And Rosie - the separate closets are for the different sizes Lose a few - gain a few - just rotate them through

Ha! Good idea!


I nailed right through paper because while on wall..I marked center ..pulled paper right thru the nails

Clever idea, Rosie! I like the way you did it and you know it's all going to be great. I just wing it and start pounding nails everywhere. I often end up with nail holes to fill and paint over.

Guess what? The couple that bought the women's road bike from our garage sale? They returned yesterday to buy the matching men's road bike! They said the condition and upkeep on our 12 year old women's bike was outstanding, that he would be happy to own the other!

Joan's story reminded me of when I was given several boxes of china. My dad had passed and my stepmom sold the house. She asked me if there was anything I wanted. She had lots of really neat Christmas ornaments & angels. So I said I would love a couple of those. Just pick 2-3 out for me. Nooooo.........she brings me like 5 boxes of assorted china that was my grandma's.

I can't remember the name of it now. But telling me it is worth some money . Well, I have no where to keep this stuff. I don't like it so will not use it. So I call around and get the same story over & over. What I have is very common, not complete and pieces are chipped etch. So bottom line, not worth anything.

So I pulled out like 3 pieces that were in there I did like and sent all the rest off to Goodwill. I felt bad for awhile, but it really meant nothing to me nor did I even like it. Once it was gone & I got over the guilt I felt so much lighter!

I held on to a bunch of my grandmother's things.: Linens, hand embroidered napkins, doilies, some awesome vintage clothes from the 50's and her mink stole. I finally decided my grandma did not live inside these inanimate objects. I got rid of all the linens and doilies and only kept a few pieces of clothing and mink stole that I thought one day I might actually have some fun with. The lady I gave them to on freecycle turned around and tried to sell them. shrug. I guess she though they would be worth something to her that way.

I have an Aunt's mink stole that I've kept all these years. My kids and their friends used it for dress up for Halloween.
It bothers me when we give things away to people who turn around and try to sell them. I try to just forget it once they're given away.

@Legalily - when I was decades younger I used to move frequently. Just cuz. And I never had anything more than what I could put in my car. Of course I didn't have a house and furniture to deal with. But the last few times I moved were rushed so things went into boxes. And never came out. So I've got those nasties to deal with. Plus my mom's stuff. (I have one niece who would have taken all of that if I'd sent it 4 or 5 years ago.) Plus newer 'crapola'. And then there's the dang photographs. I don't know how I ever got the old ones. (From 1900 on.) Spent lots of time scanning them. Cousins wanted copies and it was before people just emailed pictures and let the recipient print or whatever. So I got a lot of them printed and by then the cousins didn't want me to mail them. Ack! Did I mention that I have lots of cousins? So I'm either going to mail some anyway and then the rest goes in the 'shred' box. Same thing happened with somewhat newer pictures. Slowly scanning and then I guess I'll shred. And in the meantime it's not like new important papers don't come my way.

Between ADHD and OCD it's amazing that I get anything done. I start on something and get up for a minute to go in another room and suddenly I'm spending hours there and it goes on and on.

At least I keep a good supply of gelato in my freezer. It makes everything ok.

I'm supposed to have the pics put on discs but just no incentive yet A swift kick in the butt might help

Sigh Photo Clutter. I have 10 years of my life in photographs sitting in a brown sack in my closet. Except for my kids baby pix up til about age 12, I was never good at arranging photo albums OR tossing out the blurry ones. Blurry was better than nothing, right? There are 4 shoeboxes filled with pix of the kids age 12 up.

Right now I have almost 10K photos and 75 albums in my phone's SD card. 560 pix in the "camera" file are waiting for me to file them into albums. There is also a redundant "SD Card" file with 450 pix in them. How they got there IDK??? I'll need a day or two to clean up my phone and rearrange photos, much like the 10 years of my life in a sack.

I have 3 PhotoBucket Accounts 100% full pf photos. I can't remember my 3 user names or passwords. I hope one day I will have an epiphany and remember them all so I can have the photos back...and put them in my SD card... to wait for me to put in albums. It never ends, does it?

Also we were on the edge of video technology when the kids were little. I have a huge collection of VHS tapes of the kids taken with a huge PBS-style camera, then Super 8 and DVD's. I got them all transferred to DVD's including the transferred VHS of ME as a baby movies/ reel-to-reel transfer. But I can't toss away the old stuff?? No, I don't have a VHS player.

I still have one! I still have videos too

I have a few VHS that I can't say I watch but I could not do without them ..my brother and mom and sisters who are gone are on those. I also have phone messages that I can't get rid of... voices.......and so I MEAN to put those on tapes ..so I can UNPLUG phones I do not use ( base units ) I am on my third set!!!!!! Hahahahahahahaha. I guess that can be used against me in a sanity trial. I just can't dumpmthe voices...Ben who is soon to be 13 ..when he was a scratchy age 2 ... my brother calling to say happy new year and he would give anything for a hug... oh my.

I have a few doilies ...I have seen those framed behind glass and they are beautiful and feminine in a little girl's room ..I have seen china broken up and sunk haphazardly in cement and used as a long decorative stepping stone at the bottom of a stairway and in front of a bench ...a way to preserve memories ...that is what I meant when I said I have a hard time getting rid of stuff that I mean to "someday" "do something with".....sigh.... now I will saynif I had no memory of that doily or having used the china.., it would be different.. Stuff becomes burdensome. Overwhelming. I can understand how letting it go makes one feel lighter. I feel great when I empty a drawer and closet

I've saved my moms voicemails on my phone and listen to them when I'm feeling down. I have my dads voice on a cassette tape. Daughters dance recitals on VCR

Transfer those sentimental VHS Tapes transferred to DVD quickly! Like olf photos, those tapes will not last forever. They get dry and brittle and there is really no way to preserve them as they are in the plastic cassette. You have have it done at Target, online/mail in, or Kinko's etc.. The transfer won't improve the quality of the tape, but it will keep better. You can file it easier and they last longer.

Dang, @ShadyGreenThumb! And I thought I had a lot of pictures!
When I got my first 'smart phone' in Feb, a gift from a friend who was upgrading hers and was tired of hearing me say that when the next iPhone comes out, then I'll give up my flip phone, imagine my surprise that after having it set up at the Apple Store (aka Mac Shack) I find that all the pictures on my Mac were suddenly uploaded to the phone. I'm like, 'What the what?' So one of these days I'm going to have to take a class at the Mac Shack and find out how I can just keep them on the desktop unless I choose to keep some on my phone. Don't think that will be do-able. It's probably all or nothing.

Re-reading this I think I should win a prize for the longest run on sentence ever. Dang! Now that's a form of clutter, eh?

Painting painting painting

Ugh....takes 20 times longer than it should

This is an example of things that need to go!
Why do I have so many of these?. And WHY do I add to them! Now they got their own chain!

And I am replacing linens and curtains and WHY don't I toss the old??

You know I am donating every blasted blanket and bedspread..,going down to the park in Raleigh and handing them out with wipes and toothpaste and safety pins and deodorant and dry shampoo....winter is coming... those folks can use warm things ...do you think there is a use for these lid pry-er-uppers?


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It's a good thing you are doing, Rosie. During the great purge at my home this year, I found that I really had very little to send to the soup kitchen, the church garage sale or even to the dump.

I just had to put the clutter away so that my brain was not over stimulated by the clutter to a melt down.

I was amazed at how many empty jars I had saved. They are now gone.

I like empty closets, drawers and shelves. I don't need near as much as I thought I might need. Poof ... someone else truly wants and needs that "stuff".

I forgot ... I am even planning on sharing more plants and creating a more serene garden with fewer plants .... I am even de-cluttering outside this coming year.

That is a great idea. Decluttering the garden. I am very much like you...all the input overwhelms me. But, I share quarters with a spouse who is a polar opposite ..he likes things full and stuffed and 'cozy '

I toss and pare...he brings more in. I told him I needed to fix the toaster knob...he said I have one in the car ( a toaster) . I told him for the life of me, I did not know where I stored a temperpedic style mattress topper... that was weeks ago... then I found it...I had preserved it under the box spring and on top of the bed slats so as to keep it dry and safe... .I told him.." hey, I found that topper." ..he said I have one in my car..... In HIS car??? A foam topper???

The few times my sister has visited up here, she has been horrified that there are spaces between the hangers in my closets. However, I've always had that rule that "if something came in, another thing went out", so my closets have never really been full. It drives her totally NUTS !

Oh, well. What are big sister for if they can't drive their little sisters nuts ?