affects it (he needed to see the results himself!)  He didn’t gain any weight (also only lost about 5 pounds for the year);  and we can’t park in the garage (see above).

While we both had some successes and some “failures”, we are quite happy with how our year turned out.  We are less stressed about STUFF and other things in general, eating healthy meals at home more often than before, and enjoying doing other things that we wouldn’t have before.  Guess we need to start writing about those things too!

So now off to think about the goals for 2018!

November 2017 Update

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Our November wasn’t too productive on the decluttering front. We removed 6 items from the house.  That gives us 1435 items so far in 2017.

I doubt we will hit 2017 but that is OK.  We decluttered like crazy for 2 years and removed so much during that time (over 15,000 items!).  We are now finding occasional things that can leave – removing an item we want/need just because we have a 2017 goal is really stupid!

We have noticed that less comes into the house – that’s a good thing!

We took a weekend trip to Sequoia National Park during the month.  It was nice to get away for a weekend.  We were able to spend it with Kiddo #2 – her first weekend off since July and she wanted to spend it with us!!  It helps that she is averaging about 85 hours a week and really wanted to feel like it was something “unique”.

Feeling small in the world next to General Sherman.  This definitely puts a lot of things into perspective.

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We had 2 different Thanksgiving dinners – one at John’s mom’s house with his sister and her family, the two of us, and his brother.  Kiddo #2 was able to surprise us by getting off work early on Thanksgiving and arrived about half an hour after we sat down to eat.

Dinner #2 was at our house – just us and kiddo #2 on Saturday.  We love making a turkey and all the trimmings!  Nothing fancy but nice to enjoy seeing the kiddo twice in the same week!

Somehow the pic was taken before the gravy and veggies (roasted brussel sprouts) were put on the table!

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October 2017 update

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It seems like yesterday I was writing about decluttering our keychains and then looked at the date – 4 weeks ago!

On the decluttering front, we removed 12 items from the house in October.

Grand total so far this year: 1429 items

This doesn’t seem like much but when you consider that we have now removed over 15,000 items from our lives.  We have both spent too many hours to document cleaning out emails and digital files (which we didn’t count).

Can we stop decluttering?  Of course not!  But I think our focus/outlook on what is essential has gradually changed over the last 2 years.  I think it will still be important to occasionally go through those same closets and drawers again.

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source:  http://www.relatably.com/m/img/cluttered-memes/meme.jpg

 

 

August 2017 Update

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57 more items left the house!  Just when we think we are finally done, we find more stuff that seems unnecessary.  Decluttering has become second nature and we are finding we aren’t as focused on the counting (even though we still do it) as we are on clearing our space.   1355 items so far this year!

Some realizations – our daily habits have changed:
The little bit of mail we still get gets sorted, put away, and/or disposed of as soon as it enters the house – no more letting it pile up “until we have time to go through it”.

The kitchen counters are clear almost all the time!

You can open any closet or drawer without fear!

We both even spent an evening recently clearing our email, saved documents, and such from our computers all because we have the time to do so!  It amazes us how much “free” time we have now that we aren’t having to spend as much time cleaning up to clean or stressing about the condition of the house.

 

Here are a few of the pictures that didn’t make it to being their own post.  Imagine, we are getting rid of some reusable bags.  Why?  We aren’t shopping as much and haven’t used them in over 2 years!

July 2017 Update

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It seems had to believe this month is over already!

The end of July means the both of us have to return to work (sigh), John on the 3rd and Barb on the 4th.

We decluttered 560 items on this forced staycation.  Our 17 day July(ish) Challenge was successful!  We have 2 more days but I think we will make it!

We have decluttered 1298 items so far this year!

We calculate we need to average 54 items per week to meet our goal of 2017 items in 2017.  Is it possible?  YES!  Will we make it? Sure hope so!

Now that we are going back to work, we look forward to using the Instant Pot.

Beans have been mastered!  Artichokes were attempted.  The crock pot feature works wonderfully!  Happy meal prep is ahead!!

 

June 2017 Update (and a new car)

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We removed 51 items from the house.  738 less items this year to bother us!!

Here are a couple of pics!  We both cleaned off our desks but didn’t take pics of the resulting pile of paper.  The binders had old transparencies – does anyone still use an overhead machine??  She counted each binder as 3 since she separated the transparency and paper insert from each other – transparency into the recycle bin and paper inserts used for scratch printer paper (you know, the things you want to print out but don’t want to waste “good” paper for).  An old VHS tape we felt we could depart with and a set of sheets.  Extra dishes and wireless headphones from the motorhome – we couldn’t remember the last time we used these.

 

So much for our financial simplification though.  We decided to get a new car!  Brand new Prius V five – our first car with all the bells and whistles!  We gave the dealer a very specific color and model.  He found it about 2 days later.  Now to get those windows tinted!

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Our old 2010 Prius base model, which we’ve had for 7.5 years, is going to kiddo #2 for the bargain price of $5000 – we are still discussing her payment plan hahaha  Maybe a nice cruise or something when she begins making more money!!

John finally gets his 2003 Xterra back – it has been in the “possession” of a kiddo since 2005 when gas prices hit $2.50 a gallon.  He drove it until that magic value was hit and then traded with the kids.  Kiddo #1 was driving our tow vehicle (1992 Honda Civic, which was John’s parent’s tow vehicle until they got something a little bigger to tow).  Our Honda tow vehicle was replaced with a 2008 Nissan Sentra in 2008 and John still drives it every day – I can’t believe it’s been 9 years we’ve had this car!

The Xterra averages about 16 mpg, while the Civic and its replacement Sentra got significantly better and he is the commuter (about 12 miles each way).    Our gas prices here haven’t been that low since, so there was no “rush” to trade cars again with them.

Xterra possession:
2004-2005 John bought it a year old.
2005-2005 kiddo #1 – finish high school
2005-2007 kiddo #2 – finish high school
2007-2009 kiddo #1 – finish college
2009-2011 kiddo #2 – finish college
2011-2012 Barb – kiddo #2 was home and driving farther for her volunteer work and classes.
2012-2013 no one regularly drove it – and gas prices sucked, usually about $4 per gallon.
2013-2017 kiddo #2 – med school
2017-???    no one will regularly drive it but John is looking forward to having it back – 12 years later!!

 

May 2017 Update

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Can you believe May 2017 is over???  This month flew by!  We have some great memories of this month!  We also spent more than anticipated celebrating!!  That’s ok – it was money well spent!

Kiddo #2 graduated from Medical School!!  We are so proud of her accomplishment!   She and Barb drove across the country to move her new apartment (and official first full-time job) in sunny southern California!  They drove 3 days covering 2700 miles towing a 5×8 uhaul trailer with all her belongings.  Guess that would qualify as minimalist living – she will have more space in an one bedroom place now.  She felt having a “real” job means she doesn’t need to live in a studio any longer.  Look – they even gave her a “physician” parking permit!  How exciting!!

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Both kiddos are in the same time zone as us!!  We are so excited!!

During May we decluttered 30 items – not much but Barb was still recovering from her illnesses and we celebrated a graduation on the other side of the country.  Total so far this year – 687 items removed from our home!!  Now we are “cheating” a little on these numbers this month – kiddo #2 did take with her 8 items: 3 blankets, 1 “big-ass draft” beer stein from the local bar in her college town, 2 reusable water bottles, 1 dresser (so sad to see it leave, it was in the nursery before we even brought kiddo #1 home), and 1 end table.

Some other stuff to leave this month:

 

It’s beginning to feel like we are really getting close to finished.  It’s weird to look at the house and not see all that needs to leave.  We are feeling so relaxed in our house!  There are still “tons” of pictures in boxes in the closet.  Guess I know what I’m doing (maybe) when we return from vacation!

April Update – April was tough!!

declutteringthestuff 2017 in 2017, decluttering, Life Happens

April was a rough month in our house this year.

We decluttered 5 items – I think this is the least amount ever!  Grand total this year is 657.  We have a ways to go to reach our 2017 goal of 2017.  We are enjoying the “freedom” of less in the house!

So here’s our month:
Barb had a stomach bug and missed 2 days of work (Thursday and Friday 4/13 and 4/14).

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Anyone who is a teacher knows that missing work unexpectedly is horrible.  The first day she text a coworker and she handled the sub plans.  Thank you Stefny!!

We got onto a plane Saturday to enjoy the holiday weekend with kiddo #1 in San Francisco area to fly home Sunday night with kiddo #2 in tow.  Kiddo #2 flew in on Friday – it was the first Easter with both kiddos in 5 years!  Such a blessing!

Monday night kiddo #1 called – mommy made her sick.

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Thursday Barb developed a cough and low grade fever.

We then went apartment hunting on Saturday for Kiddo #2 since she will be living about an hour away – horray!!

By Sunday it was a high fever and nasty cough.  Our Doctor-to-be (in 2 weeks!!) insisted she go to the doctor on Monday.  She even escorted Barb since she was so miserable.  Antibiotics and cough medicine prescribed.  Barb missed work again on Monday and Tuesday (4/24 and 4/25).   As of today, tiredness and coughing still happening.  Will this ever end?  This comic represents life when the cough medicine wears off about 3 am.

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Because Barb is on the district science committee, she misses a lot of school for meetings.  At least those are known in advance and you can plan ahead.  Illness is horrible for planning.  Teachers rarely take sick days because of true illness!

John and kiddo #2 picked up the slack for the 2 + weeks Barb was under the weather.  THANK YOU!!

So as you can see, decluttering was nearly nonexistent during April.  We did eliminate an old, ugly, holey t-shirt John insisted on still wearing.  Some things are such accomplishments they have to be mentioned!!

 

 

 

 

March Update

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March saw us very busy on the weekends – so much so that we only decluttered 16 items this month.

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Long weekend #1
On a positive – we took a 4 day trip to the opposite coast to visit our kiddo.  One thing we realized is that we are getting too old to take the red-eye flights!  Work all day, drive to the airport, fly across the country to have breakfast with the kiddo wore us down!  Thursday was a great day though.  We visited Arlington National Cemetery – I know, of all the things to do in DC, we visit the cemetery.  It is one of our favorite things!  The Cherry Blossom Festival was non-existent due to the weather destroying the blossoms.

Friday we attended our daughter’s medical school “Match Day” ceremony.  She will be coming back to California for residency!!!  You can imagine how excited we are – she “left” us in 2007 to go to college on the east coast and basically hasn’t been back to live.  We are so proud of her!

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Her Shirt!!

The rest of the weekend was spent celebrating!!  We flew home Sunday to go to work Monday morning.

Long Weekend #2
Our second “excursion” this month was the the National Science Teacher Association conference in Los Angeles.  This was a Thursday through Sunday event as well.  2 long weekends away from home in one month.  We both got a few great ideas we can implement in our classrooms.  Always worth it!  We are both so tired and ready for a weekend at home, maybe decluttering the garage!

 

 

End of the Super Lean Spending Month

declutteringthestuff Super Lean Spending Month ,

We survived our (sort of) Super Lean Spending Month!

We had 8 “No Spending” days.  This was not in our goal for the month, but it was nice to see we didn’t spend anything on 8 days.

We had a net savings of $336.98!

We spent less than our monthly average (for the last year) in our Food, Food Out, and Entertainment categories.  We spent more in the Household Goods category BUT we did purchase something we really wanted with Christmas money (that as of today hasn’t been removed from the savings account!)  If we remove this purchase, our savings would be $606.98 and the Household Goods category comes in well below average.

What did we learn???  That we really like going out.  It was very difficult to stay home for meals the first 2 weeks.  We didn’t spend any money on alcohol out.  We ended up keeping our social obligations with others finding it humorous that we ordered water to drink in a bar.  (We still left a tip!)

Could we cut our food budget??  Yep.  The question/discussion we had on Sunday revolved around how we scrimped for so many years, do we really want to go back to eating the “cheapest” things just because they are cheap??  We both agree that we do not want to do that BUT agree we could cut other stuff from the food budget.  We did purchase ice cream last night that earlier in the month we said no to.  Maybe moderation in the extras are what we need to do.  It was really nice having steak at home this month (instead of eating it out).  We did spend less than average, so we obvious cut out something!!

Here is our spending weekly recap and our daily expenditures.

 

February Super Lean Month and Decluttering Update

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February is our SUPER LEAN SPENDING MONTH.  We are changing the name from the more common Spend Nothing Month.  We know we will spend money on something!

So today is our first day since Barb got paid (on the last work day of the month) and John gets his check tomorrow (the first work day of the month).   We both get paid once a month.  It is actually easier once you get used to it – it could also be that we’ve been once a month for about 25 years.  You pay all the bills up front – no saving a certain amount for the mortgage, etc.  Then you know exactly how much you have to spend for the next 30ish days.  We are doing this for February since it only has 28 days this year – yes, we like to play mind games with ourselves!

Today (Jan 31, 2017) we spent $70.53  I know it doesn’t look like we are off to a great start in minimal spending.  This purchase included dryer sheets, dishwasher detergent, and ziploc bags for the freezer.  I know, plastic bags are bad.  We just find it so much easier to divide the stuff we need to freeze into the bags for later use.  We also purchased eggs, applesause (I make our own during time off, while we are working it gets bought!), yogurt, almond milk, beets, and a pork loin.  This should cover at least 2 dinners and several breakfasts.  We’ll see!  We are also planning to use up as much as possible from the pantry and freezer.  Food will still need to be purchased – we don’t have much extra stored anymore.

Decluttering update:  625 items left our house and garage in January!!  We have over 1/4 of our 2017 gone already!   It’s hard to not be excited!  Kiddo #2 removed 71 stuffed animals and the rest was from our disaster in the garage.  Hard to believe we have so many items that can still leave the house.

Let us know if you decide to try a Super Lean Month as well!  We know Life As I Interpret It will be joining us.  She also did a “sample” month for January.

 

December 2016 Update

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We woke this morning needing to remove 39 items from our home to reach our goal of 2016 items gone in 2016.  So what did we do??  We decided to go through the magazine holders that have been stacked in the kitchen and removed 37 magazines, 1 magazine holder, and 1 pair of thermal undies – I know the undies seem odd in the dead of winter.  They have been in the drawer for years and not worn.

Can you tell we subscribed to this magazine for years?  Some were from 2007!   John and kiddo #2 have Celiac Disease, diagnosis was in 2003.  It was a challenge at the beginning with limited resources available so we subscribed to many magazines over the years.  We went through these looking for any special recipes that we just had to keep.  15 recipes made the cut.  Most can probably be found online now.  The amount of information on the web is mind-boggling!

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With the removal of these magazines, WE REACHED OUR GOAL OF 2016 IN 2016!!

Here is a breakdown of the numbers for the year:

  • January = 603 items
  • February = 121 items
  • March = 100 items
  • April = 172 items
  • May = 103 items
  • June and July = 39 items
  • August = 19 items
  • September = 147 items
  • October = 30 items
  • November = 424 items
  • December 258 items

Our beautiful chart!

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Decluttering Update -November 2016

declutteringthestuff 2016 in 2016, LiveWithLess ,

I can’t believe another month has passed!  We have been crazy busy!  We won’t bore you with those work related details.

Kiddo #2 is home for several weeks (sort of).  She is interviewing for residency programs and many of her interviews are closer to our house than to her apartment.   She decided to use us as her home base.  She is here a few days, gone a few, back here a few, etc for about 6 weeks.  It’s nice to have her popping in!  It’s also nice that she was able to go through some more of her boxes!

Thanksgiving was wonderful!  We hosted it this year.  A few items had to be purchased but several more left as we cleared space for the new things.  Tablecloths, napkins, etc.

Our decluttering total for November is 424 items (most of these from kiddo #2)  We figure these count since they NEVER left our house when she moved out 5 years ago.

Our total so far this year is . . . 1758 items left our house!!  258 more items to reach our goal of 2016 items in 2016!!

We are about to start decorating for the holiday season.  Maybe the 258 items will come from this!

 

October 2016 monthly update

declutteringthestuff 2016 in 2016, decluttering ,

This month has been a busy one for us, but not in the decluttering department!

We decluttered 30 items this month and our yearly total is now 1334.

To reach our goal of 2016 items in 2016 we need to remove 682 items in 2 months!  That amounts to an average of 11 items per day.  WE CAN DO THAT (I think).

Guess we really need to work on the garage.  The weather is finally cooling off so we can’t use that as an excuse.

August 2016 Decluttering Update

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We have had a slow decluttering month.  Both of us went back to work after 9 weeks of time off.  We really hate to refer to it as “vacation” time since it is unpaid.  Most people assume when you say vacation it means paid time off.

Barb is learning a new Digital Learning System and that is taking all of her extra time.  John sponsors an after school engineering club and is having 20-30 students staying multiple days a week to work on projects.  We are both glad our students are engaged but it takes a toll on our free time at the beginning of a new school year.

Back to decluttering – August saw us remove on 19 items from the house. So far in 2016:

Our Annual Grand Total = 1157 items.  We are sure hopeful that we hit 2016 in 2016!

Happy Decluttering Everyone!

 

March 2016 Update

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March has been a slow decluttering the stuff month for us.  You would think with both of us having a full week off more would have been cleared!  Too bad we weren’t off at the same time.  We both enjoyed our spring break with plenty of relaxation!

We removed exactly 100 items from the house.  We made one donation trip to Goodwill this month as well.

Our grand totals in 2016 are:

  • 824 items gone
  • 5 donation trips

Here is a pic of the bedroom – finally feeling decluttered!  Closet doors might be put back up this weekend!!  The bottom track arrived this week.  Amazing how difficult it is ordering for a 16 foot closet.

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