Sunday, October 11, 2015

Declutter Progress Update 2

We had several activities this week plus Lamb 1 and 2 had to write legislative bills for participating in Stonesetters next January. This was the first year they participated so they needed some help and I spent a long time reading the directions so I was sure it was in the correct font and everything required. I think they both had good ideas for bills, especially considering they never did this before. I will blog more about Stonesetters as it gets closer to January. So my decluttering happened in-between activities and no extra cleaning was done this week. Here's what I did accomplish.

*ordered some Snapfish and Shutterfly free or cheap deals to pick up some presents for Christmas and some of our family Christmas cards
*we have our DVDs organized in a binder. For several months there has been a pile of DVDs and CDs in our living room. Some were birthday presents and some came home with us from our trip to IN. Our whole family worked on organizing all those and recycled all the cases. We also made a pile of DVDs that the Lambs could watch once or twice and then we could give them away.
*last Sunday I spent the whole day in our library decluttering. Our VCR was broken so we  disconnected the old one and hooked up one I brought home from my parents. Sometimes Lamb 2 and 3 will watch a VHS tape while Lamb 1 is watching TV or a movie downstairs. I put a whole bunch of VHS tapes to get rid of. I still have a project to go through a few more homemade VHS tapes and decide what is worth transferring. Now I am able to do that with the new VCR.
I went through all the wrapping paper and gift bags and put a whole bunch of that for the bazaar. Most were from gifts we received in MN and since we still haven't used them 4 years later, I doubt I ever will.
We have about 1/2 a dozen boxes of books in the library closet that don't fit on the shelves. Ram helped me go through those boxes and decide what to get rid of.
Once the library closet was all organized then I worked on the library. I had a few bags of unfinished craft projects. I got some of that ready for taking to the church ladies and threw the rest out. (They were happy to get everything, especially the old jeans.) We have the science and history books that we are using in homeschool this year on a book cart. I got that organized. Ram organized our playing cards and made sure we had complete decks. When all that was completed the Lambs vacuumed the library for me. It hasn't had clear floor to vacuum for a couple of years!
The shelves still need to be cataloged and organized, but the library looks a lot better.
*I packed up a box for my sister of craft stuff and other stuff I have found in my cleaning out. I wrapped a few birthday presents for her and my brother-in-law. I mailed that box.
*I found some items in my cleaning out that would make excellent baby presents-some were toys never opened and some were clothes with the tags on. I have a baby shower to attend next Saturday for a first baby in the family. I found out it's a boy so I chose boy items and wrapped them. I also filled a grocery bag with items the Lambs no longer use but she may find useful. I will make clear the bag of stuff is extra, not her present, and she is free to donate whatever she can't use.
*Ram took two bags to the used kids store and they gave us credit for everything except one set of books. I was shocked that they took everything.
*I completed one more file drawer. I recombined from the other file drawers and now one file cabinet drawer is completely empty! 8 more file cabinet drawers to go.
*cataloged and reshelved the 400s in our library. This is a small section, but we have some English grammar and Latin books.
*cataloged the 500s in our library. I still need to reshelve these. This is a huge section and there was not very much that we were willing to part with. Ram likes math and I like science books!

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