Declutter October

     A friend of mine made a post on social media about a challenge she was doing to declutter her home. She encouraged her friends to join in for the month of October.  This challenge was the entire month long and every day of the month, you had to get rid of that many items. 
So October 2nd, get rid of 2 items...October 15th, get rid of 15 items and so on. 

     Lately, I've been bothered by the stuff lying around the house which I don't use.  If we're all honest with ourselves, there's stuff we all keep that we never or rarely use.  So I took my friend up on this challenge.  Days 1-8 were a breeze.  I started in the kitchen, going through cabinets and found so many mugs, dishes, and utensils I never use.  After exhausting the kitchen, I moved to my closet. 

     As much as I really want to be able to fit into some of the clothing I was able to wear when I was 22 and at my most fit stage of life, I'm seeing that goal as being more and more unrealistic.  That doesn't mean I've given up on losing weight or being healthy.  It just means that I don't think I'll see THOSE numbers on the scale again.  All that to say, my closet had a lot of clothing for me to get rid of in it.  I made it to day 15 getting rid of clothing, shoes and nail polish. 

     Moving to the baby's room, I was able to go through her things and get rid of some of the items I don't use.  At about day 23, I started struggling.  I got rid of a huge box full of books, piano music and cd's.  Clothing hangers were another easy item to get rid of, since I have bazillions of them.  I had already decided before starting this challenge that I wouldn't touch any of Dan's items (although you can be sure I wanted to clean out the garage with all of his tools...), only the things he didn't care about.

     I made it to day 31...barely.  Now that the challenge is finished though, I look around and find things every day that I still need to get rid of.

     During the 31 days, I was collecting and piling all of these discarded items in our biggest closet.  On Monday, I called the Salvation Army and asked them if they accept anything, or just certain items.  The man on the phone told me that they would take anything and were accepting all donations.  So we loaded the truck full of boxes and bags and headed down to Queensbury.  I was so excited to get rid of this stuff, but when we walked into the Salvation Army, the same man I talked to on the phone said that they had a temporary hold on taking donations and that they couldn't take anything from us.  I was annoyed because we had a truck full of things I was desperate to get rid of.  We were able to find a bin that took clothes in a parking lot, but everything else we had to haul home. 

     In my moment of desperation, I took photos of lots of stuff in boxes, and posted ads on Facebook marketplace and craigslist for free stuff. 

     I got super excited when about 10 people started messaging me that they wanted to come and look at it right away.  I wasn't going to put it out at the curb, since it was snowing and sleeting.  Out of the 23 total people who said they would come to get stuff, 2 ended up showing up and taking only some stuff, instead of taking it all like I said on the ad.  I kept saying to Dan "I never KNEW it was so hard to get rid of free stuff!"

     I guess the funniest messages I got were from three different people who were telling me they couldn't drive and needed me to bring the stuff to their houses.  One woman gave me her address and asked me to please ship it to her, and thank you.  Her address was in Maine! 

     Since I was so desperate to get rid of this stuff, I even agreed to meet up with one woman at a gas station to give her two boxes.  But she didn't confirm a time, so we never met up.  I learned a valuable lesson from this.  When you see something you want on an ad, don't leave the "seller" hanging.  It is SO FRUSTRATING.  Also, if the stuff is FREE, don't ask someone to deliver it or ship it. 

     Although I enjoyed de-cluttering my house in the month of October, the bother of giving the stuff away was hardly worth it.  I couldn't help thinking of the people around the world who would have loved to have the things I was trying to give away, but couldn't because nobody here wanted it or was willing to drive a few miles to get it.  So sad. 

     We have so much, yet often are so unthankful.  I'm speaking to myself as much as to the people who weren't willing to come to get some free things.  
     I shouldn't just think about being grateful in the month of November, but I often forget how much I have because I haven't experienced what it is like to be without. 


(As a side note, if you've never tried de-cluttering your home like this...I challenge you to try it.)