It Gets Better

"It gets worse before it gets better." Old maxim

Arg! I don't understand why decluttering is so clutter-y.

The problem is once I go to all the trouble to decide to get rid of something, it doesn't do the kindness of just disappearing. It hangs around, all dejected and sad-looking by the front door, waiting for me to figure out where it's heading.

Luckily these days we have Freecycle and Craig's List. There are also thrift stores and even the local recycle center. Should I ever feel really ambitious, I could also sell on eBay or Half.com. Dumping to the landfill, so far, is for only when all other options are exhausted.

"Less is more." Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

As I excavate (that's what it feels like), I discover how deeply it goes. What keeps me clawing at it, donating and digging while living continually with ever new boxes and ever new stacks, is a clear vision of what my purged life will look like when I'm done. Time to re-define "Grandma's house." I'd rather not succumb to the traditional knick knack, standy-uppy decor.

I envision a smooth rock or a bouquet of wildflowers to be my seasonal decorating. I envision misplacing my glasses—which I often do—to be impossible. I envision my granddaughter showing me how she can now do a cartwheel, safely in my living room. I envision my grandson reading from my select nature book collection, not sneezing from too much for me to dust.

I envision plenty of room to do and be, not searching and dreading.

"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least." Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I frequently feel at the mercy of my sentimentality. I live in a finite space; we all do. How can I keep everything without eventually filling up? Once a gift is relegated to the back of a drawer or to some back room, time to admit the gift has stopped giving.

I'm coming to peace with saying goodbye to sentimental stuff. What matters most is my making room for today's doing, not for displaying yesterday's back when.

(To any reader I've given a gift, please, enjoy it for however long it gives you pleasure, be it a year, a month, or an hour. Then, by all means freecycle, recycle, re-purpose, re-gift, sell, or donate. Even compost if it will!)

"A man can live profoundly without masses of things." Richard E. Byrd

I look forward to when it gets better, to when I'm living profoundly. Until then, I'm off to find my glasses and another empty box.

Links
For more inspiration for your own decluttering efforts, see Global Stewards' Motivational Quotes on Simplifying.

I just had an idea...

While writing the previous Two Thing post about my inspiration journal, I had an inspiration!

I've been battling the problem of what to do with all these pieces of magazines for future collaging that I've been saving. It drives me crazy because there doesn't seem to be a neat way to store all those "snippettes" and to be able to find what I'm looking for later.

I used to put my cutouts in a magnetic photo album. But after a while, the cutout and the magnetic page would meld together, making it impossible to remove the image without tearing it. Of course, I learned this the hard way.

What about doing another spiral journal for collage material? Like my Inspiration journal, I could paste the pictures with a glue stick. If you've used glue sticks you know how they pretty much peel off easily after a few days. Besides, if I pasted the cutouts on only one side of the page and for some reason it didn't peel off, I could still cut it out. That's something I couldn't do with the magnetic pages.

I could even organize the images by either creating multiple notebooks, or by organizing individual pages by some theme. Now that I think about it, I suppose you wouldn't even have to do it in a spiral, you could just have folders with themed, loose pages with the images glued to them. Hm.

Anyone tried this? Any other ideas?

Marvelous mooching

I've just added a widget to the right that displays my ten most recently listed books on Bookmooch. My user name there is "Dag Moon." This list should be changing daily as I put more and more books on.

Hover over the cover of the book to see its author and title.

If anyone is interested in any of these books, I'd be happy to send it to you for free. I really want to clear out these books and would be pleased for them to go to someone who wants them.

You could also sign up with Bookmooch, if you like. Leave a comment and let me know what your bookmooch id is and I'll send you points to get started, to use however you like! Just mooch at least one book from me :)

(Note: I don't have my account set up to do overseas mooches. But that doesn't apply to my friends here. Of course I'll send to you, we'll just have to do it off site.)

Whichever way you chose -- to join or not to join -- if you want a book just let me know and I'll send it to you.

Happy Reading!

Declutter update

In a comment Neda had asked about my bookshelf declutter status.

It's slow-going and I need to crank it up a bit unless I want to be at this for years. I need to set a number of books to go through each day (five?) and make that part of my daily routine. I think that's how my mother reduced her large library.

Here's the picture of a batch of three books that I sent out to BookMoochers last week. I am also clearing out my collection of stamps and BookMoochers seem to enjoy receiving them. Two birds with one stone.

Here are links to books in my inventories so far:
My books for sale on half.com (18)
My books available on Bookmooch.com (42)

Also, I wanted to say thank you to everyone for their suggestions for my dining room. I really picked up a lot of good ideas and have been doing some fun daydreaming for the possibilities of that space. I'll post some wishlist pictures of those ideas when I get to the 100 books available mark.

Counting my books before they hatch

Thought I'd pop in and let you guys know that I worked a little ("a little at a time" is my motto) on the Dining Room Declutter Dream this evening. Sharpen your pencils because I'll be doing a lot of math here.

I quickly grabbed 10 books with the intention of putting them all for sale on Half.com. Of those

• 2: I decided I didn't want to part with them just yet.
• 1: I actually had picked up for Audrey and want to send that to her.
• 2: I have read and seem to be the kind of read my mom would enjoy.
• 3: Not found by Half. *Sigh* Will have to go to eBay? Bookmooch?

Lastly, I was able to put just two on Half to sell. Not too good a start, frankly. But, add that to what I have already done and ... Hm, how exactly does it add up?

I currently have 39 books on Bookmooch.com. And have already sent out 43. But sadly have also mooched some in, making a net reduction of only 27 books.

I currently have 17 books on Half.com. I had been doing pretty good selling for a while, but then nothing. When I logged into my account I saw I had put my account "on vacation" back in May! D'oh! Previous to that bit of idiocy, I had sold 18 books, netting about $104.

I currently have in the dining room -- not counting the books already listed with Half and Bookmooch -- roughly 670 books. I didn't actually count every one, but counted a couple of shelves and did a little averaging. I've made a gentlewoman's agreement that I will allow myself to keep 170 of them. How's that for an odd number? It means I have 500 more books to dispense with. That means I can keep 1 in 4, or 25%, of the books. That's severe, but not so severe I can't make a decision. It means also whatever I keep I truly love and will use.

I also decided I'll begin putting aside the money I make from the book sales specifically to spend on that room when I'm done. Good idea, eh? Best case scenario I would sell all 500 books and continue to get a Half.com average of $5.75 each. That would be (opening calculator) a whopping $2875!

Worse case scenario, where I only list 20% of the books on Half (as per today's experience) and only average $2 each (if the going price on Half is less than $2 I put them on Bookmooch), I would net a mere $200. Not a huge incentive, but in either case I will be minus the eyesore, which is the real goal. (I like to dream, though, I'll be able to make $1000. Mom, any idea how much you made with Half when you got rid of your, gulp, 1500 books?)

This Declutter goal is so important to me that I've made a new blog label. Now that's serious.

Oh, and one more thing I'm promising myself. Any one who has this number of books (and it sounds like we all have this same problem) knows how hard it is to let go. But we live in glorious times -- you can easily find it again on the internet! I have promised myself that if I accidentally let go of a book that really hurts my heart I will allow myself to buy it again. I've been on eBay since 1999, and trust me, whatever you are looking for will be listed there -- or on Half or on Bookmooch -- eventually. And probably for cheaper than the cost of the electricity it once took to vacuum dust bunnies off all that other stuff that you now don't miss.