Greetings October de-clutterers!

I thought I would crash your party! I'm in a good mood because I just had our FOURTH garage sale since June. :carrot: We sold and gave away loads of items (mostly gave away). The remainders were ferried off to goodwill, three boxes of precious items specially packaged for storage (as potential hand-me-downs), and only one bag put in the trash.

....and the garage is pristine! It took me two days of painting, fixing shelves, and cleaning the floors. Not only does it look great, but everything has a home.

As for the rest of the house...this good mood will continue only if the Cleaning and De-cluttering machine keeps moving!

...errrm...Gardner? Tickler? (I'm almost afraid to ask?)

hello!

I continue on daily but have so many different things going on sometimes I lose focus. My office got pretty cluttered the past week as it seems the drop off point so this morning I've already picked up and put away before packing to go to Glenwood for several days. I've done good downstairs but have a few catch ups before I go. The yard moves along but my list got squashed last week as we spent half of Saturday beefing up the fence for our new pup and the other half doing some sealing on DH's new roof. Credit for both.

My brain hooked on the email thing this past week and I spent a nice quiet time sitting on the porch unsubscribing from a lot of stuff I get regularly. I don't need notifications of my e-statements I know where they are. I don't need pep talks of how to vote on a certain issue. I have already decided. I don't need emails from 3 different retailers I shop with since I only buy what I need when I need it. The inbox has already slowed down.

Keep it up everyone!

Yesterday, I dropped off about ten boxes of books for the big book fair that supports early childhood literacy in the St. Louis area.

SeeMyFeet: I love my Tickler file: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG0FU_M_YB8. But, I do get behind on it once in a while. It's much more effective if I keep up.

Oohh, a painted garage interior ... hmmmm... that sounds interesting, SeeMyFeet! We're having the exterior trim painted and typically clean out the garage completely before winter, maybe i could do that quickly myself to give it a fresh clean look. I like painting (but not up high). We have so many projects lined up, and have saved the $$$ ones. All in good time, I suppose.

Despite the big donation dropoff on the weekend, DH found even more he's ready to part with (clothes), so will take that up this week, I think. Keep the dropoffs moving and then no field mice get in the bags. (We live next to a big field and they sometimes sneak into the garage, attic, etc.)

Good point, Silverbirch (regarding easily finding things on the internet). My rule is: if you can find it on the internet, I don't need to keep it. Although I am not an ardent follower of this rule (recipes, books). Ooooh, if only DH would follow such a rule--I'm afraid I might find some silverfish when the cleaning/de-cluttering machine gets to the basement where he has a large bookcase filled with journals...for reasons he will not divulge. But with this philosophy, bookmarks and lists do become important.
Many Thanks for the video, Gardner! I had forgotten about Getting Things Done. (I see a website I can look over.) I have lots of hanging folders lying around, so I should set up a Tickler system for home. (Wonder if I will keep up with it.)

oh, ha, nationalparker! The garage walls are white...nothing special. It's an early 21st century house, so the garage walls are drywall. My bro painted the garage in his house using a mixture of leftover paint once. Came out a pretty pale bluish gray.

...I'll have to have an Unsubscribe day in my Tickler....

Jumping in on this post because september and october has been all about minimizing, for me :) I hardcore cleaned my desk at work, and at home, I've reorganised my closet and am in the last phase of sorting old papers!!!

It fees pretty good, doesn't it!

I've been so busy yet still keeping our home a priority. I just came off my work days and the laundry and dishes are caught up, bed made and kitchen sink clean. When I keep up with the basics there is room for new projects.

Last week we spent Wednesday painting and replacing the window trims on the East side of our mobile home in Glenwood. It was my suggestion and now it's finished. Yay! It was the last reliable weather day or we would have had to put it off until Spring.

DH got motivated and so today we are sanding/painting our porch in I.Spgs. Same....nice weather and another project we don't have to do in Spring.

I have 5 days and very nice weather to work in the yard. I have a goal to have several areas ready for planting in the Spring. This year the beds weren't ready and when Dh left for Alaska sooner than expected I just couldn't keep up. It took me quite awhile to find the little oil bottle in the basement for the mini-tiller but I did some culling and reorganizing in the process. I have new soil ready to put in a front bed and I want it to get tilled in before frost. I believe I can get a lot accomplished today in between porch painting. If I keep going outside with the nice weather I will greet Spring with some exciting new plans instead of just trying to eradicate very old weed patches. Yay! One step at a time.

Sounds great, Lexxiss and SouvenirDarling! I feel like I'm coasting a bit until the next "challenge" or timeframe pops up. A friend put out a request for stuff for her garage sale and I was able to give her two bags of clothes from both DH and I and was surprised since we'd just dropped off a CRV-load at Goodwill a few days earlier.

Project that might be next is flooring and to do that in our dining room, we'll have to remove everything and take down some wall shelves (to remove the carpet underneath them) and that might help me in making it more visually appealing to start from scratch again. I don't want to get rid of some family items but having a bin and exchanging them now and then would be ideal. I don't want a dining room that looks like a Pottery Barn or Ballard Design showcase with everything bought from a store to look uniform ... I do want the memory pieces and photos but not as much as I do have on there. And some of the family pieces from great grands and grands are a bit colorful :)

Goal for this weekend (which sound be good weather here) is to clear out patio pots and replant with pansies, etc. Cull them down to just a few in a pretty arrangement and pack the rest up for winter safekeeping. Brought a gardenia inside when the temps dropped and it's been pushing blooms all week - it didn't bloom this much all summer. Beautiful scent.