Simple Living Lesson #6 - Outgoing

Do you love these flowers?
 I took this photo at a photography workshop last year.

Hey all! I am happy to have you back here, following along with the Simple Living Lessons from Simple Living: Thirty Days to Less Stuff and More Life. Last week we talked about streamlining the incoming clutter in the house - the junk mail.

This week involves finding ways to streamline the clutter going out of your home. For the two years or so I have been on a major cleansing, decluttering path. I have purged clothes, toys, kitchen gadgets, pretty much everything thing in sight.

How does your household deal with outgoing clutter? What works in our house is the Donation Station. We have an Ikea laundry hamper in the corner of our spare bedroom where outgrown clothing and unused household items are stored until I have a chance to take them to the second hand store. 

 
Between clearing the drawers and closets and bins and shoes for my Forty Bags in 40 Days Challenge (more on that later in the week) our donation station is pretty full! I think I'll be making a trip to the VV Boutique later this week.

Another way to help streamline the flow of excess clutter out of our home is to have an out-of-here shelf. We have a little area in our front entryway where I put anything that needs to be returned - library books, something to go back to my mom's house, something to return to the store. If I have all of the "outgoing" stuff in one place, hopefully I'll be more likely to remember to return it to its rightful owner when I leave the house.

Of course, if you are very organized, you may have a Sell Pile. I will be honest, I'm pretty lazy and most of the stuff I am purging I couldn't be bothered to try to sell. However, if you are purging things of value, you may benefit from some Craigslist postings. A couple of tips though - price things to sell, so you aren't holding on to them for ages and ages. And if it doesn't sell quickly, maybe you need to rethink selling it and just donate it!

Sometimes you need help with a big purge, I have a couple of cute little sidekicks!

If you are following along with these Simple Living Lessons, you are already practicing some of these decluttering techniques. Hopefully I can give you some tips on other ways to live more simply. I don't think I will ever be finished purging things out of the house (kids grow out of clothes and toys, I get bored with decor items) but hopefully with less stuff in the house, we have room for more living!

Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it! I will hopefully be linking this post up with A Bowl Full of Lemons, Delightful Order and Joyful Homemaking. Have a great week!

40 Bags in 40 Days - Progress #1

Week one is finished!! How did you all do? Did you manage to fill five bags of stuff to send out of your home? I did!

I gathered my supplies and my sidekicks (plastic bags, and my two girls!) and got to work!
The first five areas on the list coincided with another series that I am participating in, Simple Living Lessons. The second lesson was examining the chaos "underneath" - starting with your underwear!

I started with my drawers, and moved along to the hubs' unmentionables, each of the girls' socks and undies drawers and finally the cupboards in my bathroom.
In each area, my goal was to fill a bag with things that either didn't fit, didn't work, or just plain needed to go.

The first thing we did was take everything out of each of the drawers, then sort through them to see which items didn't belong. Check out these tights we found in Miss A's sock drawer - size 18 MONTHS!!

40 Bags   in   40 DaYs

Next week on the list are the following five areas:

6. Clothes - My pants and skirts
7. Clothes - My tops (pretty sure this will net MORE than one bag!!)
8. Clothes - My workout wear
9. Clothes - Brett's tshirt collection
10. Clothes - Brett's sweaters and shirts

This week may be a little tougher, because although the hubs has WAY more clothes than me, for some reason he loves all of the ill-fitting shirts, free stuff from beer cases and random sports accoutrements in his side of the closet. Hopefully some early warning of the project will make it a little easier on him.

What's on your list for the week? Which areas of your house are you going to tackle? Good luck!!!

Simple Living Lesson #2 - Underneath

Welcome to week two of my Simple Living Lessons series. Were you here for week one? The first lesson in the Simple Living: Thirty Days to Less Stuff and More Life series had us explore our vision for simple living. Everyone is going to have a different definition of Simple Living, and it was so helpful to actually map it out for our family.

This week called for an actual challenge! The challenge is called "Underneath." Can you guess what part of my life I had to explore? You got it - my underwear drawer!! The theory is that if the condition of your undergarments is in chaos, then it's likely that the rest of our wardrobe is in chaos too.

I took a look through the knickers and cleared out and uncomfy or ugly pairs. If I haven't worn them in a year, they went out. Same went for the sock drawer. Since I wear flip flops or sandals as often as possible, I really only needed about 10 pairs each of dress and white socks. I tried on all of the bras and bathing suits and donated any that I don't wear regularly.

For "extra credit" I am going through Miss A's and Miss E's socks and undies drawers too - they each have socks and tights that they have grown out of that need to go.
I know that the intention of this week's challenge is to spur us on to examine the rest of our wardrobes, and I'm sure that is a project that I will be undertaking later on in the series.

The last time I cleared out my closet I was hugely successful, but never actually extended the clothing purge to the socks and undies part of the wardrobe collection. Now that I am organized "underneath" my mornings should flow just a little bit easier.

Please check back for next weeks' lesson called "QUIET." Not sure I'll have much success with a challenge called Quiet with two crazy monkeys hopped up on Halloween candy, but I am certainly willing to try!
I am going to tie some of the Simple Living lessons in with another challenge I have put on myself lately - purging 40 bags of stuff from our house in 40 days. Hope you'll check in and see the progress!!

How was your week? Did you map out your Simple Living plan? Will you take some time to organize from "underneath" this week? Good luck!!

40 Bags in 40 Days

Pinterest!! You all encompassing, totally addicting place of inspiration! You have done it again! Totally sucked me in! Have you ever typed “Organize” into the Pinterest search box just to see what you get? Here’s what I got: This-Crazy-Idea-That-Could-Just-Work!

The plan is to fill forty bags with excess “stuff” from our home to purge in forty days. I have mapped out forty places in the house where I can search for items to send out of the house. Some bags will be filled with donatable items, and will be sent off for a good cause. Other places, well I'm sure a good few bags on this purge will be filled with actual trash/recycling - you know old lotions and creams that need to be tossed, paper, paper and more paper that keeps creeping into the house... you know the drill, right? 

I have tried to do big purges before (quite successfully if I do say so myself!!) but this idea seems like it might be a fun (maybe?) way to coincide with the Simple Living Lessons that I am working through week by week.

Toy purge pile from a previous exodus from the house!

For the first week of the planned 40 bags in 40 days, I am going to tackle:
1. My "unmentionables" drawers (socks and undies)
2. B's "unmentionables" drawers (socks and undies)
3. Miss A's drawers
4. Miss E's drawers
5. The drawers and cupboards in the master bathroom

I'm sure hoping that I'll be able to sort it all out in the order of the list. We'll see how it goes!! Wish me luck!!