Thursday, July 29, 2010

Thursday Thirteen

Today I offer up a list of things I have thrown out in the last few months:

1. Socks and underwear. I dumped all of my white socks and all of my husband's white socks and replaced them with completely new socks. I did the same thing for my husband's underwear. It is the best way I know to ensure that he is not wearing threadbare clothes.

2. Teas. I had lying about the house a huge number of teas that I could not drink because they had caffeine in them. Many of these were gifts I had received last Christmas, and they were still quite good. I gave them to the postal service when it had a food drive in May. I was glad they would not be wasted.

3. The idea that I can't finish anything. I had it in my head that I could not finish long-term projects, or stick with something to completion. After coming up with a very long list to negate that idea, I decided it was an old notion that I needed to throw out. I have found, unfortunately, that such embedded ideas sometimes need to be thrown out again and again, as they return to the closet of the brain much like that ragged shirt of my husband's keeps finding its way back onto a coat hanger.

4. Computer and software manuals. I had every manual for every computer I had ever owned, apparently, because generally I can't resale the computers because I use them up. Finally I threw many of those manuals into the recycling bin.

5. Pillows. I have trouble with my pillows on the bed in that my neck gets crooked quite easily. I am like the princess and the pea - if things aren't just right I know it. So sometimes I go through pillows with alarming regularity. Somehow I had managed to collect 11 old bed pillows in one of the closets. I suppose I thought I might recycle them somehow. Failing that, I sent them all to the landfill. What a lot of space that freed up.

6. Plastic grocery bags. I use canvas totes when I shop but somehow still end up with plastic bags. I do not get as many as I once did but even so they still find their way home with me, wrapped around meats or used to separate frozen foods. I collect them and use them in trash cans in the bathrooms but they do pile up. I hauled a bunch to the grocery store, where they have a little collection bin specifically for these bags.

7. Old cards. I had a large assortment of cards that had yellowed and which I knew I would not send to anyone. I recycled them.

8. Tax records. I am a paper pack rat and up until recently I could have told you what we ate back in 1983, when we first married, by pulling out the grocery receipts. I threw some of that stuff away and some of it I moved to the attic.

9. Computer hardware. Two printers and a few other items found their way to Goodwill a while back. Computer stuff is really difficult to dispose of, isn't it?

10. 10,000 images from my hard drive. I went through and hit the delete key on a lot of pictures recently. I had about 27,000 on the computer and it was getting difficult to keep up with them. Who needs 14 pictures of the same flower anyway?

11. Wallpaper. I recently ripped all the wallpaper off the walls in the kitchen and repainted. It was a relief although I still find myself looking for the wallpaper and being alarmed by the plain painted walls. Hopefully I will get over that.

12. Old spices. I had a spice rack that my brother gave me sometime in the early 1990s. The spices that I had not used were still in their original bottles and still sitting in the spice rack. The other day I threw every single one into the trash. There was some satisfaction in hearing the clink of the jars as they landed next to one another. I also cleaned out my cabinet where I kept other spices and tossed everything that was out of date.

13. Old DVDs and VHS tapes. We had several VHS tapes and a few DVDS that I knew we would never watch again that went into the trash bin. We actually still have a VHS player that I use sometimes to tape a TV show, but so infrequently that I wouldn't miss it if were not available. I can't remember when we last watched a VHS tape. The DVDs that I threw away were some that were scratched and so I knew we would not watch those again, either.


Thursday Thirteen is played by many bloggers. You can see more lists here. This is my 149th time to play.

11 comments:

  1. If you are finding your plain painted walls too plain for your taste then print a few photos, frame them and hang them on the walls.. I can print you some nice 8x10s if you want me to?

    Di

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  2. I'm feeling tired just reading cause I know I need to do the same. I especially relate to socks and teas, computer stuff and old spices.

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  3. I need to follow in so very many of your footsteps! The hard drive images one is critical for me right now. I desperately need to get rid of duplicates (and one step further, print the ones I love).

    Congratulations on all of your many, many accomplishments. I love "throwing things out". What a relief!

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  4. I'm such a packrat I'd probably have kept all of this - though donating the tea would work for me. The socks and underwear makes great rags. I don't feel bad at all treating them like paper towels. As to the paperwork, my family found a receipt from a drug store that was 30 years old while cleaning out my grandmother's estate. Apparently I come by it naturally.

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  5. In my recent bout of man-nesting, I threw out all of my old cassette tapes, except for recordings that I did, off the air, of the original "A Prairie Home Companion" radio shows.

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  6. Way To Go! We have just done much of the same as both my wife and I totally redid our offices... plus two bedrooms with new maple floors, fresh paint, etc. One has to go backwards a lot before you go ahead, but it is so worth it!

    Having spent a couple hours one afternoon watching "Hoarders" on TV made a huge impact on how much I tossed or just didn't bring back into the room.

    We made a list of things to try to sell... like old cameras, etc. Your post reminds me to get on with the rest of the disposal process.

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  7. Wow, someone has been busy! I did a lot of tossing out last year (recycling and donating what I could), but every now and then I come across something I missed - like the tax records from the mid-90s I shredded today.

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  8. I recently did a lot of throwing out while cleaning the basement. It felt great! I love the large empty space of plain walls. People think it's weird LOL You're right. Who needs so many photos of the same flower!

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  9. It sounds like you have been really busy overhauling your life! Out with the old and in with the new.

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  10. They don't make socks the way they used to (maybe that's because I buy them in Walmart now) and so we go through a lot of them. I started bringing them out to the barn for rags and like the other commenter said, I don't feel bad using them like a paper towel and throwing them out.

    I just borrowed a VHS tape from the library. Glad I still had my old VCR player because not everything is on DVD.

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  11. I love your TT .... definitely a great list ..!! I love cleaning out and throwing .. it's refreshing .. we should all do it very six months or so... but of course, spare the landfill!! recycle!
    Thanks for visiting my blog.

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