Success!

Sadly, there’s enough that I’m going for 465 more things this month and already have it in my head for the fall.  I know, not everyone would count every school worksheet, but some folks count pairs of shoes as 2 so I feel like there’s an element of what works for you involved.

Day 25:

Return: The black bag has nine items that will be returned.

Donate: The three shirts in the bottom row are too short.  The shirt in the middle left never really fit right.  There are two items under it plus one pack of hair clips.

Fabric Recycling: The blue shirt on the right has stains that won’t come out and doesn’t fit right anymore.  All the items in the top row have holes.

Trash: We don’t need the package of replacement toothbrush heads.  We have another set and, frankly, don’t replace the heads nearly often enough to need all of these.

Day 26:

Recycling:  This whole stack is going in the recycling.

Day 27:

Recycling: I know it doesn’t look like much, but there are twenty-seven items here and most are papers being recycled.

Trash: The two binders have seen better days and will hit the trash.

Day 28:

Recycle: I’m continuing to power through the school papers.  Everything here will be recycled.  Enjoy the artwork!

Day 29:

Recycle: Everything here will end up in the recycling.

Day 30:

Recycle: Enjoy the artwork!  Everything here will be recycled.

By the end of this post I will have finished the 2015-2016 school year papers, and started 2016-2017.  Given that, I decided to power on to get through that next school year.  I’ll save the current school year for the fall.  Plus, in both cases you’ll see that I have plenty of other things/rooms I didn’t get to in this first attempt.  And, I think taken in full there was a nice range of items parted with.

Links to the beginning of the challenge:
Days 1-6
Days 7-12
Days 13-18
Days 19-24

This was vacation week so I mostly tackled the school paper pile from the 2016-2017 school year.  Fortunately or unfortunately, I get so much paper home from preschool and elementary school that most of it goes in a box that I hopefully process when I have time the following September.  Obviously I’ve taken a few Septembers off because I was behind.

Day 19:

Recycle: There’s actually not that much paper here – the two yellow notebooks at the bottom and the pinwheels (minus the push pins) are it.

Trash:  Because so much of this is laminated, many papers fell here.  I also wasn’t sure about recycling the yarn with the fabric so I tossed it.  The bag got recycled, but inside was another bag of moldy preschool play dough.  I better have found all of that now!  The folders and binders had all seen better days having spent an entire school year traveling back and forth.

Day 20:

We finally had a warm day and the kids were outside, so I was able to sneak back to the broken toy stash.

Recycle:  All hte paper stuff including unneeded old toy instructions and Happy Meal inserts.

Trash: There’s a shell, some ribbon, the Happy Meal frames, a sticky hand that is no longer sticky, some broken sports eggs, a broken RC car, two broken Tivo remotes, and a dagger toy that got stepped on and crushed so it no longer retracts (which is the actually fun aspect).

Day 21:

The boys did some more cleaning out and I continued going through the old school stuff.

Recycle:  The boys came up with a bag of scrap paper, a torn gift bag, and two LEGO boxes to get rid of.  Then there’s a whole pile of school papers.

Trash: Some laminated papers (including the Fraction Kit), an old balloon, two hamburger erasers, and some ribbon.

Day 22:

Recycle:  Again, lots of school papers.

Trash:  There are a few more interesting items here: two “reuseable” (but they’re super flimsy) bags signed with a bunch of kids names, one yarn head sculpture, many laminated papers, another Fraction Kit, and four Elementary School Field Day “medals.”

Day 23:

Sold: I had another burst of success, selling the bassinet, associated bedding, and baby carrier.

Recycle:  All the papers here went in the recycling.

Trash:  Two folders that have seen better days, a foam star from 5th grade graduation, a piece of yarn “cloth,” and a box of random pencils/crayons.  None of the pencils are in great shape and I don’t keep non-washable crayons in the house.

Day 24:

There were some nice examples here covering a year of preschool art.

Recycle:  Most of the papers around the perimeter will be be recycled.

Trash: A lot of these have random stuff glued to them that cannot be recycled.  The penguin is mislabeled 2014; these are all actually from the same school year.

Links to the beginning of the challenge:
Days 1-6
Days 7-12
Days 13-18

The process continues.  The volume is down this batch, but the clutter clean-out continues!

Day 13:

Recycle: As I was going through my dresser for the clothing review, I found 11 pages of notes (from multiple years) re the kids Christmas presents.

Fabric Recycling: During the same activity I found two headbands that were over the hill.

Day 14:

Trash:  I went back to the stash closet for ten random party items, including one bag of moldy homemade playdough that had been sent home from preschool.  Yuck!

Recycling: I also found one old goody bag and three sets of toy instructions.

This closet still has a long way to go, but the kids are home for April vacation so I’ll need to switch gears for a week or so.

Day 15:

Donate:  The three shirts on the left are in great shape, they just don’t fit me correctly anymore.

Fabric Recycling: The red shirt has stains; if you look closely you can see them in the picture.  The swimsuit’s elastic is shot.  The sock lost its mate to a hole.

Trash: I finally got around to entering a big batch of Pampers’ points so nine bags can go.

Day 16:

Recycle: The kids are not going to care if I part with their school worksheets.  So, 16 of them went in the recycling.

Day 17:

Recycle: Seventeen more papers joined the pile.

Day 18:

Recycle: The kids cleaned their rooms today.  I didn’t expect them to want to part with much, but they did add a bunch of scrap paper, as well as the box and tube on the right to the collection.

Fabric Recycling: I’ve had the replacement pillowcase for a while as this one had split open.

Trash:  There is a plastic circle the boys found, an old gift card, and a pack of fabric swatches that we never did end up buying furniture with.

Links to the beginning of the challenge:
Days 1-6
Days 7-12

I’m still going strong in week 2, to the point where I’ve already thought about doing this again in June (the next 30 day month).  Obviously it would be nice to part with things quickly, as they become available, but that’s not always possible.  I have clothing that will be kept until the end of the season and then let go, school papers that will be kept until the end of the year, things that have to disappear quickly to escape the interest of the children, etc.

Day 7:

Donate: The five pairs of pants and one sports bra that are in excellent condition, just not right for me.

Fabric recycling: One sock had a hole.

Trash: I have nicer toy cars than this one from a party favor bag.

Day 8:

Gift: One child was invited to a twin birthday party so I used two toys that were in my “rainy day” stash instead of buying something.  They are entirely new in box and age appropriate.  I’ve had them for a long time and the time never seemed right to break them out so this was a better use.

Donate: The tank top no longer fits.

Fabric recycling: The jeans have a continuously failing closure and its been repaired at least three times so the material in that area is getting questionable.  The pillowcase has worn through.

Trash: Three old Hello Kitty Happy Meal Toys that nobody actually needs.

Day 9:

Sold: I sold one bicycle that we no longer need as we have four in this size and only one child at a time should ever fit.

Returned: I returned the small item in the bag to Lowes.

Fabric recycling:  I had a big pile going before starting this challenge.  So, I bundled all that up and called it one item.

Recycling: I found five magazines from 2017.

Day 10:

Donate: The camo pajama pants never quite fit correctly.

Fabric recycling: All three pairs of pajama pants have large holes in the knees.  The three pillow covers are frayed at the corners.  And, yes, I do have new covers for those pillows, but I bought them months ago and just never let go of the old covers.

Trash: The two pairs of batting gloves have been replaced (first by the other and then by the current pair).  I inputted the balance of the gift card into Amazon so I no longer need the physical card.

Day 11:

I finally had a day when the kids were not home so I could get into my collection of things I had stashed from them.

Recycle: The bag and coupon are from this past Christmas.  The party hat is from I don’t know when.

Trash: I found five party favors that may or may not have come from the same party, one marble (we don’t need any), and two Chick-fil-A kids meal toys.

Day 12:

I had another day without the kids so I went back to the same stash.  Party favors generally aren’t large, but they definitely fit the definition of clutter!

Recycle: I found one party favor bag, an ad that was inside a toy that had been a Christmas present, and some fake party favor money.

Trash: The “balloon” had is from a doctor trying to entertain the littlest one during my appointment and I pulled out eight party favors.

Link to the start of the challenge: Days 1-6

I decided to take Spring Cleaning more literally this year and actually clean out, vs clean up.  A friend had read Marie Kondo’s book and was aiming to put her ideas into practice.  I don’t know that much about her method, but from what little I do know I didn’t think it would work for me, right now, with many small kids.  Too much gathering and looking at large collections of items over many months; not enough quick decisions and hiding formerly treasured items!

So, I’m going for cleaning out the number of items of the date, for each day in April.  Since April has 30 days, I decided to break this up into 5 posts, each with 6 days.  The goal here is to move 465 (the sum of the days in April) out of our house before the end of the month by any means: trash, recycling, donating, selling, gifting, etc.

So far, I’m off to a good start.  Admittedly, the beginning is the easy part – low numbers and probably low hanging fruit to grab and move along.  You’ll see a bunch of fabric recycling.  There are bins and each of the schools which get money from the organization for each pound that goes in.

Since I decided to start this when I wrote my goals for the month on Tuesday, April 3, I actually started with 6 (1+2+3) items.

Days 1-3:

Trash: The little “laser” guns no longer work.  The artillery piece is broken.  I finally (two years later) broke the new insurance card out of its plastic card and put it with the other insurance cards; the rest of the plastic card is trash.

Recycle: The birthday card is months old.

Donate: The shirt is in excellent condition.  It just never fit me properly.

Day 4:

Trash: The power cord is very frayed, though technically still working.

Fabric Recycling:  The sheet (upper left) has a giant hole in the middle.  The buckle on the overalls came apart.  If you look closely you can see a small metal piece.  I think that could be glued back in, but these are baby overalls and I would not want a baby to chew on the buckle and have this piece come off again.  The yellow shirt has a hole in it.

Day 5:

Trash: Two pieces of a stand for a toy we no longer have.  A broken watch.  A cord for a toy that no longer works.

Recycle: The box the Christmas cards came in was only holding stamps and address labels.  Those can go elsewhere so the box gets recycled.

Sold: I sold the Pack ‘N’ Play Sport.  It’s great for summer so this was the right time of year to find a buyer.

Day 6:

Trash/Recycle: I found six abandoned Valentine’s / Birthday party gift bags.  I sorted the contents into trash (white bag in the picture below) vs recycling and admit to keeping a few things.  We’ll use the pencils and stickers. The stuffed animals are NWT so I’m not sure where they’ll go yet (so they’re not being counted here) as we don’t need them.