On Fridays at 365 Less Things I share with you my favourite comments from my wonderful readers and my favourite web finds of the week. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.
Favourite Comments. Enjoy!
Henave has worked out how much easier it is to stay tidy just owning less. Read about it in this comment.
I hope Jane was right about this comment.
Wendy B has the right routine to avoid early morning panics when she had a job in the city. Read about it here.
Jen tells us how she is going to extent the November Challenge right into the new year. She also confirms her reasons for knowing why putting everything away makes life easier in the long run.
Favourite Web Finds. Happy reading!
In this link from One Good Thing by Jillee you might discover ways to reduce the volume of things in you need to stock in your pantry. When my brown sugar runs out I will be buying me a small bottle of treacle for sure but I am not going to bother mixing it I will just add them both to any recipe that calls for brown sugar.
Here is a great article ~ How to teach your kids to live simply from over at Midway Simplicity.
This link was sent to me by Snosie it has 10 good tips on things you can declutter fast.
If you aren’t convinced that small home living is for you then take a look at this post sent to me by Ideealistin.
Today’s Mini Mission
Declutter something from your dining area.
Today’s Declutter Item
I bought these with the aspiration of using them as a crafting tool but never did. I tried selling them on ebay, no success. I offered hem to an acquaintance in a Facebook group I am part of ~ she said yes but never messaged back to arrange pick-up. So they went ~ where I should probably have taken them in the first place and saved myself so much bother ~ to the thrift shop where they sold in a heartbeat.
Shape Cutters for Cake Icing
Eco Tip of the Day
Be familiar with all of the recycling possibilities in your area. Local government websites usually have lots of information on this. Also word of mouth is another way of finding out.
I like Snosie’s link, especially number 1= Trash. The easiest thing to Declutter and gets you motivated towards the not so trashy stuff .
I like the house from Ideealistin, no television but plenty of books!
A tip from the book Predictably Irrational; when you have an item you wish to give away, tell people it is FREE. Everyone loves FREE.
Cheers
Hi Wendy, I managed to borrow that book from the library (imagine my surprise). It will be the next book I read once I am finished with the one I am currently reading. I can hardly wait, in fact I will answer these few comment and settle down to finish the other one this afternoon.
Ha, I also got it from our library, just starting to read it, looks very interesting!
great comments and links as usual. I really liked the one Ideealistin sent. I like that house.
Just wanted to report that since it was cool this morning I put all of the stuff in the shed that we had held out for a yard sale that didn’t happen into the car and took it to the women’s shelter. Feels good to have that gone.
Hi Deb J, I am doing almost the exact opposite. A friend is having a neighbourhood garage sale tomorrow and I have rustled up a few items and am going to join her at some unGodly hour of the morning. My meagre offering is hardly worth the bother but I figured why not as we can chat and while away a few hours together.
Colleen,
she’ll enjoy your company! (and at least you have the chance to sell something, as little as it may be … the next time a friends garage sale comes up you’ll most likely have nothing to sell anymore and probably will still be there to chat/help/keep company/be a friend 😉 …)
You are probably right Ideealistin. Being a friend is rewarding for both parties.
The fun part is chatting with your friend. Since everyone canceled their yard sales due to busyness and we can’t have one in our community until the all community one in April I decided it was time to get rid of it. We have had it in there since May. Last Friday we took 200 pieces of clothing and a bunch of other stuff from S to the same shelter. We are working on another load from her place. then we still have the garage to go through. She has a bunch of Christmas stuff she wants to get rid of and other stuff. I’m going to find someone to help with that–a guy.
I was thinking about your “venting” post this week. Years ago, a dear friend of mine shared this idea with several of us. She purchased plain white dishes, clear glasses, and simple silverware. She (like me) has always used cloth napkins. Instead of dishes, glasses and serving pieces for every holiday, she uses the basic white and clear and makes them festive by adding napkins appropriate for the holiday and decorating with mostly items found in nature (or at the nursery/florist), so she doesn’t have to store a lot of this and that for each holiday. It is a win-win.
Hi Kimberley, I think that sounds like a perfect idea. That is why I am endeavouring to acquire, secondhand, a couple of sets of plain white Corelle dinnerware. I refuse to buy new to replace already perfectly decent stuff but if used ones come along there will be a swap going on for sure. Wendy F gave me some last week and hopefully I will stumble upon some more soon.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading that article about the small house living since I have spent half of my life living in Portland and have visited Sauvie Island many times.
Your eco tip–today I dropped off my bottles/cans at the local recycle place–yes I DO know where it is. And I can recycle meds at the police station. And The Prof takes batteries to the uni where he teaches. 🙂
The book I have just been reading was based in Oregon too. Must be a Pacific Northwest kinda week. Gotta love that.
It never ceases to amaze me that there are place in the Western World, that aren’t out in the boonies somewhere, that recycling isn’t collected from homes. It blows my mind that you have to drop it off somewhere and you are only a stones through from LA.
Thanks for the link to One Good Thing by Jillee. Now instead of having sugar, light brown sugar, dark brown sugar, and molasses in the pantry, I can just keep sugar and molasses. I didn’t know you could make your own brown sugar so easily. Makes me wonder what else I can eliminate.
I also love the list of 10 things to declutter…. The only two I’m totally on top of is the trash and the clothing that doesn’t fit. The only things that don’t all fit are the four pairs of jeans in three sizes. Two in the main size, and one size up and one size down, because I do fluctuate often.
I suppose my biggest problems are the practical items, and the things that I want to fix. Being a broke college student, I know the 20 minute/20 dollar rule, but that $20 buys a lot of food (especially on sale – I’m getting the freezer finally almost cleaned out, and I replaced my surplus there with an excellent sale on spaghetti, so not only do I have my security food, but it’s non-perishable now).
Right now, my biggest concern is cleaning. I’ve been swamped this term at school, so the whole place has fallen apart. I’ve been using the mini-missions this week to just clean up, but it’s still a mess. I just don’t know what to do anymore, there’s not enough hours in the day for homework, school, cleaning, relaxing (less than an hour a day of that, even on weekends), and eating. I’m doing the “always take something to put back when you leave a room” thing, cleaning and tidying while I make food, and just trying to make things neater, but I just don’t know what to do anymore. My two roommates aren’t doing anything to help, and while one of them is mostly neat on their own, the other one makes huge messes (like mine, but they never clean them up, even months later). Does anyone have any ideas?
Amanda, I had 2 roommates back in my young 20’s. One was ok tidy & the other a total train-wreck. We tried asking nicely for her to clean her messes but she never would. She knew we wouldn’t kick her out (her family owned the condo). She also knew she had us over a barrel for that very same reason.
So basically we lived with it until she brought home a new suitor she was very very interested in. He saw how awful our condo looked & asked us why it was such a wreck. We told him the truth & said his lovely new gf likes it this way & doesn’t want us to move a thing as it’s all her stuff.
Yes we threw her under the bus.
But it worked.
For awhile.
But then the guy dumped her & she only got worse.
By then I had found my own bachelorette pad & moved on out!
I bought some plain cloth napkins and found some wonderful wooden napkin rings (very simple) for a song at a sale before Christmas. Some are green and some are red. Now, I just use those when I set my table at Christmas and rather than have paper napkins, these show the colors for the holiday. They make the table festive but don’t take up much space to store. Sometimes, I add a piece of holly or greenery to them or a cute ribbon (tucking it between the ring and the napkin for a change-up).