Tag: Organize

Pump it, pump it!

A while ago I bought one of those gym balls, you know, one those big ones you use for exercise. A bright green one I’m using as a “chair” at my office. And as with most of these a cheap plastic pump came along.

After having tried forever, and I mean forever (you should have seen me sitting there like an idiot trying to pump that ball up to its full size) I realized something was wrong with the pump. It turns out the darn thing leaked all the air back out, as soon as the pressure in the ball got to big.  So I gave up, brought the ball to the shop and had them pump it up for me 😉

I came across this pump the other day, and suddenly remembered that I had another one of these gym ball pumps hiding in the house. It came along with a similar gym ball I bought a very long time ago. And it was one of the most ridiculous pumps I have ever seen for a gym ball (yes, that’s that yellow thing), and I have no idea why I ever kept it!!

Today those two pumps, can pump their way outa this house…

image

One in – two out – and a happier patio

My patio have been looking a little sad lately, it’s been raining and windy for weeks, and the poor thing have been getting worse by the minute, with all the leaves and green algae from all the rain. In one nut shell, my patio have been one wet, miserable and green thing.

Today I decided to give it a spruce, just a quick clean getting rid of the leaves and algae.. it’s still wet (can’t control the weather) but at least it looks a little happier.

And you are wondering about the one in, two out!

During my clean up, the brush I was using, suddenly broke. I suppose it didn’t like being outside in this cold and miserable weather 🙂 thats 1 OUT

And then my small hand dustpan set, which have been deteriorating during my 2013 summer project, finally gave in. Guess I’ve been a menace on my tools today 😉 that 2 OUT

And the IN? I do need a small dustpan set, so not only is it my 1 IN, it’s also the first replacement item for the year. Guess I didn’t last long! but I found it super cheap at IKEA, all of 1,7 dollars.. not bad for Norway…. And it was so shiny 😉

20140110-154159.jpg

Real estate value

My neighbor just sold their place, a small three bedroom town home. The other day I was talking to a friend of mine, and I mentioned that my neighbor had finally gotten their place sold. This news sparked a conversation about the price difference of a small place vs. a bigger place, and the cost associated with needing a larger home.

Now, I know some families are big and need a big place to fit everyone inn, but there are also families out there that have a big home just to have room to store their stuff.

How many times have you heard – “well, I need a big home so that I have room for all my stuff”, ok….!!! sure, it makes sense to need a bigger mortgage that will keep you in debt for longer, just to fit in stuff…!! (Yeah, that’s me being sarcastic) “What about getting rid of some of the stuff instead, so that a smaller cheaper home is big enough?”

Have you ever thought about how storing stuff, you don’t need, can be a massive drain on your finances?

In the region of Norway where I live, the difference in purchase price between a small two or three bedroom home is easily a minimum of 500 000 NOK (about 85 000 US dollars). That’s a lot of money to dish out just so that I can store some stuff that is probably not worth even close to 40 000 (7000). And just think of places like for example London and New York, where it’s way more expensive to go bigger.

Would it maybe make more sense to have a smaller and cheaper place, and then buy the items as you need them, rather than store a bunch of items just in case….?

With the extra mortgage, interest and years of debt a bigger home most likely will generate (unless you just won the lottery), your should at least be sure your stuff is worth it, either financial or emotional.

I think a good exercise while decluttering would be to look hard at the item and decide; is it really worth the money it wold cost to keep it? Is this an item I can let go off? and should I ever need such an item, would it just be easier to buy it then?

And you might say… Well I got this place and as long as I have room…. well yes… But you started this journey because you found yourself in need of a little more space and room to breathe.

And just image, with less stuff, you might be able to downsize to a smaller space one day. With less mortgage and therefor more freedom to afford to do the things you really love….

And me? My item for the day is to realize I’d rather declutter and stay put.

I love my little house 😉

Annie, get your gun!

About a hundreds years ago – yeah, I know – I’m not really that old, but still, a long time ago, I used to shoot.. with pistols and revolvers…. me and a bunch of friends. And as part of the fun we would spend time together making our own ammunition.

On one of my trips to US at that time, I thought it would be a great idea to buy my own shell casings. Especially since it was way cheaper than buying them in Norway, so I bought a bunch. For some obscure reason I never used them, and then I stopped shooting! You know how that story goes 😉

These empty shell casings have been taking up space in my storage rooms for a while now, you know, “Just in case”,and before you know it, it’s 17 years later and they are still following me around… and what the heck am I to do with empty shell casings?

Yes, you guessed it, it’s my declutter item for today… out the door… 250 shell casings went….. right into the hands of an old shooting buddy of mine.

And the agreement is, should I ever want to go for a round of shooting, he will load me up some ammo and bring a gun 😉

20140107-145850.jpg

I can see clearly now

I opened a drawer this morning, can’t quite remember what I was looking for, but there, all by their lonesome a couple of old glasses looked up at me….

Poor things, after I got my new fancy and adjusted glasses they had gone into oblivion, no longer needed and forgotten in the dark.

Well today they are back out, dusted and cleaned and ready to be donated to Vision for all an humanitarian organisation started by a group of opticians to help people in poor countries get glasses.

The link is to a Norwegian site, but I’m sure wherever you are there are similar organizations you can donate your old glasses to…. if you have any 😉

20140106-145943.jpg

My card and letter paper station

Doing my wrapping station including Christmas cards yesterday, it was natural to continue with my pile of writing paper and cards today.

I pretty much email people, rather than do hand written letters these days (guess in this digital time, hand written letters are a dying art), and I’m only going to keep some cards and small writing sheets, the rest is going out the door.

You could wonder why I keep any of my cards or paper at all. Well, I’ve found it handy to have birthday, valentine, Christmas cards available for a rainy day. It has saved my “butt” on several occasions, especially birthdays 😉

Before
20140105-121946.jpg

Out the door pile
20140105-121632.jpg

The keep box
20140105-122059.jpg

My Christmas wrapping station

It’s Saturday and i can’t believe how this day just ran away from me. Between the normal Saturday stuff, I’ve had people visiting me all day.

Not much time left over for my decluttering project, but even so, I did find a few minutes to declutter my Christmas wrapping stash.

Christmas is over, and I’ve found that there are wrapping items I’m sure I’ll never ever use…(haven’t used the last few years) so out it goes. No reason to keep all wrapping paper, ribbons, cards etc. There is such a thing as to much.

My pile isn’t to big (i clean up every now and then), but in the name of being “ruthless” I decluttered stuff that had passed the test before 😉

This is what I’m left with; a box of ribbons and tags, some silk paper, bobble wrap, two rolls of paper and 6 Christmas cards for next year.

Have you had a critical look at your wrapping station lately?

My decluttered items
20140104-191050.jpg

What I’m left with
20140104-191100.jpg

Taking a stab at the bookshelves

I’ve been thinking about taking a stab at my bookshelves…again.

I have done this several times over the years, and the books I have left, have survived several culling’s and it will be more difficult to par down this time around.

My read a book program
What I’ve been doing the last couple of years is; read a book, then decide – good enough to keep? or donate/toss material?

This have help me getting rid of quite a few books, but I haven’t been ruthless enough in the “how good must a book be, to be a keeper” department.

I did a count of all my different books today, and I found I have 346. For some of you this isn’t even a collection (I have friends with more than 5000) and for some of you this is a lot (I also have a friend that I know have 2 and only because they were presents). I’ve had way over 1000 at one time, so being down to 346 isn’t to bad.

But, I have a goal, and that is to fit all my regular sized paperbacks, into a special build bookcase, which unfortunately only takes 200 of them 😦

So this year, there’s going to be a little twist to my read a book program 😉

Books I love
Only books that I love are keepers and deserve a place in my bookshelves. You know, the ones you’ll read over and over again, are part of a special collection, have special sentimental value, is an absolute keep for reference/work/hobby reasons or you just absolutely have to keep for some reason or another.

Books I like
Books I like, but that are not quite in the “I love” category, will go (donate/toss or sell). I will however, write down the title and author of these books on a “could read again maybe” list. And if and when I ever decide, I need or want to read it again, I will get it as a Kindle e-book.

Books that don’t excite me
Will go – either donate/toss or sell.

Overall goal sometime into the future
My overall goal way into the future is to have most of my books as e-books, then I won’t need to use to much space in my small house for books. But as I said, way into the future. I’m not quite ready to part with all my physical books quite yet.

So let’s see how we do in 2014.

And on that note.. here is my first installment on books decluttered 🙂

image

The start of my journey

2014 – a year to declutter and living with less

You know how you sometimes come across information that resonates with you. That’s what happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was looking at a web site with travel accessories, which brought me to a link about packing on YouTube. Next thing you know I’ve gotten myself entangled in links after links on owning next to nothing, declutter and minimalism. And that’s when it hits me smack in the head, this is where I’m at right now, feeling the need to clean up my life and move towards a simpler life.

Who am I? My name is Anne Lene and I live on the west coast of Norway. And where is Norway you might ask? Well have a look here. My interest are traveling, house and gardens (especially my garden) and I’m a pretty good handy”man” 😉

I live in a small house (about 75m2 or 807 ft2), and I love the idea of a clean uncluttered space and not owning more than I need.

I’ve always been somewhat decent at getting rid of things, and most people would say I keep a tidy house (that’s just because they don’t see all the stuff tucked away everywhere). But lately it seems like stuff is creeping up on me and before I know it I’m sitting in the middle of a whole lot of mess.

So why a blog? And what’s with the name Minimalist Sometimes? 

Well, you know how you can feel like a “minimalist at heart” (yeah I know, wishful thinking), but your life do not quite seem to reflect this. Actually it’s starting to look pretty messy, like I mentioned above, and you swear it wasn’t that long ago that you were in full control of your house and your life.

This is me in a nutshell – a Minimalist sometimes🙂 and this is a blog about my personal journey towards becoming what I call a moderate minimalist. I thought that if I’m going to give this a proper try, I might as well write about it.

So going forward i have decided that:
2014 will be a year to declutter and living with less.

And if I’m lucky, some of the stuff I will be writing about on this blog might inspire others on their journey.

So here we go… my journey starts. Will you be joining me?

Anne Lene