Congrats to all of you who have been so busy and accomplished so much! You are to be commended! Great job!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

RoseBlush1 said: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 ?

Thats my rule too!!

Texasgal77 said:Congrats to all of you who have been so busy and accomplished so much! You are to be commended! Great job!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

And to you Jeanne

I am going to declutter the fridge by eating all the leftover stuffing and pie!

While sweeping out the garage the other day I saw DH's fishing poles which he has not used in the 10 years we have lived here at the lake. So they were out for trash pickup today! Last week I got rid of the girls Easy Bake Oven and the week before all their play-doh activity kits we still had.

Great
Just so you know, I have seen fishing poles do a great job as plant stakes!!!

And you can attach a "fish flag" to them for garden art ...

Jumping in. We retired 3 years ago and our goal is to get the house ready to sell....with no particular plan to sell it. Instead - taking one room at a time - deep clean, renovate, and most important - declutter! For whatever reason, I have found myself the 'keeper of the memories' for my parents, older relatives, co-workers, you name it. At some point, I had to draw the line - these are not MY memories, they are someone else's. So, after first checking with anyone I think might be interested, I am slowly clearing my house of stuff. Stuff I have gathered, stuff my kids left behind, and stuff that just mysteriously appeared. Feels great.

My house feels cluttered. There are certain plants that come in for the winter. I am more fond of empty spaces in my home that I am house plants. And these houseplants that have been grown outside are HUUUUGE! They are so spoiled!

I worked hard on decluttering the photos in my smart phone. I have and Android and have changed out the 32 gig SD Card for a 128 gig SD Card. The phone can hold 220 gigs, but I thought the 128 should be large enough...for now. So I copied the photos on to the new card since I like to have them with me and the old SD card is my back up, on top of the cyberspace back up. Good heavens! It's worse than keeping photo negatives in order for back up which are now useless!

I cleaned up files and photos off the device put them on the SD card. At last count there were 7000 photos on there. I am guessing there are 10,000 by now. Each has been placed into an album. I cleaned up the "Camera" file where all photos go to begin with. Now I will go through the albums and delete some. It's a tedious job but I love looking at old photos on y phone whenever I want instead of hauling out the old heavy photo albums.

I don't use a cell phone, all my photos are on my computer. Problem is they are an absolute mess - some cameras put them into different spots, I've had lots of computer issues, etc. Getting them organized into one spot is a winter project for me this year. I do miss photo albums, nothing like curling up on the couch with a grandkid and laughing at old photos. Just not the same with digital, but there it is...

A word to the wise -- I really dislike when people pull out their tiny telephone screens to show me a picture or two, then proceed to bore me with their entire trip to Tahiti... Not sure how to extract myself from this, particularly when it is a close friend or relative.

I am slowly learning Instagram, and that seems like a great way to share photos with others, who can then either look or not. Just sayin...

I have one thumb drive dedicated to backing up my photos. That way if the computer crashes, all of my photos are backed up in one place.

I have recently purchased a tablet and plan to learn how to use the camera function for quick photos. I'll back them up to the computer so that they, too, will end up on that dedicated thumb drive ...

I have decluttered my sis's guest closet.
I opened the door and it all slid toward me..
It is a walk in ..maybe 5x7 -8 feet tall..

A lot of the stuff belinged to my brother who passed.
She has not been able to go through...then ..she started just tossing stuff in there..even dry trash.

Anyway cleaned it...donated what could be..tossed the rest.
Painted it.
Hung extra shelves ..
Looks great.

Then we cleaned out bureaus ...😳😳😳😳😳😳😳
Whoa!

I drew the line at the garage because she houses her daughter's junk...her husband drags everything home and I don't want get in the middle of those three.

I also weeded her front garden and planted a gardenia

Finished cleaning out a large walk in closet in one of our empty bedrooms. I will use it to store the Christmas decorations instead of having to crawl in & out of the storage space under the stairs. So much more easier & convenient!

Tori took all the stuff that was decent to the thrift store. It was stuffed animals and lots of children books. So good shopping maybe for some parents.

Great @Claudia
It us nice to recover a closet PLUS give away useful items that will thrill another person.

Don't you feel " lighter" when stuff leaves permanently? Plus you can declutter your Christmas stuff

I am slowly whittling away at my holiday decorations. If I haven't put it out for 2 seasons, out it goes.

Loaded the back seat of my car today and drove to the closest thrift shop. Bye bye to stuff I hope someone else can clutter with.

Still have so much more to do but every little bit feels so cathartic. Will be glad when I finally attain nirvana.

My dad took decluttering on during his sunset years. I got quite a laugh when opening a kitchen drawer to find nothing but a pair of scissors. But, he knew where it was all righty - in the scissor drawer! He also took a bunch of old coins my mom had diligently put in their safe to the bank as just a routine deposit.

😳😳

Well, it made him feel like he did something!

I have learned that when decluttering...one has to harden ones heart and mind...and forget that
"so and so can USE this".
"I wonder if --- may want this"
." but this cost me.......".
" I was saving this to do that with it "
Or the terrible " I may NEED this someday!"

Closets! hmmmmphhhh! I can't walk into mine! I will get to it. It's on The List. But first, WE DECORATE!!!

Ha ha - I've been working on decluttering all my holiday crap along with the rest of it. I've whittled Xmas down to 3 totes, one is just lights (most of which don't work, need to ditch those), I'm giving ornaments away like crazy (one on every gift), and I'm working on just keeping the Santa guys that I actually like instead of the whole herd. We don't do an indoor tree any more, and I'm really pretty content to just bring in some greenery and tuck some candles and a couple Santas around. Our nuclear family plans to spend the holiday weekend at a cabin on Puget Sound, with very minimal gift giving - food, games, naps, fire, hikes, beachcombing, sauna, food. Looking way forward to a peaceful low-key celebration.

The best thing to do I think is to donate all your stuff to a senior center or other agency that will benefit from reselling, and also provide jobs and/or volunteer positions to your community. I felt terrible about our recent bathroom remodel - the contractor very nicely cleaned everything up as they went about their business, but I am unclear if they recycled perfectly useable things or if it all just went to the dump. I fear the latter. I was a bit compromised healthwise during the remodel and couldn't focus on what was going on. Gary thinks they may have donated to Habitat for Humanity, I sure hope so. Other than being outdated, everything was in working order... Such a shame if they actually tossed it all. Water under the bridge though.

Rosie, I think we all struggle with the 'letting go' part of decluttering. Some things I get all excited about when I rediscover them, but then realize it's been in the closet for umpteen years, so just...get. rid. of. it !! Very cathartic.