1000 Things…

Since finding out that we would be welcoming a new member of the family, I’ve kept meaning to have a sort out and deal with some of the clutter that has gravitated it’s way to our bedroom like a black hole! I started with great motivation but between holding a full-time job, the general exhaustion that goes with being pregnant and the general stuff that has to be done around the house.

My friend Liz has been on a mission to simplify her life and to live more consciously, part of this is to streamline the number of “things” she has in her life, she set the goal to get rid of 1000 things from her house. Having read her post and the follow up since starting maternity leave along with The Big Clothes Throw at our Slimming World group and the fact that the nursery is almost finished I decided it was about time that I got my butt in gear. Like Liz, I’m not very good at being ruthless and chucking out those things that I keep just for a rainy day. In the last six months or so I’ve been doing more crochet and knitting than any other craft so it makes sense that I clear away my card making stuff – and possibly give some away or find other homes for it (away from my house for example!). I’ve written posts and watched videos in the past about making life simpler and clearing out those extra bits. There’s a book that just pinged into my mind and I can’t remember who it’s by or what it’s called but the main protagonist (male) has a list of the items he has in his life and when he gains new things he has to get rid of things – I think he was more a matter of OCD or something like that but I always thought it was a good plan – then again I still have too many clothes and too many books. I’ve not put a figure on it at the moment but I have started counting the items.

I was tidying up the living room the other day as we were expecting an unannounced visit from the social worker at some point (and she came on Tuesday when I had spent most of the day in bed with a banging headache!) and I made a drastic decision. I need to find a new home for my ukelele. When I bought it I had this great idea that I’d learn to play it then record me playing songs to add to my YouTube account, well it was a good idea but didn’t happen in practice. So I posted on FB to see if one of my musical friends would find a home for it – I think within an hour I had a home and a standby home for it! That was one thing gone, and it felt good lol. At the beginning of this week, I went on a mammoth waddle to get Chris’s anniversary present and then to the supermarket for bin bags amongst other things. I got back and grabbed one of the bin bags and started on my chest of drawers, as I filled the bin bag I counted how many items I’d got in it. I ended up with 25 items including two tour shirts and two charity shirts – I did try to find homes for those 4 items before chucking them in the charity bag but there were no takers and decided that 4 days was enough time for the decision to be made. I started on clearing the top of my chest of drawers and found two pairs of old glasses and a Big Knit woolly hat from Innocent Drinks. These spawned another challenge, I figured that one of the big optician brands in Bedford should be able to help me.  I called Specsavers in town to see if they recycled glasses or passed them onto charity. The store wasn’t able to help me so I tweeted them as well as Vision Express (after Lucy had mentioned them in relation to the Joules new range a week earlier). They both came back to me on Tuesday to let me know that if I dropped the old pairs into my local branch they’d sort them out from there. Vision Express was able to tell me that they’d be sent to Vision Aid which was good. I then tweeted Innocent Drinks – their social media team/person is so lovely. Leading up to the last few Christmases, they’ve added little woolly hats to their smoothie bottles and a certain percentage of the sale goes to Age UK to help older people stay warm during the cold weather. I went through a stage where I collected the hats, Chris would also collect the hats for me – sometimes he even kept the smoothie for me hehe. At the moment I’ve just found the one but I’m pretty sure that I have some more so I’m in two minds whether to send just this one-off and then send the others when I find them rather than hold onto this one in case others appear. I asked if they would have use for them if I sent them back to them – after all, they are all clean etc so could probably be put on bottles again this Autumn/Winter. Guess what? They can reuse them. So there’s another thing to be done. Aims for this week:

• Pop to town and drop off the glasses at one of the opticians (possible Vision Express as I know where they are going)
• Grab an envelope and despatch the hat I have to Innocent Drinks.