Recently, I heard a great quote from William Morris. "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." That is definitely what I'm striving for. As for this magnet, well, it's obviously not beautiful. Magnets are useful objects, sure, but we will still have enough magnets if we get rid of this one. So it can go.
Wine plates
These items were part of a great wine-themed gift basket we received. But we have not used this pair of appetizer plates. We are trying to reduce the amount of plastic we have and use in our lives. So these can go to someone else.
Slow cooker cookbook
I don't know how in the world I ended up with this cookbook. I like slow cookers, but this cookbook is full of the kind of recipes I never make. Few are vegan; none are worth adapting. I can appreciate that it aims to be simple, but the few ingredients called for in each recipe are processed foods. There are only a handful of recipes that don't include canned cream-of-whatever soup. It seemed so dated that I checked the publication date; this came out in 2004. I didn't think anyone ate like that anymore.
GOP shirt
This was another item we bought at a thrift store for the Hick Party. After we purchased it, though, we realized it could inadvertently offend someone. As I mentioned before, people dress up as hicks at this party; we didn't want someone to think we were poking fun at Republicans or the military community. That's not what we were going for. So, back to the thrift store this goes.
Coral shirt
I have two other shirts with similar detailing to this one, but they both have tonal buttons. I prefer those to this one with its beige buttons, so I will keep the other two and this one can go. Having two similar shirts seems reasonable to me, but having three things so similar to each other just seems excessive.
Teal shirt
I love the color of this shirt, and the idea of blouse-y peasant tops. They have a kind of '70s vibe that I like (not that I was around in the '70s). But I think I like them on other people more than I like them on me. I feel like the loose sleeves of this top make my arms look big, when they definitely aren't. I'm no Michelle Obama, but I don't need clothes that create problem areas where none exist.
Striped sheet set
I recently came across an awesome tip, which is to fold up sheets and store them in their corresponding pillow case(s). But I could not get this sheet folded that small, so instead I just tucked the pillow cases into the folded sheet. Maybe I just need a little practice. Anyway, this is a perfectly fine sheet set; it's just that we have too many of them, and I prefer solid sets to printed ones. (Honestly, I didn't think of myself as a particularly print-averse person until I started this decluttering project!)
Progress: 138 items out of 400 = 34.5% done.
I'm glad you came across the William Morris quote - so relevant, and I bear it in mind when I work with my clients.
ReplyDeleteI love the way you are on a voyage of self-discovery, finding out you are "print-averse" will influence your future shopping habits, meaning less future clutter, hopefully.
I like the lists of things you weed out of your life, but wonder do you buy new things like clothes to fill gaps left behind or are you getting by with less things now?
ReplyDeleteJudith, it really is a great quote, isn't it? I thought I already knew what I like and don't like. But in going through things and really thinking about what gets used, I'm finding out much more about what I don't like. It definitely will impact what I buy!
ReplyDeleteDebra, if I replace items, I don't count those toward my goal of getting rid of 400 things. Everything I catalog here is something that we are getting out of the house and not replacing.
When I participated in The Great American Apparel Diet—going one year without buying new clothes—I did it without even wearing all the clothes I own. I am the same size now as I was in high school, so the amount of clothes I have has just grown and grown over the years. I've had this mentality of "if it fits, why get rid of it?" But now I just have far too many things, and so it's nice to be paring it down.