Thursday, December 10

{ Declutter for and after the holidays }


photo by kevindooley @ Flickr


I've recently joined Tumblr. Theres a lot of beautiful photos, literature, thoughts and ideas. I love it. It's simple! Here is a post from mnml on tumblr. I'm not sure about you, but I've been working on the house for the holidays. Perhaps this can help you too.

Holidays are here. People come and go. People buy and get a lot of stuff and after the holidays your house is full with stuff.

I like to keep my house as clutter-free as I possible can, and while I love presents (specially climbing gear) I have one rule:

For every item that gets into the house, two come out of the house

It’s been serving me well for the past few years. I apply that rule to my desk and my computer as well: for every item I place on the desk (either on the desk itself or in one of the filing cabinets attached to it) two have to come out. For every application that I download, two have to go.

It helped me clean the desk and the computer. I found programs that were sitting there untouched for months, so I made a copy on my backup drive and I removed it from my computer.

Here you have some tips from Zen Habits on decluttering your house:

  • Do it in small chunks. Set aside just 15 minutes to declutter just one shelf, and when that shelf or that 15 minutes is up, celebrate your victory. Then tackle another shelf for 15 minutes the next day. Conquering an entire closet or room can be overwhelming, and you might put it off forever. If that’s the case, just do it in baby steps.

  • Set aside a couple hours to do it. This may seem contradictory to the above tip … and it is. It’s simply a different strategy, and I say do whatever works for you. Sometimes, for me, it’s good to set aside part of a morning, or an entire Saturday morning, to declutter a closet or room. I do it all at once, and when I’m done, it feels awesome.

  • Take everything out of a shelf or drawer at once. Whichever of the two above strategies you choose, you should focus on one drawer or shelf at a time, and empty it completely. Then clean that shelf or drawer. Then, take the pile and sort it (see next tip), and put back just what you want to keep. Then tackle the next shelf or drawer.

  • Sort through your pile, one item at a time, and make quick decisions. Have a trash bag and a give-away box handy. When you pull everything out of a shelf or drawer, sort through the pile one at a time. Pick up an item, and make a decision: trash, give away, or keep. Don’t put it back in the pile. Do this with the entire pile, and soon, you’ll be done. If you keep sorting through the pile, and re-sorting, it’ll take forever. Put back only what you want to keep, and arrange it nicely.

  • Be merciless. You may be a pack rat, but the truth is, you won’t ever use most of the junk you’ve accumulated. If you haven’t used it in the last year, get rid of it. It’s as simple as that. If you’ve only used it once or twice in the last year, but know you won’t use it in the next year, get rid of it. Toss it if it’s unsalveagable, and give it away if someone else might be able to use it.

  • Papers? Be merciless, unless it’s important. Magazines, catalogues, junk mail, bills more than a year old, notes to yourself, notes from others, old work stuff … toss it! The only exception is with tax-related stuff, which should be kept for seven years, and other important documents like warranties, birth and death and marriage certificates, insurance, wills, and other important documents like that. But you’ll know those when you see ‘em. Otherwise, toss!!!!

  • If you are on the fence with a lot of things, create a “maybe” box. If you can’t bear to toss something because you might need it later, put it in the box, then close the box, label it, and put it in storage (garage, attic, closet), out of sight. Most likely, you’ll never open that box again. If that’s the case, pull it out after six months or a year, and toss it or give it away.

  • Create a system to stop clutter from accumulating. There’s a reason you have tall stacks of papers all over the place, and big piles of toys and books and clothes. It’s because you don’t have a regular system to keep things in their place, and get rid of stuff you don’t need. This is a topic for another day, but it’s something to think about as you declutter. You’ll never get to perfect, but if you think more intelligently about how your house got cluttered, perhaps you can find ways to stop it from happening again.

  • Celebrate when you’re done! This is actually a general rule in life: always celebrate your accomplishments, no matter how small. Even if you just decluttered one drawer, that’s great. Treat yourself to something delicious. Open that drawer (or closet, or whatever), and admire its simplicity. Breathe deeply and know that you have done a good thing. Bask in your peacefulness.


Wednesday, December 9

{ Dandelion Wine }



"Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I’m one of them." -Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine.

I found this quote on a blog and I loved it. Almost as if I felt related to it. Now I'm going to have to read the book my self.
mlsig

{ Tumblr.com }

I've stumbled upon Tumblr! Apparently its another social network surrounded by the idea of blogging, sharing, thoughts, ideas && Randomness.


What is Tumblr?
Millions of people sharing the things they do, find, love, hate, think, or create.

Weblogs? Been there, done that. Facebook? It's full of kids. Twitter? That's so 2006, darling. No, the smart thing to be doing online these days is tumblelogging, which is to weblogs what text messages are to email - short, to the point, and direct. -Telegraph.co.uk

Actually it looks pretty cool. I may try this out. Myspace, I'm bored with and frankly they don't seem to want to work with outside links and I'm about sharing stuff so myspace you're getting swept under the rug. Facebook, I feel like we have a acquainted friendship. Seriously though the multiple app invites are a HUGE turnoff. I want to communicate and talk to people not reply to 28 some application invites. So if you ever wonder why I'm not doing applications, or ignoring your requests this is why. I'm going to check out this TUMBLR site. If anyone out there is using it toss me your url.

Okay, I went ahead and joined tumblr.
brenadette.tumblr.com

mlsig

Tuesday, December 8

{ Seeking Christmas Spirit }




At the moment I'm watching Alvin and Chipmunks: A chipmunks Christmas, looking for my christmas spirit and Oomph. My Kitchen and living room is currently displaying boxes of Christmas decor until I get in the mood to make a mess so I can show off my starved Christmas tree. Which I happened to spend 5 hours last year pulling off lights from a pre-lite tree because it looked like complete and utter crap. I'll never do that again, it was like removing bubble yum bubble gum from a child's head of hair. Long and complicated, and I couldn't just cut the lights because some were good and well I'm poor and these days you salvage everything you can.

I'm going to finish watching the chipmunks. Check out these links I found.

A Pink Dolphin appears in Lake. [check it out]
55 Scandulous Barbie photos. [check it out]

mlsig