Tag: Declutter

September in a nutshell!

It seems I keep dropping the ball on my monthly sum ups, here we are already more than half way into the month of October before you get an update from me 😦

But you know what they say, better late than never… right? So here goes!

Activities and exercise
Having been ill for a long time, and me now being on a 100% sick leave from my company, I ran into a major bump late august (company related), that unfortunately have taken a toll on my health.  

So my happy average of 6 times a week (that I had during summer) took a crashing nosedive during the month of September, to where I think I just about squeaked by to an average of about 1,5 a week 😦 

Declutter
My decluttering is slowly… sloooooowly picking up again, not quite as much as I hoped, but still, there are a few things that have gone out the door.

I cleaned up some of my medication, and said goodbye to my old vacuum machine. In addition there are a couple of other things that went out the door, that I completely forgot to take take pictures of or even write about. Not really anything big, just some junk, a flowerpot or two, some pieces of clothing ++

Together with the medication and vacuum cleaner, it racked up to about 23 items out-the-door.

Not a lot, but hey.. I’m on my way again 😉

Only buying necessities

I think I’ll change this up a little. Earlier I used to list all my allowance categories, regardless if I bought anything or not. The next months I’m changing that to just mention the categories I’ve spend money in.

Eating out – As most of you know, we seem to struggle with this category month in and month out, so I’m sure it will come as a big surprise (it sure surprised me) that we did “fairly” well during the month of September. we “only” ate out 5 times 🙂 Big shocker, I know!

Now if we can only keep this up for October, we might still have a shot at the overall yearly goal (when it comes to money spent, not the amount of times eaten out.. because that one, we have already failed miserably at).

Buying non essentials – as most years, Christmas sure came early this year too! I think it’s crazy how the businesses start Christmas three months before the real thing. I mean, no wonder people are sick of christmas by the time Christmas actually rolls by.

IKEA tends to be one of the first ones out, and they started to roll out their wrapping papers, ribbons and tree decorations late September. All their good stuff seems to disappear in no time, so if you actually want some, you have to hustle. So guess what 😉

Yep, I got some. I got wrapping paper, ribbons, and a couple of really cool tags (picture below). This time around I went for paper that wasn’t all that typical christmassy. Which means I can use most of it, all year round, for anything that needs to be wrapped. How very “frugal” of me 😉

Financial goals
Interest rates are going down like crazy, which is wonderful for my mortgage, but suck even worse for any money I have in the bank.

I’m thinking, that it’s probably time to “do something”, as the money I have in the bank, won’t be generating much interest after they reduce the rate again, December 1’st.

I haven’t decided yet, between making another extra down payment (like I did in March), or maybe stocks or mutual funds. Hmm, maybe a little of both is the smart way to go. I’ll let you know, when I figure it out 😉

Projects
Well… projects, just like activity, kinda went out the window, except as always I did get to enjoy my garden a little.

Oh yeah, and my stepmom got a small Cinderella Classic Incineration toilet for her allotment cabin. If I ever make or buy an tiny house, this is the system for me, as they have an RV version that doesn’t take a lot of space. Now to the exciting part! Guess who had to install it? Yep, you’ve guessed it 😉

B and me spent a few hours one afternoon. It involved a hole in the roof, some pipes and a few new composite shingles, and then we were done.

There are still a few of bits and bobs left to do at my friends house (the one that recently moved), but we had to put some of that on hold in September. But hey, there are still a few days left of October, so we might have a shot at getting it done this month 😉

Well, I guess that’s it, not much else to tell ya. Better get this out, while there is still a few days left of this month, because before you know it, it will be time for the October update… which, by the way, I promise to be a bit more timely with 🙂

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Things that matter….

I just got back after a few days in Oslo, the capital of Norway, hanging out with some friends who was visiting from US, and it’s time to get serious with my decluttering again. During this summer anyone that have been reading my blog, knows my items out-the-door have pretty much been non existent.

I’m not sure why I have this persistent thought that I need to declutter some more… my house is pretty much under control, I have gotten rid of tons of stuff the last few years, and in most peoples mind I never owned that much in the first place.

I think it’s part of this minimalist journey, wanting to shed more, I see it with a lot of the other “minimalists in making” that I follow as well, that as you declutter and get rid of things, it spills over in other aspects of your life.

As we declutter we become more aware of the things that matter, of what is important to us, either in the items we own, the people we are with, or the things we choose to spend time on. So we continue to declutter our; physical items, digital stuff, mental clutter, social interactions and work stuff, in hope that we will reach the right balance. The right balance between health, family, friends, work and you!

For most of us, it’s a work in progress, a continuous path we are on, one that might never end, as we slowly evolve into the people we want to be.

And this is why I think I still feel compelled to declutter, I’m not yet where I want to be, as I still have loads of “stuff” I want and need to sort through.

Sometimes it takes an event or a major issue to wake you up! An event or issue so big, that it compels you to change your ways.

Me getting sick a few years back, have surely been an eye opener! It has put a lot of things into perspective, and made me realise a few things. I also lost my dad to an illness about 2,5 years ago, which really brought home a few truths, about how I had some of my priorities wrong.

I know I never really write much about the inner changes, this blog has mostly been about decluttering the physical stuff. I guess it’s because the physical stuff is more tangible, it is something you can show the results of.

The inner stuff is harder to put down on paper, especially since the change often is so subtle, you hardly even notice that it happens, until your are way down the line. Then all of a sudden you realize that you have changed, changed the way you view a few things, changed what is important, changed some of your priorities…

It’s this change that made me realise that there are certain things in life that is no longer worth the cost of having it in my life. It’s this change that resulted in me finally deciding to throw in the towel with work and prioritize health. Without this inner change, I would still be at it, working away, ignoring my health, slowly working my way down in a ditch I might never have gotten out of, while at the same time do irreparable damage to myself.

It’s this inner change that might one day make us realise, that the things we used to live and breath for, no longer is the center of our universes.

We might suddenly realize that, “Hey, I don’t care all that much about this thing anymore, this thing that used to be the most important part of my life, this thing I prioritized over everything else, to very often, the exclusion of everything else… whoah!”

I don’t write about my inner changes much, because I don’t know what to say, I can’t quite formulate it all. The only thing I can say, is.. that the changes I experience on my minimalist path, makes me more centered, calmer, more aware of what’s important, less materialistic, more aware of where my energy goes and more in tune with whom I want to be.

It’s a slow process, and I’m on my way.. not quite there yet, but on my way!

And the strangest thing, that every time I shed some physical stuff, it seems to help me along my path to shed some mental stuff. It’s probably because I have to seriously think about if the item is important to me and why. It might also be because I’m getting into the harder stuff, the family stuff, the photos that bring back all sorts of memories, the stuff after my dad, the stuff that carries with them their own ghosts.. some of them my ghosts…

So this is why I declutter, so that I one day might get it all cleared out!

A belly filled with dust…!

For years, I’ve been living with Miss Anne.

I remember when I was young (a long, long time ago), she brought me home and we were both excited about the life we would lead together.

I was all powerful, with a spring in my step!

For years, I worked hard and we lived harmoniously together… Her in charge of the house, me in charge of the floors.

7 or 8 years ago I started to fade a little, and there was a moment she brought in a replacement helper, but she decided she wanted to stick with me a little longer and gave the replacement away 🙂

And we’ve been chugging along since.

The last year or so I’ve been running out of steam a little quicker, and when there is serious, serious work to be had, I need a few breaks to recover.

No longer capable of doing the heavy duty work, I suddenly found, a new, all singing, all dancing suction machine in the house. Yes, you heard me right, a new vacuum cleaner moved inn..

Still, she wasn’t ready to let me go, and I appreciated this, after all, with more than 20 odd years together, it’s hard.

So the last few months I’ve been the designated king of the 2nd floor, while the new blue have gotten to flex his muscles downstairs in the kitchen and living room..

I could probably have continued this semi retired life, if it hadn’t been for Anne’s neighbour desperately needing a vacuum cleaner… (you know where this is headed, right?)

So a couple of weeks ago, I said goodbye to Miss Anne, and all my long time friends, and said hello to a new family 🙂

And, would you believe it? As a few of my older friends, moved earlier from Miss Anne, to this place, I’ve got to reconnect with some lost pals. Which makes this transaction a little easier, as it’s a little bit like coming “home”.

It was a bit sad to leave my old house, but hey, I’m back to being the king of the castle 😉

So yeah, life is gooooood!

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Expired medication…

As I started to unearth my pile in the guestroom, I decided to start with a bunch of old medication that I had sorted out a while ago. I had put them all together on a small desk and they have been sitting there ever since, waiting for me to do something about them.

Having tried just about every medication “under the sun” over the last few years, while I’ve been trying to kill off my headache problem, my medication drawer has gotten bigger and bigger. And off course, just like food, medication expire after a certain time.

I know there are people out there that have medication laying around the house that they have had “forever”, and I’m no exception. I have however gotten into a routine over the years, where I go through all my medication every so often, check the expiration date and discard the stuff that is just too old.

Now, what’s the big deal you say, does it matter if the medication has expired?
The answer to that, is, it might have, yes! And I’ll explain why!

Just like with food, medication ingredients might spoil, and lose it’s potency. An expired medication might not have adverse effect, but there can be risks. In a lot of the over-the-counter pain relief medication, a loss of potency might not be a big deal, but in medication like heart or diabetes medication, it’s important if not critical to get the dosage right.

My understanding is that tablets and capsules have the longest shelf life, and might be fine for years after the expiration date, but I’m not sure if I want to risk holding on to them very long past their date. So I normally don’t.

And since I know that liquids and injected medication very often have a much shorter expiration date, than tablets and capsules, I don’t mess around with these past their expiration date, at all.

If it has lost some of it’s potency can’t I just take one extra?
Well, that might be a bit risky. Since we don’t know how much the potency have changed, there could be a danger that with taking an extra pill or two, that we get somewhat “overdosed”, which might just generate it’s own problems.

Can how I store them make a difference?
Absolutely! To make sure I that my medication keep for as long as possible, I store them in a drawer in my bedroom, which keeps them dark, cool and dry, as it is the coolest room in the house. I keep them away from the bathroom as I know that high humidity, and high temperatures will cause degradation of the medication quicker.

What about disposal?
In Norway, there is a program that allows you to return unused medication to the pharmacies, and they will dispose of it, the proper way. Rather than throw any medication in the trash (which you shouldn’t really do, because you never know who might get their hands on them, and here in Norway medication is considered hazardous waste that should not go into the trash), or flush them down the toilet (which from an environmental point of view you might not want to do too much off) , I use the drug return program.

If you want to read more about expiration dates, dangers and how to dispose of medication the correct way, there are some great guidelines on this FDA’s website, this NHS website, and in Norway this Legemiddelverket site.

So out-the-door, to the pharmacy they went, my pile of old medication 😉

Have you looked through your medicine cabinet lately?

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A pile of mess!

It’s been a few days since my last post, and yes, I have recovered from my friends move in party  😉

While I’ve been busy with friends and move in party, it seem like my guestroom have had a “move in” party of it’s own. At least that’s what you would think, if you had taken a look, because it looks like a bomb went of in there.

As far as I know, no lives were lost during the bomb attack, but who knows what’s lurking in the shadows 😉

So. You are wondering, what on earth happened? Well so do I, kind off..

I have a tendency to use my guestroom as a “storage” area, for when I find things I want to get rid off. You know, that area you use to dump stuff, before it makes it out-the-door! I also tend to use it as room to stash things, that I haven’t sorted through yet.

Add several bags + an exercise ball (used as a chair) I brought with me from work, when I emptied my office a couple of weeks back. With that, what you have, is a recipe for disaster!

This room is no way fit for guests!

And my brother and his wife is coming over from UK tomorrow! Now mind you, they are staying at a hotel (phew),but if they want to stay over, I’d be hard pressed to find room for them in between the piles of crap, eh, sorry, stuff 😉

Hmmm, think it’s time to do something about it? I sure do!

So here it is.. my mess!
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Now… let’s see if I can’t get some of this stuff out-the-door…

August (and July) in a nutshell!

I’ve done it again! I fumbled the month of July, and here we are, at August’s sum-up. So, once again you will get two months in one post 😉

We’ve had some great days here lately, and as always I’ve been enjoying the heck out of my garden. I’ve also been spending a few days here and there helping a couple of friends with a few things.

So let’s get to it, how am I doing with my goals!

Activities and exercise
My focus is still just being out and about, more than exercise on it’s own. And between picking currants, and other berries. Spending time on my step-mums allotment, planting some plants, tinkering around in my own garden, helping a friend in her new house, walking the streets of London and the streets of my own town, I’m sticking to my average of 6 days a week. 

I’m sure I’ll get into some proper workouts at some stage, it’s just not my focus right now as I’m having enough on my plate with me leaving work, and I’ve had a need to do fun things to keep my mind off it all.

Declutter
I’m still pretty much doing nothing about my declutter tasks. As far as I remember, nothing went out during July, and August only wielded 3 pots leaving the house, when I potted my neighbor’s plants.  Items out-the-door = 3

So what will September bring? It looks like things might be picking up, I’m slowly but surely getting into decluttering again. Not a lot yet.. but I think I might finally be on the roll again (maybe) 😉

Only buying necessities

  • Books – nope, none – which is great for my wallet, and I’m not filling my bookshelves either.
  • Eating out – July we had our trip to England, so we did a bit of eating out during the trip. The rest of that month we didn’t do to bad as we spent a bit of time with a friend of mine, grilling and cooking at her place. The later part of August we are back to really bad, but I’m hoping September will be a better month, as we need to get back into cocking for ourselves.
  • Flowers and plants – 6,  3 tiny small orchids, 3 outdoor plants, two for me and one for my neighbour
  • Buying non essentials – I have to admit I did spend a few pounds in London. So what damage did I do?
    – 1 pair of ecco shoes, 2 bra’s and a couple of Eagle creek packing cubes.
    So why are they non essentials? Well.. I do have plenty of shoes, but I wanted a pair that are good travel shoes and at the same time looks good enough, with nice clothing, so that when I travel, I can get away with this one pair only. My old travel pair, are so worn out that they no longer look good. The bra’s I get at Victoria Secret, and since they don’t have a shop in Norway, and since I’m not traveling to US this year, I figured I should grab a couple, even though I strictly don’t need them… yet! And the packing cubes? I definitely didn’t’ need as I have a bunch from before. It’s just that the new ones are the super, super light type and use next to no space in my luggage.. so I went ahead and got some…

Financial goals
Nothing new really, except, I have been able to save a little extra towards my next mortgage down payment, as I received some stock dividends in August. The money went straight to my saving account 😉  And my interest reduction finally came into play, saving me another few dollars a month on my monthly interest payments… Every little thing counts towards getting that mortgage paid off, and interest saved, is just more money towards that yearly lump sum. How am I doing on that particular goal? Pretty Ok I must say, as I’m a couple of months ahead of schedule 🙂

Projects
As I mention at the top, I’ve been enjoying the garden (as always)!

And I have been working on fixing a couple of areas on my outer garden wall, that had some loose stone. It’s a fiddly process, removing the loose stone, removing the gravel behind, put concrete in the hole and stuff the stone back in. It’s not big stone, so it’s not heavy work, but I have to sit wrapped up as a pretzel doing it (it’s a low garden wall) and my hip only want’s to sit in this position for a very short time. So.. you might say it’s a project in progress… I’m hoping I will get it done this year, but if it spills over to next summer, that’s ok.. the garden wall isn’t going anywhere 😉

What else… hmmm..  I have a friend that moved into a new house a few weeks back, and we (B and me) have been helping her out with a few things, like hanging up stuff on the wall, changing handles on the doors, cutting a piece of molding to fit a cabinet she wanted put in, putting new feet on a piece of furniture.. you know the drill.. all the little things, that is part of moving to a new place 🙂

Guess that is it for August and June!

PS. Tonight is my friends move in party… so if you don’t hear from me for a couple of days.. you know why 😉

May (and April) in a nutshell!

I’m thinking it’s time I get back on the bandwagon, and what better way, than to give you my monthly sum up of April and May – hopefully before it turns out to be April, May and JUNE… 😉

We have had a glimpse of spring on and off during April and May, nothing to really shout about, but at least it’s given us the Norwegians the occasional chance to be outside (unless one really wanted to bundle up in all ones winter clothes). The poor plants have had a hard time figuring out if they really wanted to bloom or not, so everything have been kinda late this year.

April and May in a nutshell!

Declutter
During late March, April and May I did my pseudo packing party, that wielded 194 items out-the-door

Not quite the number I originally was hoping for, but anything is better than nothing.. right? 😉

Activity and exercise
Let me see:

April – averaged 3,75 times a week on activities and about 5 of them was what I would consider a proper workout – even though they were garden and walk related

May – brought out the Skikes and Rollerblades, and had a few trips to see if my body could handle it. Did go better than I expected – that was until I fell and sprained my thumb/hand badly 😦 Oh well.. it was worth a try..  My average on activities in May was the same as April, 3,75 with 5 of them as proper workouts. I am progressing towards my goal for the year… slowly, very slowly.

Only buying necessities
I’m almost on schedule. Mostly food, but as you can see from my allowances below, I splurged a little!

  • Books – still none (I think I’m doing pretty good so far this year)
  • Eating out – Since we have been doing poorly the other months, I decided to be ruthless and the deal was that we were only going to eat out once during the month of April. Now, we didn’t quite managed that (why would I even think so?) We ate out 3 times. For us, this is actually not bad at all.. but I still think we flunked! May is typically a eating out month, as we have our independence day, and there are a lot of other official holiday days. So we are back to bad again.. 8 times this month.. hmmm
  • Flowers and plants – a couple of purchases – it is after all supposed to be spring/summer, even though the weather don’t agree
  • Buying non essentials – yes:
    I bought a picture frame at IKEA, for a poster I bought a long time ago, I have just never gotten it on the wall. I thought it was time.
    And I bought myself a set of bright green Omaggio vases. I know.. not very prudent of me (me decluttering and all), but I really wanted a splash of colour in my house, and I have drooled over these for the longest time.. so I splurged 😉

Other financial goals
Mortgage: No changes, I’m staying put on my current level and only pay interest every month. Good thing is, I just received a note about a 0,20% interest reduction, that will apply from August, which will lower my monthly interest payment even more…

Other activities/projects this year
No specific projects during April and May. I’m sure it won’t be long before one or two pops up though 🙂

Well, that is it, until next time… sometime in July 🙂

Packing party – a sum up!

I never knew, when I planed out doing a packing party, that it would turn out to be as hard as it was.

It sounded so easy, this idea about doing one room at a time, for just a few days. And I had this notion that it would go by in a flash, and would reap large rewards in decluttered items.

Well, that’s not quite what happened, as you probably have gathered from how long it actually took me to do this!

I started out real good, and then somewhere half way, I ran into a bump, mostly due to the fact that I really didn’t have enough boxes to pack things in. And I did not like how cluttered my guest room was becoming, from all the discarded items from my other rooms. My own fault, as I couldn’t seem to get the items out the door, because I was fumbling around, never taking the time to actually take the pictures and sit down and write the post about them. Yeah, my bad, I know!

I’m telling you, it will be a long time before I try something like this again… if ever 😉

I did learn a thing or two though during my declutter party!

I learned that I obviously have short staying power… the first days out, I wanted to do my whole house all in one, but as I had said I would do one room at a time, I had to pace myself… Yeah! I’m not good at that. I’m more of the the get it done now kinda person, rather than the slow haul kinda person… guess I should keep that in mind for my next project 😉

I also learned that as much as I had decluttered, there are still “mountains” of stuff left that could probably go out-the-door, but I have also learned that sometimes we need time, before we are “ready” to let it out of our lives.

The things that have left my building during this packing party, are things that have survived several culling before, and I can see there are a few items, that made it through this round, that will most likely go out the door, next time around (after I’ve had a minute to think about it).

I guess this is just the way it is, slow and steady getting there, on our path towards minimalism!

Even though I never quite got rid of as much as I hoped I would, there was a few rooms that surprised me in the “loots” they provided.

I expected to find most of my stuff in the living room and guest room, this is not quite how it turned out, even though these rooms wielded the bigger items. It was the kitchen and my bedroom that surprised me most, as these where the rooms I was sure I had already gotten down to the “bare bones”. Guess it just goes to show, that we change our level of needs and wants as we move along minimising our possessions.

Since I have called this post packing party – a sum up, I guess it’s only fair to let you in on what my packing party amounted to in out-the-door items.

So here it is a total of 194 items out-the-door! 

Not quite the number I was hoping for, but chipping away at it will get me there in the end 🙂 Fortunately this time around there was a few “big” ticket items, leaving me with a bit more “empty” space as a result!

As with a lot of things in life, it’s easier when you get a little help along the way. I could not have done this without some of my fellow bloggers, who have either decluttered alongside with me or cheered me on. There are to many to mention, but you all know who you are 😉 All I can say is, Thank you!

Packing party – guest room and living room results!

It’s raining outside, and it’s time to let you inn on how the last part of my packing party went!

As you might remember from a few weeks back, I told you my guest room was next on the list.

Weeeell… it didn’t go quite according to plan… The guest room is a horrible room to do the pretend packing party on, as I think I probably have almost as much stuff in this one room, as I have it the rest of the house put together!

As I mentioned before, the room have a few big huge IKEA wardrobe cabinets. And since I don’t really have any indoor storage rooms, I use these cabinets to store all my linens, towels, guest bedding, sport items, computer peripherals, office stuff, Christmas decorations, photo collections and I could go on 😉

As good as my intention was to pull everything out, pack it up and leave it for a few days, I lost heart somewhere in the middle and just couldn’t do it..

You see, I have gone through and decluttered this room several times over the last few years. And there have been soo much stuff that have gone out-the-door, specifically from this one room, that I’m now having a really hard time.

But, even though I didn’t pack it up, I still found a few things, that needed to go out-the-door, which after all, was the idea behind the packing party 😉

When I did my living room, most of the stuff that I found that needed to go out-the-door, got “stored” in my guest room, so below you will find the result from both the guest room and living room.

So why don’t we just get to it! Here it is, the results from my living room and guest room – 56 items out-the-door! I have to admit, it’s not as much as I would have wanted, but this time around, there are a few bigger items, so storage wise, I have actually cleared out a bit…

Guest room – 30 items out-the-door

  • 2 long wood candle holders
  • 1 flower pot
  • 1 travel iron
  • 3 books
  • 2 very large vases
  • 1 spatula
  • 1 travel headset
  • 1 makeup bag
  • 1 platter
  • 1 leather foot rest
  • 1 tennis ball
  • 3 puzzles
  • 1 battery run toothbrush
  • 2 charger “stations”
  • 1 wool carpet
  • 1 smartcard reader + misc cables/plugs
  • 1 cable tube
  • 6 practice golf balls

Living room – 26 items out-the-door

  • 1 small “vase”
  • 1 VHS tape
  • 1 glass bowl
  • 2 DVD Cases
  • 4 table place mats
  • 1 table runner
  • 2 fruit/decorative bowls
  • 1 large glass decorative bowl/vase
  • 4 glass candle holders
  • 1 large headset
  • 2 tall vases
  • 1 gamegear
  • 9 games to the gamegear + 1 box to keep them in
  • 1 glass vase
  • 1 glass decorative bowl/vase
  • 3 small glass vases

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Saving a tree or two…?

After my February plastic trash challenge, I got inspired and started to look more closely at everything else I toss.

Now that I have some sort of control over my plastic trash, and gotten into a good routine of using the plastic recycle bag, I have found that most of my other trash is paper (advertising/junk mail) and food scraps.

Let’s talk about the junk mail. I tend to look through all the advertising from grocery stores, as I try to save a little when possible. I bulk up on some of my everyday products, when there is a good sale. All these adverts ends up in the paper recycle bin, so the paper is recycled, but I would have loved not contributing so much to paper waste.

I discussed this with a friend of mine that I do a bit of grocery shopping with, and we decided that, since I am the one who pays attention to when there are good deals to be had, he would be the one to put the “No junk” sticker on his mailbox. This way we can at least reduce one household of paper! And hopefully over time, I can figure out what advertising I “need” and see if I can find it online instead, to ultimate reduce two households!

But for now, the sticker is on his mailbox, there is one less household filled with paper junk and he think this is the best idea we (I’ve) have had since… ever!

I know it’s not much in the big picture of things, but a bit here, and a bit there… ads up eventually 😉