Oh, Dan Brown. If only I, too, could become so wildly successful with so little talent and creativity. While your books are not the worst books I've read (the prize for that goes to Stephenie Meyer, who has managed to sell hundreds of millions of books despite her obvious illiteracy), I don't feel the need to own them. Also, readers, in case you have not seen it, give this Dan Brown sequel generator a try! It's hilarious.
Black shirt
This shirt has sleeves that hit me in just the wrong place. They stop right below my elbow, and when my arms are bent, the sleeves slide up above my elbow. I know it doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's annoying by the end of the day. Someone whose arms are just slightly longer or slightly shorter than mine can get some good use out of this shirt, though.
Book
This book was given to commemorate what's actually a rather unhappy event. The thought at the time was nice. But I didn't even realize that I still had it, and it's certainly not something I need to keep; I'm not going to look through again. So it goes.
Keys 1 and 2
These are the keys to my parents' old house. Because they sold their house and moved to a new place (well, two new places), I obviously don't need these anymore.
Perfume samples
These came as a free sample with a Philosophy product I purchased, but I'm not going to use them. First, I don't wear perfume. Second, even if I did, these do not seem user-friendly. Maybe there's some way of opening a bubble of perfume without making a mess, but I don't know what it would be. Also, I can't think of a way of reliably re-sealing the bubble once it's open—and those bubbles hold way too much perfume for just one use. Nobody needs to bathe in the stuff.
Ribbons 1 and 2
Martha Stewart and I have a couple things in common. She likes dogs, I like dogs; she likes food, I like food. But I think that might be it. See, I assume she is the type who wraps gifts in pretty paper with coordinating bows, and the type who makes those fancy ribbon curls. Well, I'm more of a gift bag person—they're easy and reusable. These ribbons came from gift-wrapped packages, and that's the only way I can think of to use them again. But I'm certainly not going to be the one to do it, and don't need these floating around in my closet.
Blog mention
Judith is an organization (organisation, rather—she's in the UK) coach who has a blog over at Clutter-free Mind. She found my blog via Twitter, and recently wrote a nice little post about it—and the slow-and-steady philosophy of de-cluttering—here. Thanks, Judith!
Progress: 124 items out of 400 = 31% done.
Oh those free things from the cosmetic counter that can stay in a drawer for years. I avoid that stuff like the plague now. I have to say you inspired me to clean up my cookbook shelf this week. I was going to weed out one and thought, why not challenge myself and let 7 cookbooks go.
ReplyDeleteHey, Trista - thanks for the mention!
ReplyDeleteYour blog just gets better and better from the readers point of view. The insight you have on parting with each item (not to mention the wit and humour) must surely inspire others to follow your lead.
So many peoople hang onto stuff that they just don't need any more (keys?), dislike wearing (the shirt?), or didn't like in the first place (Dan Brown's book?) Worst of all though, is the stuff that makes you sad - I've done it myself until I asked "why?" and couldn't come up with a good reason - is this my next blog post, I wonder?
That is some really bad packaging design on the perfume. Good call on giving the the heave-ho.
ReplyDeleteThat's great, Debra! Cookbooks are hard for me, because they always seem like they have so much potential—like even the bad ones might have one recipe that's a diamond in the rough. But there's only so much time!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Judith! I wonder whether keeping items that make us sad is some sort of coping mechanism.
Megan, it's terrible, isn't it? I just included two lip gloss samples with the same bad packaging in this week's post!