Let it GO! Decluttering (simplifying) your life of (people, places or things) success stories?
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I’ve started getting rid of things that don’t bring me joy any more. As as result I have clothes I like wearing vs clothes just hanging in my closet year after year. More to come. Stay tuned.
YAY YOU and we'll be glad to "stay tuned" too. Here's to cheering you on, big time...BOOM!Today's task was to declutter the food storage dishes, I threw some things out. There's a cute little Tupperware container that was my mom's, I've never used it. I put it in the dishwasher, so I have time to talk myself into giving it up.
Good job today Snoo! Ya know what's funny? I LOVE throwing things away now, so much--makes me feel "powerful (full of power) or something. How things change...I remember this time last year, throwing stuff away was like getting rid of one of my children or one of my body parts or something. Now, when I see junk/stuff that's just hanging around, collecting dust--it's ON and out it goes, one way or another...it's outta here, period. I LOVE that!2 -
NewLIFEstyle4ME wrote: »I’ve started getting rid of things that don’t bring me joy any more. As as result I have clothes I like wearing vs clothes just hanging in my closet year after year. More to come. Stay tuned.
YAY YOU and we'll be glad to "stay tuned" too. Here's to cheering you on, big time...BOOM!Today's task was to declutter the food storage dishes, I threw some things out. There's a cute little Tupperware container that was my mom's, I've never used it. I put it in the dishwasher, so I have time to talk myself into giving it up.
Good job today Snoo! Ya know what's funny? I LOVE throwing things away now, so much--makes me feel "powerful (full of power) or something. How things change...I remember this time last year, throwing stuff away was like getting rid of one of my children or one of my body parts or something. Now, when I see junk/stuff that's just hanging around, collecting dust--it's ON and out it goes, one way or another...it's outta here, period. I LOVE that!
NewLifestyle4me I'm usually the same way. I love getting things out, and getting things organized. I think I'm having trouble with this 1 little thing because it was my mom's.
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NewLIFEstyle4ME wrote: »I’ve started getting rid of things that don’t bring me joy any more. As as result I have clothes I like wearing vs clothes just hanging in my closet year after year. More to come. Stay tuned.
YAY YOU and we'll be glad to "stay tuned" too. Here's to cheering you on, big time...BOOM!Today's task was to declutter the food storage dishes, I threw some things out. There's a cute little Tupperware container that was my mom's, I've never used it. I put it in the dishwasher, so I have time to talk myself into giving it up.
Good job today Snoo! Ya know what's funny? I LOVE throwing things away now, so much--makes me feel "powerful (full of power) or something. How things change...I remember this time last year, throwing stuff away was like getting rid of one of my children or one of my body parts or something. Now, when I see junk/stuff that's just hanging around, collecting dust--it's ON and out it goes, one way or another...it's outta here, period. I LOVE that!
NewLifestyle4me I'm usually the same way. I love getting things out, and getting things organized. I think I'm having trouble with this 1 little thing because it was my mom's.
Girllllll...you BETTER keep Momma's container and USE it and think of that darling mother of yours everytime you do, period. I know it's definitely something you can find a regular use for, for sure!
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NewLIFEstyle4ME wrote: »NewLIFEstyle4ME wrote: »I’ve started getting rid of things that don’t bring me joy any more. As as result I have clothes I like wearing vs clothes just hanging in my closet year after year. More to come. Stay tuned.
YAY YOU and we'll be glad to "stay tuned" too. Here's to cheering you on, big time...BOOM!Today's task was to declutter the food storage dishes, I threw some things out. There's a cute little Tupperware container that was my mom's, I've never used it. I put it in the dishwasher, so I have time to talk myself into giving it up.
Good job today Snoo! Ya know what's funny? I LOVE throwing things away now, so much--makes me feel "powerful (full of power) or something. How things change...I remember this time last year, throwing stuff away was like getting rid of one of my children or one of my body parts or something. Now, when I see junk/stuff that's just hanging around, collecting dust--it's ON and out it goes, one way or another...it's outta here, period. I LOVE that!
NewLifestyle4me I'm usually the same way. I love getting things out, and getting things organized. I think I'm having trouble with this 1 little thing because it was my mom's.
Girllllll...you BETTER keep Momma's container and USE it and think of that darling mother of yours everytime you do, period. I know it's definitely something you can find a regular use for, for sure!
I love you! I'm keeping it, if I'm tearing up trying to get rid of it, I have to.
Hubby thought of a way we can use it, I love him too.
Thanks my friend
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NewLIFEstyle4ME wrote: »NewLIFEstyle4ME wrote: »I’ve started getting rid of things that don’t bring me joy any more. As as result I have clothes I like wearing vs clothes just hanging in my closet year after year. More to come. Stay tuned.
YAY YOU and we'll be glad to "stay tuned" too. Here's to cheering you on, big time...BOOM!Today's task was to declutter the food storage dishes, I threw some things out. There's a cute little Tupperware container that was my mom's, I've never used it. I put it in the dishwasher, so I have time to talk myself into giving it up.
Good job today Snoo! Ya know what's funny? I LOVE throwing things away now, so much--makes me feel "powerful (full of power) or something. How things change...I remember this time last year, throwing stuff away was like getting rid of one of my children or one of my body parts or something. Now, when I see junk/stuff that's just hanging around, collecting dust--it's ON and out it goes, one way or another...it's outta here, period. I LOVE that!
NewLifestyle4me I'm usually the same way. I love getting things out, and getting things organized. I think I'm having trouble with this 1 little thing because it was my mom's.
Girllllll...you BETTER keep Momma's container and USE it and think of that darling mother of yours everytime you do, period. I know it's definitely something you can find a regular use for, for sure!
I love you! I'm keeping it, if I'm tearing up trying to get rid of it, I have to.
Hubby thought of a way we can use it, I love him too.
Thanks my friend
My absolute pleasure my friend. This post brings such joy and smiles to/for me. I super love you too!
{{{{ Hugs and High Fives to you and your good/wonderful hubby }}}}0 -
I'm sorry to repost this pic again...but this is ME now:
Help me and THANK YOU LORD, I LOVE this pic of me sooooo much--this is thrilling to finally be slim/trim--I LOVE seeing/BEING this pic! Size 8
these pics below are me in October 2018/size 12/14--wow what a difference taking your time makes
FROM THIS (below): (This wasn't even my heaviest, squeezing into a size 20w summer 2017)--one of the ONLY pics I allowed to be taken of me, I was so, ummmm..ashamed of getting photos of myself. I usually "hid" behind people or put kids or things in front of me for pics taken...I did this (avoided the camera like the plague for YEARS and YEARS
)
BEFORE: I was somewhere around 208/210-215lbs
Gang, PLEASE NOTE: during ALL this time, the scale barely moved and though the scale weight "turtled" off of me(because I'm eating WHATEVER and WHENEVER I want to...my "want to's have changed though, 100% from when I was obese and overweight ( THANK YOU JESUS )--the inches and fat/excess were blasting off of/out of my mind/spirit/BODY something wonderful and amazingly terrifc ( I've got nice muscles in my arms and legs and no excess/loose skin at all)--without ANY exercising besides daily N.E.A.T./Decluttering and dancing while I cleaned/decluttered, that's all...it's utterly tremendous being down to size (in decluttering AND weight blastification) at LONG last 
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On the "success" train, I have had some decluttering successes in the past few days. Every few months I go through everything I own and get rid of anything extraneous. I have been doing that a bit at a time over the past few days. Our room has been a huge mess for the past few days with all the stuff I'm sorting through but now I am tackling the mess and it's diminishing. I was putting stuff to be donated in the closet but I decided to take it out so that I would actually deal with it instead of forgetting about it, and it actually worked.
On Saturday I mailed a box of cleaned and flattened milk and plant milk cartons to a recycling center in Virginia (the addresses of carton mail-in centers around the country are available from the Carton Council website), because they aren't recyclable in my area. I save them up and once I have a full box or shipping envelope I mail them in. Not sure if that really counts as decluttering. But it kind of does because I wasn't able to mail it out in December because the lines at the post office were too long, so the box was sitting in the hallway for about three weeks. I also mailed out an item from Etsy that was sent to me by mistake and had to be sent to the intended recipient, which again isn't really decluttering, but it was taking up unnecessary space in the apartment (I also reused a shipping envelope to send it).
Yesterday I donated two bags of clothes that aren't my style anymore, are not comfortable enough to wear all day without getting annoyed (bye four pairs of jeans from my failed attempt to feel comfortable in jeans), or don't fit properly (the perils of buying secondhand clothing online). I also recycled or shredded a bunch of mail (the mail that was shredded will be composted in my town's community garden...they have a compost bin for food scraps and any non-laminated paper products can go in there as well).
Today I also recycled the pages from last year's planner and from a bunch of old notebooks filled with notes for my certification exams, which I know I will not look at again (the writing of notes was just to help memorization but if I need to look something up it is way easier to look it up in the textbooks which are in my Google Books library). I have also collected a few more clothing items for donation. I still have another huge bag of clothes that are not in good enough condition to resell but have to be donated to a clothing recycler (socks with holes in them and so on). Those can be recycled at H&M but since I don't drive I have to wait until we happen to be going to a mall that has one or something like that. I also have a bag of random items to be donated to Goodwill from when we cleaned out my husband's closet several weeks ago, but the Goodwill is about a 20 minute drive away so we haven't had the opportunity to go there yet either.2 -
laurenq1991 wrote: »On the "success" train, I have had some decluttering successes in the past few days. Every few months I go through everything I own and get rid of anything extraneous. I have been doing that a bit at a time over the past few days. Our room has been a huge mess for the past few days with all the stuff I'm sorting through but now I am tackling the mess and it's diminishing. I was putting stuff to be donated in the closet but I decided to take it out so that I would actually deal with it instead of forgetting about it, and it actually worked.
On Saturday I mailed a box of cleaned and flattened milk and plant milk cartons to a recycling center in Virginia (the addresses of carton mail-in centers around the country are available from the Carton Council website), because they aren't recyclable in my area. I save them up and once I have a full box or shipping envelope I mail them in. Not sure if that really counts as decluttering. But it kind of does because I wasn't able to mail it out in December because the lines at the post office were too long, so the box was sitting in the hallway for about three weeks. I also mailed out an item from Etsy that was sent to me by mistake and had to be sent to the intended recipient, which again isn't really decluttering, but it was taking up unnecessary space in the apartment (I also reused a shipping envelope to send it).
Yesterday I donated two bags of clothes that aren't my style anymore, are not comfortable enough to wear all day without getting annoyed (bye four pairs of jeans from my failed attempt to feel comfortable in jeans), or don't fit properly (the perils of buying secondhand clothing online). I also recycled or shredded a bunch of mail (the mail that was shredded will be composted in my town's community garden...they have a compost bin for food scraps and any non-laminated paper products can go in there as well).
Today I also recycled the pages from last year's planner and from a bunch of old notebooks filled with notes for my certification exams, which I know I will not look at again (the writing of notes was just to help memorization but if I need to look something up it is way easier to look it up in the textbooks which are in my Google Books library). I have also collected a few more clothing items for donation. I still have another huge bag of clothes that are not in good enough condition to resell but have to be donated to a clothing recycler (socks with holes in them and so on). Those can be recycled at H&M but since I don't drive I have to wait until we happen to be going to a mall that has one or something like that. I also have a bag of random items to be donated to Goodwill from when we cleaned out my husband's closet several weeks ago, but the Goodwill is about a 20 minute drive away so we haven't had the opportunity to go there yet either.
Wow, you're doing an excellent job at this business of decluttering and getting a TON of N.E.A.T exercising too. Keep up the terrific job and super YAY YOU!!!!! 0 -
NewLIFEstyle4ME wrote: »Wow, you're doing an excellent job at this business of decluttering and getting a TON of N.E.A.T exercising too. Keep up the terrific job and super YAY YOU!!!!!
Thanks! Same to you, congratulations on your weight loss and clutter loss!Yes, I meant well. I could not know there was so much else going on, hun. Maybe you want to delete this answer if it's too private I hope everything works out for you. You know, as someone who has to work hard on herself to not clutter this triggered something in me. My case is mild as I am able to control it, but there's a feeling of desperation if there's stuff accumulating and the urge to just run away and not think of it anymore.
Sorry I forgot to reply to this comment yesterday. I think there's definitely a big difference between normal clutter and hoarding. Probably the majority of people in America have clutter due to our consumerist society. Many people in America also have mental health problems. But many people also make at least some effort to solve their problems. The key word with what you wrote is "work hard on yourself not to clutter"...you are actually trying to improve, even if you aren't perfect and have slip-ups.
But when someone sees the amount of wasted time and wasted resources and stress and life disruption to other people that they have caused, I really don't understand how they could continue the same behavior and not make any attempt to change, and also completely deny that anything is wrong and continue to vilify anyone who calls them out on it. Unless they are a totally selfish and horrible person, or don't actually give a flying crap about the well-being of the people who have done so much for them.
Most hoarders and people who live in squalor do not get the opportunity of a fresh start. A lot of them wish that they could leave it all behind for someone else to deal with and start over with nothing and learn better habits. She actually got that golden opportunity. She got to start over in our apartment with only a few basic possessions and she didn't have to lift a finger for her pile of crap to be taken care of (she's also going to make a 300%+ profit on the house sale due to gentrification and as far as we know my husband is not going to get a penny of that even though he did all the work, and it would have been an even higher profit had she and my deceased FIL not let it go to *kitten*). And even then she didn't make any effort to change and did not respect the boundaries I set. The only reason why she respected my boundaries about not hoarding or leaving rotten produce and so on in the rest of the apartment is because I wouldn't back down and also she knew I would throw her stuff out if she started leaving trash or piles of clutter around. But I still had to waste time arguing with her to maintain boundaries that were already set before she moved in, which caused me and my husband unnecessary stress.
It's not even just the hoarding either. It's the entire history of her BS and her expecting me and my husband to go along with her whenever she wants something. And then acting like a victim and accusing us of abuse if we set boundaries and tell her no. She wants it both ways. She doesn't want anyone to tell her what to do but she also wants other people to take care of her and obey her. Those are the worst kinds of people.5 -
I move for work every 5-6 years. And when I say move, I mean it. Not with a huge truck, but usually with 2 suitcases of clothes/shoes and 2 cardboard boxes of bedding/kitchen utensils. Last move happened 6 months ago, USA -> Europe. I must admit every move is rejuvenating
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i lost EVERYTHING in the Calif Camp Fire (4 uninsured rental units and my home). i am now coming to terms with living in poverty, which is a whole new perception. i THINK i don't have enough stuff, yet daily the Universe provides --and i can't believe how sacred this all feels. It sucks, don't get me wrong--but there is a divinity to it too. Out of fear i want to hoard, thinking i will never have another yam, bottle of clean water, or pair or shoes. That is because my BRAIN is broken and sometimes falls into darkness. As i honestly confront the grief i am growing more compassionate, powerful, and dependent on God over things. i am truly aware of how fragile is the human experience--but in this experience there is so much grace and goodness 22
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Today's task is to go through pots, pans and the lids. I have 1 cupboard to do. Have a great day!2
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terrypacifica wrote: »i lost EVERYTHING in the Calif Camp Fire (4 uninsured rental units and my home). i am now coming to terms with living in poverty, which is a whole new perception. i THINK i don't have enough stuff, yet daily the Universe provides --and i can't believe how sacred this all feels. It sucks, don't get me wrong--but there is a divinity to it too. Out of fear i want to hoard, thinking i will never have another yam, bottle of clean water, or pair or shoes. That is because my BRAIN is broken and sometimes falls into darkness. As i honestly confront the grief i am growing more compassionate, powerful, and dependent on God over things. i am truly aware of how fragile is the human experience--but in this experience there is so much grace and goodness
{{{{{{ HUGS }}}}}}} and Absolutely WOW--talk about "The Grace/Power of God" you are FILLED with it! For you to lose EVERYTHING, and turn around and praise, give thanks, glorify and embraced The Only True and Living God in the midst of such a huge tragedy is the stuff His "saints" (bible saints--The God of the bible calls His people saints--it's not from some religion/church doctrine, not religious at all) are truly made of. I am THANKING you and The Lord for this major contribution to this thread. I wanted to highlight the entire thread, but chose a few things that The Lord would have me hide in my heart and "follow" you, as you follow God. WOW!!!! Your attitude, your spirit is so utterly selfless, so very humble and real. I LOVE you and please let me know if there is ANYTHING I can do to help you. You have taught me lessons in your post that I will never forget. Thank you again saint for posting. {{{{{{{{ Super ultra HUGS again }}}}}}}
P.S. Please know that MANY people will be tremendously blessed by your posting...people you will not hear from. You have blessed others as well as God Himself--YES and Amen and Amen!1 -
I move for work every 5-6 years. And when I say move, I mean it. Not with a huge truck, but usually with 2 suitcases of clothes/shoes and 2 cardboard boxes of bedding/kitchen utensils. Last move happened 6 months ago, USA -> Europe. I must admit every move is rejuvenating
You're fabulous, period. 0 -
laurenq1991 wrote: »I'm trying to get my MIL to move out. As I mentioned she's a hoarder and lives in squalor if left to her own devices and also has control issues, and I'm done with it. I went into her room today and it was worse than I thought. One of the closets is packed floor to ceiling full of bins of papers that my husband brought from her abandoned hoarder house that he's been cleaning out over the past year. He brought them months ago and she has not even touched them. She has literally nothing else that she has to do, yet she can't even do that for herself. My husband said he would get her to go through them. I said, "That's exactly the problem, that YOU have to do it. That is what keeps happening over and over again where you have to clean up her messes and she has no consequences for her actions and learns nothing. Why can't she, at 70 years old, take responsibility for herself and do it her own damn self without prompting? Because she likes you doing things for her and she likes being surrounded by crap." He gets it but says that this is the easiest way to deal with it.
I told him when she moved in that if left to her own devices, she would likely leave us with 80-90% of her crap when she moved out. She has done this multiple times before with multiple people. I said that some conditions of her moving in were that she could not hoard and she could not leave ANY items behind when she moved out. He swore up and down that it would work out. Now I see that it is playing out exactly as I thought it would. There's no way she will be able to take all this crap with her especially as she is too cheap to hire a moving truck to move the 1000 miles that she will likely be moving. She's already most likely going to leave her bed and we have no use for it. She bought an exercise bike (which I was told was a mandatory part of her physical therapy for her disability) and now that thing is taking up space in the living room and she barely uses it. But you just know that she will also leave all the papers and dollar store crap and empty takeout and oatmeal containers that she saved for some reason and all that to us too, and try to convince us that we want them. My husband doesn't believe me on things like this but I always turn out to be right.
It's just amazing to me how much crap she has managed to acquire in just a year and a half, even with limited mobility and no ability to drive. She had almost nothing when she came here. She had no furniture and we had to buy her a bed. She had only a few clothes because she lost weight during her illness and none of her old clothes fit anymore. And even when she was housebound she STILL hoarded, because she hoarded empty oatmeal and nut containers! Now the room is packed full of things piled a foot high on every available surface and I don't even know where half of it came from. Imagine how much crap she would have acquired in that time with full mobility. Or if she was allowed to hoard in the rest of the house. She tried to do that when she first moved here by putting all her papers covering the entire dining table so nobody else could use it for eating, and when I shut her down and moved all her stuff she threw a fit. Now she acts like I'm some kind of tyrant enforcing a gestapo of cleanliness when really this is just a normal, somewhat minimalist apartment and I don't clean an excessive amount.
This is the last time I ever deal with a hoarder. I told my husband I don't care how disabled she becomes in the future, she is NEVER living with us again unless she successfully gets treatment. If anyone else becomes a hoarder (my brother has some risk factors and my maternal grandparents and two great-uncles already were hoarders) I am not doing a thing to help them. I am done.
I know this must be very stressful for you, but also try to understand your MIL. Hoarding is very often not laziness but mental disorder. I mean, you don't say to a depressive person to just be cheerful, an anorexic one to just eat, someone with anxiety to just get over it, right? A hoarder also needs professional help. So while I fully understand your frustration I would think a bit of empathy is also needed.
My mom is one.. The problem with hoarders is they will never seek help. They don't believe they have a problem and they're comforted by all the filth around themselves. Empathy only goes so far, because like this lady discovered, you give them an inch and they will hoard you right out of your own house.
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Today's task is the bakeware cupboard. I am getting rid of a bundt pan. Since I was washing that, I pulled out some wine glasses I'm getting rid of, and washed them too. Making progress! Hoping to find a church in the area that is still collecting home goods for hurricane Florence victims.4
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LeslieHuggins wrote: »This thread is making me want to do something with the disaster in my house. I have sold on ebay for 20 years, so always have "ebay stuff" sitting around on every flat surface. We have 3 long-haired housecats, who are our children, but do they shed.... My husband and I own the tavern in our small town. I work a minimum of 13 hours a day. On top of all these factors, my husband and I are both "collectors". I won't use the word "hoarders", as I don't think we are quite there. Yet. So, needless to say, my house is a freaking mess. I don't even know where to start. When I do try to start, I get overwhelmed and give up or get a bad case of the "squirrels" and don't accomplish anything. Any suggestions where or what to start with so my head doesn't just blow up????
Check out the flylady site. It's all about just starting out with one spot, maintaining that and then building upon it. For example, in the kitchen - keeping the sink clean.4 -
Today there was a bit of a plumbing disaster with the bathroom sink and it ruined some things that we really didn't need, a box of 100 giant gauze pads and a box of 100 rubber gloves (my husband bought them when he had minor surgery last year but he didn't need THAT many). I don't like stuff getting wasted and I was planning to donate the gauze pads somewhere, but at least they got "decluttered" instead of just sitting there forever?
Yesterday I also recycled an old plastic pitcher (I would have donated it but it was discolored) and dumped out and recycled an old emergency gallon of water that was past the date. I'm going to replace it with a smaller bottle since the main unforeseen emergency is when we have water repairs in our building and a gallon of water is excessive for that. I also put a couple of unused kitchen items into the Goodwill donation bag. Today I also reorganized a few things in our bedroom. My husband has a cart where he puts everything that he needs for the day except it had some items on there that he hasn't used in months, so I moved them to his closet (he has a lot of hobbies so he has a closet where he keeps all his hobby stuff, sentimental stuff, and random other stuff). I also moved our mail baskets to the shelves underneath our nightstands so instead of seeing bills that have to be paid and junk mail that my husband didn't recycle, all you see is a nice decorative basket. It looks so much better now.My mom is one.. The problem with hoarders is they will never seek help. They don't believe they have a problem and they're comforted by all the filth around themselves. Empathy only goes so far, because like this lady discovered, you give them an inch and they will hoard you right out of your own house.
Update on that situation, she actually had to go to the hospital on Monday and Tuesday since she had atrial fibrillation/heart attack symptoms but they couldn't find anything wrong with her. My theory is it was dehydration but who knows. Meanwhile apparently my husband discovered that Staples does bulk shredding so he took one of the bins of papers from her closet to be shredded. He also told me the papers were sorted already and he was just storing it to shred it later. Of course she could have shredded it with our home shredder but at least it's not that much work for him to get rid of it. He said the majority of the crap in the room is just papers which is good news because a) those are easier to get rid of, and b) I can say "if your room is filled with foot-high piles of highly flammable material, do you think you or the parrot will have any time to get out if there is ever a fire?" (I even said this to my husband and he agrees).
Honestly I'm not really sure what percentage of her problem is hoarding and what percentage is just squalor. Because she has no idea how to keep things clean either. Her dishes always have bits of food on them because she doesn't wash them properly (I made her get her own dishes for that reason and I have no idea how she didn't get food poisoning by now). When she lived on her own she would never clean up after her pet birds and they would fly freely around the house and *kitten* everywhere and she wouldn't care. Currently she only cleans the floor of her room which the bird poops on once a week, and it has never been washed. She definitely had a shopping addiction at one point but she cut back on that after she started going to the senior center every day (although they keep giving the seniors free items there which annoys me). But does she have foot-high piles of papers everywhere because she's too lazy to go through them, because she wants to be dependent on my husband and lets it get to the point where he will have to go through them, because she likes having piles of crap everywhere, or some combination of those? It's a mystery.4 -
I've been unpacking boxes from the office transition. SO SICK of it but determined to get it done. Got a big box of random recipe papers and a couple big boxes of stuff left. Emptied/unpacked around 20 boxes so far.
Since it's the new year and need to get a grip on $$, resolved to stay out of the stores. Not going clothes shopping, and cooking up the food in the freezer.5 -
My mother is also a paper hoarder. Because she donates to charities, she's now on virtually every mission, charity, whatever mailing list out there. The solicitations come in bunches and she's so afraid of identity theft (nevermind that her info is ALREADY being sold and resold) that insists on cutting out name & address from every one of those solicitations and shredding it. So the amount of time involved to actually do what she wants is horrific and overwhelming and her desk has mounds of this trash piled and falling off. (She was hospitalized last year and I stole piles of this junk mail and disposed of it.)2
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My mother is also a paper hoarder. Because she donates to charities, she's now on virtually every mission, charity, whatever mailing list out there. The solicitations come in bunches and she's so afraid of identity theft (nevermind that her info is ALREADY being sold and resold) that insists on cutting out name & address from every one of those solicitations and shredding it. So the amount of time involved to actually do what she wants is horrific and overwhelming and her desk has mounds of this trash piled and falling off. (She was hospitalized last year and I stole piles of this junk mail and disposed of it.)
If you have access to her banking records you should check up on her. My MIL was on a ton of political mailing lists, she's in her 90's, a few years ago her son finally caught on and checked. She had given away almost $40,000 to different political charities.
Most of them weren't legit, I had checked them out for her a few years before. It didn't stop her. I had warned her kids for years but they assumed she was sending out $5 checks.
A co-workers mother was sending money to a bunch of "lottery" and contest mailings. She was also almost broke when she died. The elderly are easy money for this kind of crap.4 -
NewLIFEstyle4ME wrote: »I'm sorry to repost this pic again...but this is ME now:
Help me and THANK YOU LORD, I LOVE this pic of me sooooo much--this is thrilling to finally be slim/trim--I LOVE seeing/BEING this pic! Size 8
these pics below are me in October 2018/size 12/14--wow what a difference taking your time makes
FROM THIS (below): (This wasn't even my heaviest, squeezing into a size 20w summer 2017)--one of the ONLY pics I allowed to be taken of me, I was so, ummmm..ashamed of getting photos of myself. I usually "hid" behind people or put kids or things in front of me for pics taken...I did this (avoided the camera like the plague for YEARS and YEARS )
BEFORE: I was somewhere around 208/210-215lbs
Gang, PLEASE NOTE: during ALL this time, the scale barely moved and though the scale weight "turtled" off of me(because I'm eating WHATEVER and WHENEVER I want to...my "want to's have changed though, 100% from when I was obese and overweight ( THANK YOU JESUS )--the inches and fat/excess were blasting off of/out of my mind/spirit/BODY something wonderful and amazingly terrifc ( I've got nice muscles in my arms and legs and no excess/loose skin at all)--without ANY exercising besides daily N.E.A.T./Decluttering and dancing while I cleaned/decluttered, that's all...it's utterly tremendous being down to size (in decluttering AND weight blastification) at LONG last
The change is amazing! The work you've put into your home, and the stress free time because of it, you decided to give yourself, has paid off.4 -
This thread is so busy and I am finding it difficult to keep up with. I am trying to ease up a bit on my social media this year, but I miss the boards.
I have watched the whole season of Tidying Up to be able to discuss it with my daughter who is doing so well. She is picking me up tomorrow to get me to run errands, she told me that she has the back of the car loaded with donations of clothes, hers, her husband's and both children. I will drop off a few items since we are stopping.
I follow another board on here where we post goals each day and each month is a new challenge. December's challenge was to do 5 somethings every time we went to the washroom. I could not remember to do this and was failing miserably. I made myself a little sign for the bathroom that says "Love Yourself More" I put it in the bathroom today and sat it on the counter where I cannot miss it. It reminded me to do something every time I was in the bathroom today so I managed to add some squats to my exercises. Also, before putting my pretty little sign in there I decided it had been a while since I went through the drawers and shelves in there. I got rid of a garbage bag full of stuff!
I think Friday I will go through my closet and dresser drawers or kitchen again... Why does the kitchen end up getting so much junk stashed in drawers? I know I just went through them about 3 months ago!
Ok, it's late and I should go write in my Gratitude Journal put my positive quote on facebook that my friends and family are expecting and head to bed.
I will try to check in more often!6 -
Snowflake1968 wrote: »This thread is so busy and I am finding it difficult to keep up with. I am trying to ease up a bit on my social media this year, but I miss the boards.
I have watched the whole season of Tidying Up to be able to discuss it with my daughter who is doing so well. She is picking me up tomorrow to get me to run errands, she told me that she has the back of the car loaded with donations of clothes, hers, her husband's and both children. I will drop off a few items since we are stopping.
I follow another board on here where we post goals each day and each month is a new challenge. December's challenge was to do 5 somethings every time we went to the washroom. I could not remember to do this and was failing miserably. I made myself a little sign for the bathroom that says "Love Yourself More" I put it in the bathroom today and sat it on the counter where I cannot miss it. It reminded me to do something every time I was in the bathroom today so I managed to add some squats to my exercises. Also, before putting my pretty little sign in there I decided it had been a while since I went through the drawers and shelves in there. I got rid of a garbage bag full of stuff!
I think Friday I will go through my closet and dresser drawers or kitchen again... Why does the kitchen end up getting so much junk stashed in drawers? I know I just went through them about 3 months ago!
Ok, it's late and I should go write in my Gratitude Journal put my positive quote on facebook that my friends and family are expecting and head to bed.
I will try to check in more often!
I like the idea of doing something extra every time you are in the bathroom! I'm not formally exercising, just trying to move more, and declutter/ clean. This is a great way to do a little extra!5 -
I was doing something similar..trying to improve my balance, so each time I went in the bathroom, I would try to stand for 30 seconds on one leg, and then 30 seconds on the other. Was doing good with it, but have slacked off..I really should start again. At my age, balance is important!9
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My mother is also a paper hoarder. Because she donates to charities, she's now on virtually every mission, charity, whatever mailing list out there. The solicitations come in bunches and she's so afraid of identity theft (nevermind that her info is ALREADY being sold and resold) that insists on cutting out name & address from every one of those solicitations and shredding it. So the amount of time involved to actually do what she wants is horrific and overwhelming and her desk has mounds of this trash piled and falling off. (She was hospitalized last year and I stole piles of this junk mail and disposed of it.)
If you have access to her banking records you should check up on her. My MIL was on a ton of political mailing lists, she's in her 90's, a few years ago her son finally caught on and checked. She had given away almost $40,000 to different political charities.
Most of them weren't legit, I had checked them out for her a few years before. It didn't stop her. I had warned her kids for years but they assumed she was sending out $5 checks.
A co-workers mother was sending money to a bunch of "lottery" and contest mailings. She was also almost broke when she died. The elderly are easy money for this kind of crap.
It is worrisome! It's a fine balance between her independence & my reality. She's 89 and just stopped driving (was only local BUT TWO recent minor accidents) - was going to sell her vehicle for her (don't want her taken advantage of but she now says her friend wants to buy, mind you this friend needs to sell her vehicle first). Trying to get access to bank accounts partly to plan ahead and keep track of this kind of thing. She has zero interest in doing anything electronically. Thanks for listening!3 -
Took another box out of my office!
Going through old rolodex and tossing cards. Threw out an address book I used before my first marriage. That was 30+ years ago. Faced reality - hadn't needed or used it all this time, it can go.5 -
Took another box out of my office!
Going through old rolodex and tossing cards. Threw out an address book I used before my first marriage. That was 30+ years ago. Faced reality - hadn't needed or used it all this time, it can go.
Congratulations on getting rid of a box! It might not seem like much, but it adds up, believe me. I'm kind of shocked sometimes by the difference such little things make.2 -
My mother is also a paper hoarder. Because she donates to charities, she's now on virtually every mission, charity, whatever mailing list out there. The solicitations come in bunches and she's so afraid of identity theft (nevermind that her info is ALREADY being sold and resold) that insists on cutting out name & address from every one of those solicitations and shredding it. So the amount of time involved to actually do what she wants is horrific and overwhelming and her desk has mounds of this trash piled and falling off. (She was hospitalized last year and I stole piles of this junk mail and disposed of it.)
If you have access to her banking records you should check up on her. My MIL was on a ton of political mailing lists, she's in her 90's, a few years ago her son finally caught on and checked. She had given away almost $40,000 to different political charities.
Most of them weren't legit, I had checked them out for her a few years before. It didn't stop her. I had warned her kids for years but they assumed she was sending out $5 checks.
A co-workers mother was sending money to a bunch of "lottery" and contest mailings. She was also almost broke when she died. The elderly are easy money for this kind of crap.
It is worrisome! It's a fine balance between her independence & my reality. She's 89 and just stopped driving (was only local BUT TWO recent minor accidents) - was going to sell her vehicle for her (don't want her taken advantage of but she now says her friend wants to buy, mind you this friend needs to sell her vehicle first). Trying to get access to bank accounts partly to plan ahead and keep track of this kind of thing. She has zero interest in doing anything electronically. Thanks for listening!
When my mom died last year, my dad's identity was stolen. He's 85 now. He was notified, and it was controlled, but its a scary thing. Now, when he gets calls from numbers he doesn't know, he yells *kitten* and hangs up.5
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