Sew My Stash Sunday – 5

Two Minutes to Tidy

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Posted on February 7, 2015

It is great to feel that the decluttering efforts are really making a difference. This morning I noticed that the shelf where my recipe books are stored was very grubby and needed cleaning. It was a simple matter of grabbing an armful of books and placing them on the bench while I wiped down the shelf and then replaced the books. This took me less than 2 minutes.

I have never had hundreds of cookbooks but nevertheless it has taken about 3 rounds of culling to get it to this. You can read about a previous effort here.

Cookbook shelf

That was about 14 months ago but a few more have moved on since then, too. I do not miss any of them and have not have occasion to regret my decision to move them along. Recipes are something that has really been revolutionised by the advent of the internet. There is nothing you cannot find. Also, recipes are like clothes – there are definitely trends and fashions.

Do you have recipe books? Have you reduced your collection?

More To Go

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Posted on February 4, 2015

A couple of days ago I read a comment online by someone unknown to me that they had decluttered so much that they had nothing left to declutter. I have no idea what their circumstances are or what they consider essential but I know that I have not reached that point. In fact, I am not sure that I ever will or even want to. We do not have a huge amount of stuff but for me it is more about carefully streamlining what we own to a selection of good-quality items that match our lifestyle. Our needs change and therefore, our possessions will change accordingly.

On the weekend I was cleaning in the kitchen and one thing led to another and I ended up re-looking at the cooking utensils that I use. I have supposedly decluttered these on at least 2 previous occasions but it never hurts to look at them with fresh eyes and a more detached point of view.

This is what I am taking to the op shop today.

There are a couple of sharp knives that have seen better days and I simply do not use them. A scraper for cleaning a George Foreman grill which we no longer own. A cleaning brush for something – I don’t know what and as far as I can see it has never been used. Spoon and spaghetti strainer which are not used. Meat mallet – I haven’t beaten meat for over 20 years – our diet does not include recipes that require it. Spaghetti measure – was part of a corporate Christmas hamper a few years ago and has never been used. Small aluminium skewer – I have a set of stainless steel skewers and this is no longer required. Chip cutter – this came from my mother’s place when she was decluttering some years ago and I have never used it. A good idea but I cannot remember the last time I made chips at home and I am quite capable of cutting potatoes into chips if the fancy happens to take me. Anyway, aren’t “hand-cut chips” the latest craze on menus??

So what stays?

Electric knife
Carving fork
Scone cutter
Rolling pin
Fine grater
Metal tongs
BBQ tool
Pineapple peeler/corer
Apple corer
Cheese slicer
Cherry/oliver pit remover
Garlic press
Ice-cream scoop
Citrus zester
Grapefruit knife
Skewers
Vegetable peeler (not shown)
Jar opener
Tea strainer
Tea infuser
Wine vacuum sealer
Cork remover
Bottle/can opener
Measuring spoons
Corn cob holders
Egg rings
Knife sharpener

The electric knife/carving fork and cherry pit remover are the only items that would be rarely used. Everything else is used regularly, mostly on a weekly basis. Some, like the grapefruit knife and corn cob holders are seasonal but still essential.

I also have 2 jars of cooking utensils that I use almost daily. There location on the bench means that they are easy to grab as I am cooking and preparing food.

Wooden spoons x 4
Metal whisk
Potato masher
Metal spatula
Non-stick spatula
Non-stick spoon
Slotted spoon
Small sieve
Can opener
Pizza cutter
Rubber scrapers x 3
Brush
Citrus juicer
Pie slice

I also have a knife block with 6 assorted sharp knives.

To a hard-core minimalist this probably looks like a huge number of utensils, however, I prepare and cook most of our meals and use these items very frequently. It is important to keep and use what works for you.

There are lots of areas of my life where I could reduce my possessions but I think I have completely decluttered the kitchen utensils to my satisfaction.

What utensils do you use every day? Are they much different to what I have shown here?

One Thing Leads to Another

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Posted on January 17, 2015

This morning I decided to clean the bookshelves in the office area. I knew that they were quite dusty and that there was some stuff lying around that really didn’t belong there.

As I started to remove and clean the books I decided to sort them out and see if I could cull any more. Getting rid of books seems to be fairly difficult for us but in the end there were nearly 60 books that have not made it back onto the shelves.

We have 2 identical tall shelving units from Ikea and it now looks as though one of them may be able to go to a new home. I am confident that we will never need more shelf space as we both have Kindles and buying a physical book is a rare occurrence.

Here is one shelving unit cleaned and all of the shelves filled with books.

These are the 2 boxes of books which will be finding new homes.

The other unit is a work in progress.

As you can see, there is quite a bit of spare space on the other shelf which is the reason I think that it can go. The random books are ones that I am unsure as to whether they should stay or go. I intend to re-read them and in fact read some for the first time. Why didn’t I read them when I first got them? Maybe I did not really like them. Anyway, I will be working on this pile over the coming weeks and deciding which ones I want to keep long-term and which can go.

The collection of Australian Geographic magazines will need to go elsewhere – probably the bottom shelf of the shelving unit in the lounge room. There is 23 years worth of them – we stopped subscribing at the end of 2011. I have never read them all so maybe it is time I did. I used to joke that I would read them when I retired!!

There is also a shoebox of stationery items which can probably go in the cupboard. Then there is the pile of photos that need to be sorted any scanned…………one day!!

This is the cupboard which holds the 4 drawer filing cabinet. I am in the process of trying to source a 2 drawer one to replace it as we have condensed the contents into 2 drawers. When this eventuates we will use the top of the cabinet as a shelf and add another shelf a bit higher up. There will then be plenty of space for the stationery box and photos.

If I had to nominate one room that is difficult to declutter, then the office would be it. Mind you, we have managed to get rid of quite a bit over the past year but there always seems to be more.

Do you have a particular room or area that is your nemesis when it comes to decluttering? Please share your stories.

Friday Filing – 2

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Posted on January 16, 2015

Another week has whizzed by and the filing basket is slightly fuller this week.

The pile beside the basket is what I collected from the mailbox today.

I opened the mail and then sorted it into piles according to the action required.

Clockwise from top left:

Paper to go in the recycling bin (by far the biggest pile)
Some family history information which my mother gave to me – needs to be put in the storage container with other similar papers
Basket – almost empty
To be filed – includes new insurance schedule as a result of my follow-up phone call, tax assessments, notification of gas bottle delivery and bank statement
Plastic bag – to be kept to use as a rubbish bag
Confirmation of electoral enrollment which we will need when we vote in 2 weeks time – will put them in our wallets
ReNew magazine – I have almost finished reading it so it will go in the rack with the other issues
2 newspapers – to be read tonight then added to the recycling

Here is what is left in the basket:

Our list of jobs/goals for the house and garden – some short-term and others much longer but it serves as a reminder
The yellow tag is the variety of blueberry bush which The Duke wants to buy to replace a couple that did not survive. We will not be buying these until the weather cools down a bit so what better place to keep it than in the filing basket?
The brown “thing” in the corner is actually 2 small bits of timber that broke off one of the outdoor chairs and The Duke is planning to repair it.

In just 3 weeks I feel as though I have made real inroads into creating a system that works for us to keep the relatively modest amount of mail and other papers that come into the house under control.

I do not see the need to post a similar thing every Friday about the ongoing filing activity which will be very similar each week. However, I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

Do you have a system for keeping the paperwork under control?

Modifying My Diary

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Posted on January 10, 2015

My personal diary which I showed you here is working well and does not require any modification. However, I also have a work diary which is an A5 size and quite slim as it has a week to a double page. However, it is missing one vital ingredient – a marker ribbon.

I did not realise this until I was using it last week so I decided to get creative. I found a length of narrow red ribbon in my sewing collection and was going to cut the length I needed and tie it onto the top spiral. Then I reconsidered and realised that by doubling the ribbon and looping it over the spiral I could avoid cutting the ribbon.

Now I can easily remove the ribbon at the end of the year and I will still have a usable length for another diary or different project.

The finished product is working well and it is much easier to find the page I want quickly. I also can use the second length to mark a different spot if I happen to be working on 2 areas at the same time.

Friday Filing

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Posted on January 9, 2015

As promised, here is my Friday filing post. Not much has changed since last week. We get very little mail so there is not much to deal with.

The Range News is our local (free) newspaper which is delivered on Thursdays. I have read it this evening to make sure I am not missing out on any important local news and now it has been filed in the recycling bin.

Other than that, there is a new insurance schedule now that we have had the policy amended to account for our new car. It has not been filed in the filing cabinet as I need to contact the insurance company as I think the description of the car is incorrect which has resulted in a higher premium than it should be. I will make that phone call on Monday.

We are both in the process of reading the ReNew magazine about alternative technologies. I think this is published every quarter and we keep them in a magazine holder for reference after they have been read.

The hand-written sheet is a rough list of some of the things we want to achieve in the house and garden this year so that stays there as a reminder of our plans.

Previously, these few pieces of paper would have been scattered on the bench and really irritated me but I am finding that having them in the basket has reduced the annoyance factor to zero.

Do you have any tricks to keeping on top of the paper clutter and filing?

A Little Bit Every Day

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Posted on January 7, 2015

My method of keeping things organised to to do a little bit every day, or in my case every evening. At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, I work full-time hours and long days because of the distance that we commute but that is our choice.

Last night I did the bit of ironing that was waiting to be done, one load of washing and hung it out then put the next load in the machine. It was not a full load so when we arrived home this evening I pulled the top sheet off the bed and that made up the load. It is all washed now and in the basket.

It has been cool and damp here all day so the load that is on the line is not properly dry even though it is under the verandah. The next load of washing will be hung indoors overnight.

This is a portable rotary clothesline which I find invaluable in the wet weather.

This hanging rack is usually used to hang shirts waiting to be ironed as well as ones that I have done but tonight I will hang the freshly-washed shirts on here to dry.

I will put the dehumidifier on in the closed room overnight, the clothes will be pretty well dry in the morning. This eliminates the smell that clothes develop if they are damp for too long.

Once the washing is hung out I will finish stripping our bed and remake it with fresh linen. Then it will be time to crawl into bed.

I am working from home tomorrow and will make it a short day so that I can catch up on a few more jobs here.

By spending a bit of time each evening on household jobs, I can choose what I do on the weekends.

Do It With a Diary

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Posted on January 5, 2015

I have never been very good with using a diary but I am hoping that this year will be different.

When the question was asked on an online forum of what your New Year’s resolution would be, this was my answer:

“I am going to stop trying to squash so much into the available time and learn to allow some slack. Recently, I seem to be stressing about meeting deadlines/arriving by a certain time etc. My mental health deserves better.”

The fact that it was 4 days before Christmas may have had something to do with my response, however, it was something that I had considered several days earlier of my own accord.

Now I just have to work out how to put this into practice. One of the first things is to use a diary. This neat A5, day-to-a-page diary was part of a Secret Santa gift which I received so it is definitely going to be put to use.

If I write things down rather than trying to carry a whole load of information in my head it will relieve all of the things I am trying to remember as well as showing clearly what is actually doable in one day. It also means that all of those little jobs that I think of that I am going to do one day are now allocated to a time and day. I choose the time to fit my schedule and will then just do them. No more forgetting the little stuff and trying to squash too much into the available time.

A grand goal and I am really hoping that I can make serious progress on achieving it.

Tomorrow is my first day back at work and I have 2 jobs listed in my personal diary. Post a parcel and take the apparently faulty iPhone charging cable back to the Apple store as it was only bought in July last year.

How do you feel about New Year’s resolutions? Do you have any plans to do things differently this year?

Filing Friday (on Thursday)

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Posted on January 1, 2015

Welcome to 2015! A brand new year for you to make of it what you want.

I have been gradually decluttering for several years so there is generally only a few things here and there to leave the house. However, there are a couple of hotspots that just seem to invite clutter to hang around unless I am constantly vigilant.

In the lead-up to Christmas I was particularly busy at work so things got a bit neglected at home. Also, our car was badly damaged in a hailstorm at the end of November and was declared a write-off by the insurance company. So, as well as everything else we had to buy a new car, organise insurance, liaise with the towing company to collect the old car and so on. All of this resulted in paperwork, notes and phone messages on the desk. Everything was finalised on Wednesday – we have a new, insured car and the old one is gone so this morning I got up and decided that I had to sort out all of remaining paperwork.

I started with the desk, followed by the other hotspots which are the end of the kitchen bench and my dressing table. It then turned into a major clean-out of the filing cabinet and other folders so The Duke and I spent several hours working through it. Some papers had been carefully filed for up to 10 years without ever being looked at so we were really ruthless.

Apart from clearing the papers that were in the previously identified spots, I actually have nothing to show for our efforts except that the contents of the filing cabinet have been reduced from 3 drawers to 2. Everything was relatively neatly stored – it was just that much of it was no longer relevant.

The desk is mostly cleared – there are just a few more things that I need to put away.

I just need to set-up the pedometers so we can actually use them rather than be lurking in the bottom of the filing cabinet!

This end of the kitchen bench is one of the most frustrating hotspots – the pile of papers never seems to go away completely. It may seem counter-intuitive to put a basket here to dump “stuff” in but my theory is that it will be contained rather than expanding and spreading its tentacles across the bench. I have also designated Friday evening as “Filing or Fling” so everything that is in the basket by Friday evening will be dealt with accordingly. In a perfect world the basket would be empty but I will be surprised if that happens. 🙂