Colleen and Cindy wish all our American readers and the good folk of Leiden (Netherlands) a very happy Thanksgiving May you eat all you want and not gain an ounce. Now that would be something to be grateful for. A little more Wisdom from Cindy In the United States, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, the day that marks the start of the "holiday shopping season." It's a day of amazing sales and deep discounts. Some stores open as early as 4:00 am, with people staying up all night in the parking lot so they can be the first in the door, as the very best sales (aptly named … [Read more...]
Mini Mission Monday ~ Make way for guests
Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and "fun" for you to achieve some quick decluttering. With the holiday season upon us I think I will continue to focus our mini missions around having the house ready to receive visitors/guests. So we will concentrate on the areas they will be most likely to see and use. Monday - Take a good look around your living room. The room where you … [Read more...]
Simple Saturday ~ A little creativity & all jokes aside a little stark reality
Today for Simple Saturday I want to share two things with you. Firstly I have been creative and come up with my new Christmas tree design. I thought I would run it past you to see what you think. It is minimal, inexpensive (I picked it up off the side of the road) and fits better in my home than the the big 6½ ft fake pine tree. If I decide I will continue with this tree tradition I will throw away the branches at the end of the season and pick up some new ones the next year. That way I don't have to store it and each year it will be that little bit different to the last. I could put this … [Read more...]
Friday’s Favourite Five ~ 18 Nov 2011
On Fridays at 365 Less Things I share with you my five favourite comments from my wonderful readers and my five favourite web finds of the week. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did. Fave Five Comments. Enjoy! Ideealistin makes a good point here in a follow up comment to a question posted by Lynn who had asked for some helpful ideas on toy storage. Everyone congratulate Felicity on a job well done. She shares her garage sale success story in this comment from Saturday. Here is a great refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle story shared by Ann in this comment. Well done Ann you have … [Read more...]
Ten ways to make the holidays season simpler
If you feel inclined to minimise holiday/Christmas décor, declutter to a point where you are comfortable with the quantity, the effort involved and the storage space required after the event. Try to get as many people on board with the no gift giving rule as possible. Give gifts of experience not clutter to those with whom you can't avoid gift sharing. This includes children. Try doing a secret Santa when there is going to be a large crowd together for Christmas, everyone buys and gets only one gift. The environment and your bank account will thank you for it. Do as much pre-holiday … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ You Can’t Push a String
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom You can't push a string... Different people have different styles, styles of gift giving being no exception. In my family, specific (extremely specific) gift requests aren't considered out of line. In my husband's family, many gifts, all surprises, are the norm. Well, we all know what happens when people you rarely see or talk to give you "surprise" gifts, right? It took me years of interacting with my in-laws before I realized that I could not control them, I could only control myself. (Some very obvious lessons are nonetheless hard to learn.)Â I started announcing in … [Read more...]
Oh Christmas tree Oh Christmas tree…
Last Thursday I got started on the Christmas decorating and I've got to tell you my heart wasn't in it. Just the thought of cluttering up my living room sent chills up my spine. Mind you those chills didn't last unfortunately because it was 7:30am and already 26ËšC  (79ËšF) outside. I was however determined to get this done so I could share my experience with you today in advance of those who will be performing the same task soon. I have one large box of tree and table decorations, a large nativity scene and a 2m (6½ ft) tree. Not much in the big scheme of things but more than enough in my … [Read more...]
Mini Mission Monday ~ Pre Christmas prep
Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and "fun" for you to achieve some quick decluttering. This week at 365 Less Things we are launching a preemptive strike on the Christmas/holiday season. Time to do some pre-holiday decluttering and organising so when you break out those decorations, the guests arrive and the presents are opened, there is enough room to accommodate them. The more … [Read more...]
Simple Saturday ~ Scary Halloween
The October issue of Real Simple magazine reveals a grim statistic: 6,250 tons of landfill waste “could be avoided if half the kids in America traded Halloween costumes instead of buying new ones.†That the equivalent to the the weight of more than 3,000 mid-sized cars! Be sure and swap, sell or donate this year's costume. Did you know there's an official Halloween costume swap day? Of course it's already passed, but you can mark your calendar for next year's swap. … [Read more...]
Children and alternative gift giving
Quite a few of my readers have mentioned on different occasions that they have friends and relatives that give their children far too many "clutter" gifts. No matter how much they insist that this stops the gifts just keep on coming. There are many alternative gift ideas that you could suggest they choose. Unfortunately life sometimes gets away from us and when the time is nigh we can't think of any suggestions to make to these very generous gift givers, that are a great alternative to clutter. In the past I put together a list of alternative gifts with mostly adults in mind. This list is … [Read more...]