Taming the Paper Tiger

With da Kid in Da House, she was driving my regular car, demoting me to my backup vehicle.  There was a lot of old mail in the back seat, so I grabbed a handful on the way in the house. 

I immediately trashed (recycled) a lot of it, but wanted to scan some of the auto registration material, which led me to my filing cabinet to retrieve similar documents.  Once I scanned the vehicle paperwork, I kept going, scanning some banking statements, and then 10 years' worth of those increasingly dire statements from the Social Security Administration that tell you how much you might get if you work until you're ninety and they don't go belly up. 
One of the biggest folders in the cabinet is for papers pertaining to my Homeowner's Association.  I realized I've kept the meeting agendas even though I never attend the meetings.  So, I made sure to keep anything about the financials, and anything about rules and regulations, but the agendas are going. 
Altogether, I think I will be eliminating about 110 pieces of paper from the day's sorting.  Of course, it was immediately cancelled out by a subsequent trip to the mailbox at the condo (I haven't officially changed my address yet, so most of my mail still goes there) but at least it didn't get any worse for the day.  Trouble is, I can't dig out unless I do this every day,  probably for months.  Gah.

The Razor's Edge

I've actually manged to offload a couple items onto the Kidlet. (No mean feat with a non-materialistic person who is making a point of not accumulating Stuff because she is planning on moving abroad.)
One is a Schick Quattro razor with a couple of spare blades. I bought it when blades for my own razor were discontinued. I never liked the Quattro, but what can you do (besides shuffling around crustily demanding to know why they don't make things like they used to anymore?). But a couple of months ago I found the blades available on eBay, and since I had stubbornly held on to my old handle (which had an unhealthy layer of soap scum I had to laboriously remove), I bought a two year supply of blades and was ready to ditch the Quattro. Fortunately, the Kidlet, who is visiting, likes this brand, so now it is hers.
A surprise item to exit is a very, very old sweatshirt the kid borrowed from me. She said she loved it but knew I wouldn't give it up because it was obviously a souvenir from my trip to Rome. The thing is, it isn't. I got it as a hand-me-down from a neighbor of mother's a good five to ten years prior to my own 1994 trip to Rome, so this is very old shirt. I've never liked it and never worn it much, but even occasional wearings over 20+ years have left it very soft. I was really going to get rid of it soon, and in the toss pile, because it is, in my opinion, too threadbare for donation. She is more than welcome to it.
I'm happy that I held on to these things which have turned out to be useful to myself and to another person, but this experience does (rather unfortunately, in my mind) reinforce the tendency to save things that might be useful "someday." After all, these were just two items. I don't have the rest of the century it would take to achieve full utility of every single thing in this house.

1 down, 60 to go

Those other 60 books are destined for the friends-of-the-library sale, but I listed a few on half.com just for ducks, and one sold, so am $14.50 ahead. 
Short on updates due to having company in town.  That would be my foster daughter, and today we are focusing on the room that is very nearly full of her/her mother's things.  A large quantity of those are to be loaded up and taken to her mother's storage unit today, so that should open up some space.
Even when I am "done" decluttering I expect to have a "junk room."  That's OK with me, provided it is my own junk and not someone else's!

Miscellaneous Tossables

This is basically a pile of crap.  All getting tossed.

On the top left are various expired foodstuffs, including cake mix circa 2007.  The chicken and rice was a misfire from Trader Hoes, the round jar contains mulling spices which I'm sure keep for a long time, but I think these were transported on the last move, too, so a decade may be a lot to ask.  The maraschino cherries are from god knows where.  The little foil pan may be a leftover from the days when my only baking option was a toaster oven, so that's more like thirteen years old.  The expired jar of oregano is especially pointless since I now grow my own and can have fresh whenever I want, which is practically never.
Moving clockwise is a can of dried paint, of what I suspect is the color of the kitchen in the condo.  I'm going to keep the label and toss the can.  The three metal cylinders are "new," leftovers from installing my dryer, and exactly the sort of thing I would keep around indefinitely for no particular reason. 
Next up is a padded envelope I thought I could reuse.  I do reuse and repurpose a lot of mailing material, but this has been with me for a long time without finding application, so it goes.
The stringy bits are my semi-homemade cat leash.  When I lived in the studio, I occasionally leashed my cat and took her for walks, which went about as well as you'd expect, but I felt guilty about making her live in such a small space with nothing but a parking lot to look at.  I stopped walking her when we moved to a better apartment.  Also, that cat died a few months ago.  I think about her every single day, and it's not like I'll forget her if I give up the leash.
Left of the leash is a failed knitting experiment.  I knitted the sweater, but it was just not right across the top.  Since the whole point of knitting my own sweaters is to make things that fit well, I ordered more yarn and started a new one with the intent of adjusting as needed.  That was about five years ago.  I started the second, and a few weeks ago tried to work on it, but determined I'd made other mistakes and unraveled it.  Meanwhile, I washed the one in the photo, which stretched it such that no one on earth could wear it, so it's going, because even if I ever finish the second sweater, I have a clear picture in my head of what was wrong with the first.
Lower left is seriously random:
Lid of paint can of what may be the deck color.  The HOA is currently replacing and repainting the decks, so I don't need to know what color it possibly was.
Plastic ring that held Mom's Tupperware measuring spoons, which I threw away years ago
Metal thingy from soft glasses case. 
Metal thingy from a collapsing steamer basket.  I kept it forever because I wasn't sure what is was.  Now that I know and know I don't need it, it can go.
Middle-ish: expired promotional coupon for some product I would never use, more fake nails from a kit I bought for its other contents, a foam block for packing/storing model railroad stuff, and, last but not least, a hair accessory I used to wear, but don't anymore, that is grungy and not really cleanable.

Going, going, going

MORE vases.  OK, the bottles aren't really vases, but I think I had it in the back of my mind that I could use them as such.  What I am keeping: the medium-sized blue one, which was my mother's, and which I can remember her using sometimes.  Also, the small clear glass one, origin unknown, just because I like it.  Going: the Sioux City bottle, origin unknown, the small blue/white vase, origin unknown, and the Coke bottle, which has a story:  My best friend and I had gone to lunch one day, were served Coke in these bottles, and took them with us, even though I suspect we weren't meant too, but no one stopped us and we thought they looked cool. That was about 1989.  I think my friend, who lives in much smaller spaces than I do, purged hers perhaps five or ten years ago.  It's time for mine to go as well.  I don't display it for its own sake, nor do I use it as a vase.

MORE pitchers.  These two were both my mother's.  They were both displayed in her home at one time or another.  I sorta like the cookie-icing decoration of the one on the right, but it isn't really my style.  The one on the left has been corralling my knitting needles for some time now and seems to be working out for that.  Also, I suspect it is Rookwood pottery, and thus may be worth something if I get into a selling mood. 

Mixers.  I use the one in the box - it was a gift from a friend (the same one from the Coke bottle story).  Apart from my box fetish, I also kept the box to hold the other beaters (hooks, in this case)  The other mixer was a gift as well - my brother gave it to me because he thought I would think it looks cool, and he is right.  BUT, I don't use it.  I didn't even use it during the holidays when I went on a massive baking frenzy, as I found it very easy to just clean the beaters on my regular mixer.  God bless bro, when he gave it to me (he had gotten it at a thrift store) he gave me permission then and there to not keep it if I didn't want too.  He is a minimalist my both nature and circumstances and wouldn't deliberately burden me with something I don't want.

Miscellaneous stuff. 
Taking it clockwise from the top - got the kitchen timer because I thought I should have one - after all, my mother did.  But looking back, she might have only gotten one after the one on her stove broke. She used it for the laundry (communal laundry room) more than for cooking. I have a timer on my stove and another on my microwave.  There are probably timers on my cell phones as well. 
Pudding dish?  I originally bought two of these - again, a habit of mine - I think for the cat's food, which, again, I have established I have plenty of other dishes for.  Not sure if I broke or donated the other one, I know I only have the one now.
Kitten puppet - In 1989 my father visited me at college - the only family visit prior to my graduation - and bought me a expensive stuffed cat.  I'm keeping that, it has strong memories attached.  Sometime later I bought this little puppet to be its "kitten" and the setup was cute but again, these are not displayed together, and the kitten can go.  They always find homes easily, anyway.
Mini-notebook - purchased in a tourist town a couple of years ago for the legitimate reason that I need somewhere to write little notes just like everybody else.  But about a year later it was supplanted by a similarly small notebook that was designed to have an attached pen, which I definitely need, and now also by an app on my smartphone.
Cheese slicer, origin unknown - I don't slice cheese, I either cut blocks with a knife, or grate it.  I've already gotten rid of a guillotine-style slicer I once bought my parents that they never used, and that I used only once in a while because it was a PITA to clean for what I got out of it.
Nutcrackers and nut picks - belonged to my parents, and I do have brief childhood memories of cracking walnuts with them.  They sat in the back of my parents' silverware drawer until they passed to me five years ago.  I eat peanuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, and pistachios, but not walnuts.  I am keeping the picks however, as they are small and look like something I could use as a general household tool.  It pains me a little to separate the nutcrackers from the nut picks, but I suspect I'm not totally rational there.
Some kind of implement ("Mini-whip"), unopened package, from Pampered Chef.  No idea how it landed with me - I've never attended one of their events. I am certain my mother never did, either. I've never been at my baking and thought, oh yeah, now is where I could really use that mini-whip thingie.
Butter pats - bought from eBay because they are the pattern of some of my father's Santa Fe Railroad plates (which I have since sold on eBay!) . They are too small to use for anything, and in fact too small to carry the backstamp such as seen on other items in the series.
Candle stuff (center) - these came from my brother's house.  I thought they were cool, and liked the concept of a candle snuffer, esp that this one is silver or silverplate.  But, I've done a post on how I'm not really into candles.  So the candle paraphernalia can go.

Exeunt.

Going, going, going . . .

I've got a pretty good pile of stuff to donate, some of which I've already posted (a lot of the kitchen stuff) but I've got a lot more waiting in the wings, so here goes.  The goal is to get this out the door Monday or Tuesday.

-The big and bulky comforter.  Once upon a time, a long time ago, I bought this comforter with matching sheets and pillowcases and was satisfied with it EXCEPT 1) it is too big to fit in my washing machine and 2) I needed to wash it frequently because I had a leaky cat.  I'd wash the thing in the tub, huge PITA.  Eventually the sheets wore out, and I got another, lighter comforter that I could machine wash, and I thought I had already gotten rid of this one when I found, to my dismay, that it was wedged under the futon mattress.  So, in the tradition of hoarders who can't dispose of  something because someone could use it if it were only fixed (or cleaned) up, but unlike hoarders in the sense that I actually followed through, I paid $40 to have this professionally cleaned so I can feel OK about donating it.

-Vases.  I think this one is common - flowers arrive in them from the florist's and it seems a shame to throw the vases away.  And I know I've already purged similar ones in the past, but here they are, aren't they.  Re: the larger vases - I have a largish lusterware vase (the blue one) that I am keeping that can do duty if needed.  That one is inherited, so carries extra points there. As for the small ones, I am keeping a smaller lusterware vase (not shown) and also a small glass/crystal vase (in front of the box) which I schlepped home from a 1994 trip to the Czech Republic.  Those will be fine, I'm sure, should I ever "need" a small/bud vase.  I will cross my fingers in hopes that crafty people haunt thrift stores for basic glass vases and do something productive with the things.
The fake flower?  That came with my foster daughter's VW Beetle, I think.  She lives thousands of miles away now and no longer owns that car.

-Mugs.  I've discussed my mug surplus before, and doubtlessly will again.  Here are 3 which are especially lacking in any sentimental or aesthetic value to me.  Well, the green one was cool, until my brother put it in the microwave too many times and fried the logo off.

-Sugar and creamer - We'll be seeing more of these.  Not only do I have lots of lusterware sets, I have several glass ones as well. This one was a gift, so I feel guilty about getting rid of it for that reason, but I don't love it, you know?  It also failed to sell on eBay, so it is getting donated.

-The copper light string.  Here is a convergence of my tendencies to 1) keep the box in case I decide to get rid of it - I know I've had this item for several years - and 2) the way I don't buy enough of something to really use it - like the way I'll buy just 2 glasses or plates in a pattern, here I've only bought the one string.  I do find it pretty, but in the summer it got dark too late for me to bother lighting it, and in the winter it was too cold  to go outside and plug it in, and it was always falling off its hooks, and now I live in a house where I will either need to get series of such things to make a proper string, and that I can turn on/off from indoors, or else forget the whole business.

Antiheroine

CNN featured  Confessions of a Compulsive Declutterer (originally on Oprah.com) today.  I have to agree with a lot of the commenters that this woman has gone too far, and her behavior is damaging her children and predisposing them to become hoarders. 
Despite the name I've given this blog, and my intent to examine the objects in my life more closely, my "obsession" is a bit of a misnomer, as it is of my own choosing that I am at a point where I desire to overevaluate and document what I am discarding.  I hope for my end result to be a home filled with things I love, unobstructed by things I thoughtlessly failed to dispose of.