Decluttering, Week 13

A little late again, but I'm still at it. From a "confession" viewpoint, I'm not really seeing much difference. That statement should provide some insight into just how much stuff I have amassed over the years. I have alot of books and magazines and I hate throwing them out. I'm sick really though aint I ? Take number 9 below for example. The Datsun 210 was Debbie's, and we got rid of it in 1988 or so. What was I keeping it for an extra 20 years "just in case" ???

1. Bag of magazines, curb recycle
2. Incandescent Outdoor Christmas Lights, garbage
3. Outdoor Light gutter clips, garbage
4. La Crosse Indoor/Outdoor Thermometer, junk, garbage
5. Desk Lamp, busted, garbage
6. Old motion detector/alarm, garbage
7. Another old Pentium 3 Tower, recycle
8. Quicken 6 for DOS, garbage
9. Haynes Datsun 210 Shop Manual, recycle
10. Programming in Basic Plus, recycle

Decluttering, Week 12

Continuing with the home office purge this week. Not as much as I had hoped and a bit late, but a nasty flu has knocked me down a bit:

1. Old Jacket, garbage
2. Old IBM PS/2 mouse, garbage
3. Old 9-pin <->DIN cable, garbage
4. 64 meg expansion board ??, garbage
5. "Old" Adaptec 2130 MFM Disk Controller, garbage
6. 3.5" Floppies, garbage
7. Old Phone Books, curb recycle
8. more magazines, curb recycle
9. Fundamentals of Nursing (huge), gave away
10. Medical-surgical Nursing (huge), gave away

lots more to come...

Decluttering, Week 11

This is getting more difficult, but I must press on, even if it's only a few more small things. (in case you've just joined in, I've chimed in on a 10 Things Challenge, in an effort to reduce the junk)...

1. Electric Razor (thought I'd fix it), garbage
2. Electric Razor #2, ditto, garbage
3. Suitcase/Duffle Bag (didn't survive last overseas trip), garbage
4. Nikon Nuvis S2000, APS Camera, discard pile
5. 1 million Candle Power Light, broken, garbage
6. Old AT Computer Keyboard, garbage
7. Cheap Telephone, garbage
8. Another stack of old magazines, curb recycle
9. Teach Yourself QBasic in 21 Days, curb recycle
10. Using Novell Dos 7, curb recycle

I guess this is all pretty meaningless from a "blogging" perspective, in that it's not of much value to anyone reading, but this silly facade of accountability seems to be working for me.

Decluttering, Week 10

For this week, (and maybe next) I'm largely concentrating on my home office, a space so smothered with junk that my wife with NetBook in hand, has long since abandoned the place in favor of the kitchen...  

1. Adaptec PCMCIA SCSI cable (card unknown), garbage
2. Ipod Touch "case", didn't fit, garbage
3. Xircom Rex, microPDA, manuals etc, garbage
4. PagePLus Desktop Publishing Software, 1993, garbage
5. Microsoft Money v2, (on 3.5 and 5.25 disks), garbage
6. Quicken 2002 (umopened), garbage
7. Quicken XG (unopened), garbage
8. KeyCad Deluxe Software (CD, Manual), garbage
9. 2 - 110v LED NiteLites (didn't last), garbage
10. Polaroid One-Step Camera (where did that come from), garbage

not much, but it all adds up...

Decluttering, Week 9

Wow! another week has rocketed into eternity, and I had trouble keeping up. Due to the amount of "useful" stuff I keep finding, I'm going to start a "discard/free" category...kind of a pause before the garbage just in case someone wants it. Speak up if you see anything...

1. Media Vision Jazz SCSI sound card, garbage
2. Curling/flat iron, garbage
3. Roasting pan, garbage
4. (another) VCR Remote Control, garbage
5. Megahertz PCMCIA 14.4 modem, garbage
6. 2x Xircom PCMCIA Ethernet adapters (coax), garbage
7. 2x Xircom dongles, (for above), garbage
8. Speedstream DSL modem, discard/free pile
9. Megahertz Xjack Ethernet PCMCIA card, discard/free pile
10. Canon IS-22 Scanner head, discard/free pile
    

Decluttering, Week 8

I'm hoping to keep this going at least until Christmas. By then I might actually notice a difference in the clutter. This week was mostly some garbage lying around the garage etc:

1.  2 boxes/cases of old 3.5" floppies, garbage
   
2. Chrysler AM/FM Radio, garbage
   
3. Box of Coleco Adam Cassettes, garbage
   
4. Canon Canonet 35mm Camera, garbage
   
5. Internal 96/24 Fax modem, garbage
   
6. Windows 3.1 on 5.25" floppies w/manuals, garbage
   
7. DOS 6 Upgrade version, garbage
   
8. Box of misc. software, ancient, garbage
   
9. 2 old pillows, garbage
10. garbage bag of clothes, charity

There you have it. What did you get rid of this week?

Decluttering, Week 7

Not much spare time this week either, but I managed to shed some "stuff". I think I'm going to try out the HRM Freecycle site and see if I can get rid of some "non-garbage" items. I was hoping for a list of 20 things this week to atone for last weeks failure but I'll go for that next week, since our garbage day is only every second week in these parts.

1. 2 old car batteries, recycle
2. Darkroom Chemicals, disposal
3. Old 1lb propane tanks, disposal
4. Stack of old magazines, curb recycle
5. Old (ancient) hard-drive enclosure, recycle
6. laptop bag(s), garbage
7. Old EXP PCMCIA CD-ROM drive, garbage
8. Old VCR Remote, garbage
9. Iomega Hard-drive enclosure, garbage
10. Old tri-fold wallet, garbage
    

Decluttering, Week 6 Setback

Here it is late Sunday night, and I have no decluttering data to report. I could easily list 10 excuses I guess, but I have no valid reasons. It's been a busy week and weekend, and I just didn't make the time. Also, as the weeks go by, all of the "low hanging fruit" has been picked so to speak :) I will attempt to get back on track this week and have a bunch of stuff ready for garbage day/ Friday...

Decluttering, Week 5

No time this week...too busy trying to be the "Mommy" replacement, an impossible undertaking. Nevertheless:

1. Another old answering machine, garbage
2. Bag of photography magazines, curb recycle
3. Bag of books, curb recycle
4. Old Electric Shaver/Razor, garbage
5. Box of VHS movies, "give away" pile
6. Small color TV, recycle
7. Various unexposed 35mm & 120 film, garbage
8. Unused photographic (darkroom) paper, garbage
9. Mountain of old bills etc, shredder
10. Haynes Datsun 210 Shop Manual, curb recycle

I'll try harder next week :)

Decluttering, Week 4

Time is flying and we're up to week 4 already. Here are some items to get rid of this time around:

1. Old Dell Docking Station, gave to a friend
2. Old GE Answering Machine, recycle/garbage
3. box of 35mm film cassettes, can't believe I still have these  :)
4. Old Pentium mmx Desktop, recycle pile
5. 3 more bags of old computer magazines, curb recycle
   
6. OS/2 Certification Handbook, curb recycle
7. Canadian "Internet" Handbook, 1994 Edition, curb recycle
8. Giant DOS 5 PowerTools Book, curb recycle
9. MS Works for Windows by example Book, curb recycle
10. Mastering Wordstar 4, curb recycle
11. Lotus 1-2-3 release 2.4 Que Quickstart, curb recycle

I cheated a little by listing individual books but hey, it's still progress.

Decluttering, Week 3

This is proving to be quite an undertaking, and I'm going to have to go the way of miserly itemizing things in order to keep up. Ok, this week we got lucky, since someone called alerting us of a family just moving to Halifax, and in need of basics etc.

1. Bath Towels
2. Fleece Blankets
3. Comforter
4. Canister Set
5. Tablecloth
6. Soup Mug
7. Rescue Heroes Robot
   
8. 2 grocery bags full of Rescue Heroes (& stuff) [to my little buddy Monei]
9. 3 stacks of old computer magazines, recycling @curb (more to come)
10. Old SCSI CD-ROM drive (don't ask).

 There you have it. Ten more things gone. To give you an idea of my pack-rat disposition, the computer magazines (#9) had covers with proclamations like "The new 486sx chip", "4x CD-ROMs" etc.

Decluttering, Week 2

...hard to believe that another week has gone by. Since garbage day is every 2nd Friday, I may have to cheat a bit, and say "garbage", knowing it will go in a pile until next Friday. So, what are we ridding ourselves of this week:

1. 2 garbage bags of clothes, gone to charity
2. 2 grocery bags full of school supplies, gone to charity
3. 50 or so old DC6150 computer tape backups, 10-15 years old. [tar -xvf ] :) (interesting that these tapes fill a plastic milk crate, but the contents of them all combined will fit on the tiny memory card in my Blackberry).
4. Set of 4 Cordless Phones, VTech junk, less than a year old, warranty ??
5. 2 Canon Ink-jet Printers, recycle / garbage.
6. Old P3 700mhz computer (2001), recycle / garbage.
7. another old P3 computer/tower, recycle / garbage.
   
8. Old DVD Player (2001), recycle / garbage.
9. 2 old sleeping bags, garbage
10. old wooden chair, headed for the kindling pile.

That is actually quite a load, easily more than 10 things if I wanted to get picky :)
This is fun :)

UPDATE: We took the cordless phones back to Canadian Tire and they replaced them with a new set. (We got them at Christmas, and even in my clutter, I found the invoice).

Decluttering, Week 1

Carrying on from my earlier decluttering rant, I have decided to copy the 10 things challenge from Simple Organized Life. Simply put, get rid of 10 things every week. To get an easy start, I'm going to cheat a bit and include some things that left us from last Saturday's Yard Sale. Here goes, and I like to start "large":

1. 1991 Chevy Astro Van (gave it to a friend last night)
2. Surplus car battery, went with number 1 above (cheating a little, I know)
   
3. Sofa from basement rec-room (old 3-legger, out in today's garbage)
4. Drum Set (put out with the garbage, snatched up by someone while I blinked)
5. Combination Air-Hockey / Foosball Table (gone in yard sale)
6. JobMate Laser Level (yard sale)
7. SportRack 3-bike carrier (yard sale)
8. Large Suitcase (yard sale)
9. New (extra) circular saw blades (yard sale)
10. Carload of clothes, skates etc that did not sell in yard sale (to Value Village)

So there. As they say; the first one is always free/easy. Let's see what I can report next week. Now that I have written this, I'm beginning to see real value in this silly exercise. Imagine the difference getting rid of the above makes in the available space. I think I'm hooked...