40 Bags

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to dejunk my house. I briefly mentioned hearing about a 40 bags in 40 days project, but decided to give myself a full year instead of 40 days. Turns out this 40 days project takes place in the spring. Some of my swap group buddies decided to do the challenge and invited me to join them. They've got about a 2 week head start on me, but I'm finally starting. I thought I'd keep a list so I could keep track.

1. Bassinet

Ok, so it wasn't in a bag, but its big enough that I'm counting it as one. Also, its been gone for a week now, so now I can not feel like such a slacker. I gave it to a girl I used to babysit. Its so hard to believe she's now old enough to have kids of her own. I've now gotten rid of all the big baby stuff we had. I have some cute blanket sets I need to try and sell and then get rid of some adoption stuff. I'll have to include that as part of this 40 bags project.

2. Bathroom junk
3. Bathroom junk
4. Bathroom junk
5. Bathroom junk (This is when I started to feel like a hoarder.)

Bathroom junk has included lots of shampoo bottles from hotels, half used hair sprays, expired prescriptions, etc. I have a DI bag going, it has 2 hats and a cute bag in it so far. I also have another pile for Heather that included cute hair stuff for her growing family. Everything else has gone in the garbage! Both bathrooms cupboards are about half as full as they used to be, maybe even less then that.

At this point, I had to remind myself a few things. 1) If I haven't used it in a year, its time to get rid of it. This has worked pretty good. I did keep one items, its a gift from a friend and even though I have not used it in the last 5+ years, I just can't make myself get rid of it. 2) I'm grateful for some of the deep cleaning I did last fall, I think it will make this easier. As I've lost weight, I have given away all of my old clothes. Also, when I got all my Pampered Chef stuff, I cleaned out my cupboards and got rid of a lot of old stuff there. I'm not trying to count this stuff in my 40 bags, I'm just glad its that much less stuff to deal with. 3) I need to stay more organized. I spent all morning upset because I couldn't find a paint brush I KNEW I had. I finally used a different one and it worked fine, but while cleaning the bathrooms, I found that same brush I KNEW I had.

6. Several wicker baskets and puzzles that have never been opened.

I threw away the worst ones that were pretty beat. I was picky and kept only my favorites. Now that challenge will be not buying new ones at the DI. When I threw those away, I thought of something else I wanted to throw away, but couldn't find it. Yay for me, I think I threw it out a while ago, after holding on to it for several years. The puzzles, yes, they were in good shape. But 2 of them were white elephant gifts we got at Christmas last year that were clearly from the DI. I figured they already had a chance at the DI. If the previous owner didn't use them and I didn't then its time to just get them out of the junk cycle and save someone else the trouble.

At this point, my garbage can is full and the truck doesn't come until Friday. So I kept my momentum going and scrubbed my bathrooms real good. My housework gets pretty neglected during the winter while we work 5 days a week instead of working four-tens and having Friday's off. But next week we go back to our summer schedule and I have Friday's off again. I'm going to try to hit it hard for the next few Friday's and get rid of my 40 bags.

Next week, I hope to tackle my craft room. Its in the WORST shape it has even been. There isn't even a path anymore. I did tear it up to take half my stuff to the retreat last weekend so that is part of the problem. But the bassinet I got rid of, it wasn't completely useless. I was using it to store crochet thread and other things. Now those things have no where to be stored, at least not neatly. I think I'll try to find a nice shelf or something this week I know I will get rid of a lot of stuff in the craft room. I actually want to go grab a few things I know are in the closet, but like I said, there isn't even a pathway in there, so I guess it will have to wait for next week.

Now when I go to swap group on Tuesday, I can honestly tell them I've started on my 40 bags.