Tackle It Tuesday #3 - again with the sock drawers

So a couple of weeks ago, I showed a tiny bit of progress I had made on decluttering in my house. A single drawer in my bedroom dresser. It was the top drawer, and I have successfully kept clutter from piling back into it in the three weeks since I cleaned it out. And yet, the dresser still looks like this:


Hey, the fact that the top drawer actually closes now is a huge (and very positive) change from before. But as you can see, the second drawer needed major work.

Socks, knee-high stockings, pantyhose, and slips, all in a jumble. But with the new-found room in my top drawer, and some additional weeding out, I was able to find a space for everything.



This is the top drawer now. I somehow failed to take a shot of the second drawer now, which looks basically the same - another sock drawer organizer, and then to the left some folded things. I was even able to organize all my underfrillies with the two sock organizers. And - in a rare move - I am actually throwing something away. Three pairs of maternity underwear that make me feel bad every time I put them on. It has been almost three years since I was pregnant, do I really need to be wearing those now? And, though I'm all about passing my unusables on to other people, I just can't see giving these to anyone. So, score one for the landfill. Sorry, Mama Earth.

[on second thought, they are not in the trash yet, is there a non-landfill way to part with cotton? It's not compostable is it? I cannot see repurposing these for anything else, so if there's a way to recycle these, I'd love to know it]

Sorry for all the talk about underthings. I promise my next post won't be so, er, intimate.

Two drawers down. Three drawers, plus the top surface, to go.

The Saturday Seven - #35

Yep, more baby stuff. Another 11 pieces of baby clothing shipped off to My Old Man's daughter for her 9 month-old son. Included was this sweet little baseball outfit (just one of them) that I absolutely adored (you can't see the shorts, but they had a little bat, ball, and glove embroidered on them. I have such fond memories of them in these outfits, right after their first birthday. A happy summer with lots of travels. These pictures are from a trip to Denver for a work conference. After a day of being pushed around in the stroller, they ended up like this:

It's one of my most prominent memories of that summer, for some reason - seeing them sound asleep in their new side-by-side stroller in their little baseball outfits.

Today, the person who bought one of our crib mattresses and our nursery dresser at my Parents of Multiples sale last month came by to pick those things up. Of course I cried after she left with them.

Total things gone this week: 11.
Total gone so far: 346.

Thanks so much to those of who you continue to faithfully read along, even though I seem to say the same things every week: I got rid of more baby things! I cried! I gave some stuff to the church rummage sale! There are things I still can't part with! This is hard! Etc!

Oh, and if you're playing along at home and want to share (either a Saturday Seven or simply a simplicity-related musing), let us know by signing Mr. Linky!

The Saturday Seven - #34

This was originally going to be a Tackle It Tuesday post, but for the past two Tuesdays I haven't had time to post it, and since I'm also rather far behind with Saturday Sevens I decided not to wait for another Tuesday (when I probably again won't have the time). I have been thrown off my blogging rhythm by a number of things going on right now; I hope to be back in a groove soon.

In the midst of the chaos, I did grab a little time recently to try to put one small corner of my life in order. Okay, not really a whole corner, just a drawer.

This is my awful chest - drawers filled to bulging, handles coming off, overflow piled on My Old Man's dresser, random items slung around the floor. This is how I live, people. And this isn't even the worst of it. But it's the part I felt up to tackling. Well, not the whole thing. Just the top drawer. A start.

Here are the contents, dumped on my bed. I was startled at the amount of jewerly I found in this tangle of things. Including some stuff that is really precious to me.

Trinkets from my 20s.

I also found a lot of fairly valuable jewelry that is no longer my style but I don't see how I can part with. A couple of class rings, a couple of graduation gifts from my parents, souvenirs from important trips. One thing that struck me was how much I've simplified things jewelry-wise in the last eight years or so. Whereas I used to wear about 5 or 6 rings (incl. a thumb ring and a ring above one of my knuckles), 3 earrings in one ear plus an ear cuff, a toe ring, etc., and I would wear different earrings every day, as well as different necklaces, now I pretty much wear the same thing all the time. On my left hand, my engagement and wedding rings plus a bracelet watch. On my right, a simple silver band with a cross cut-out, and occasionally a bracelet (I have 3 different ones that are special to me that I choose from). I almost always wear only silver hoop earrings (one in each ear, no extras). About half the time, that is it. The other half of the time, I add a necklace (there are only 2 or 3 that I choose from).

I guess this means that I wear maybe 20% (or less?) of the jewelry I own. I have gotten rid of pretty much everything that doesn't have any sentimental value to it, but I really don't know what to do with the rest. I should add that jewelry has a tremendous amount of importance in my family, particularly to my mother who is basically a collector, and so it is fraught with additional complexity and emotion. [My relative simplicity in terms of jewelry, compared with the other women in my family, is looked at with some disappointment and disdain.]

Moving on. Here's something else I found a lot of, that no longer matches my style.


Scrunchies! I had, oh, maybe 15. I probably should've gotten rid of all of them. But I kept 3. You know, just in case I suddenly decide I must wear one. [this used to be my preferred method of pulling back my hair when I got home from work, but now I use a big clip]

And one other interesting find in the mess of my top drawer:

My first ever knitting attempt, from May 2002.

An hour later, this is what the drawer looked like:

I'm still deciding what to put in it and how to organize it. It's nice to be able to shut it all the way. Right now, it feels like my little corner of sanity.

I put together a bag full of scrunchies, belts, bandanas, and other things I no longer need, to give to the church rummage sale.
Total this week: 25.
Total for the year: 335.

Got a Saturday Seven, or a simplicity-related post? Let me know!