2023 Organizing & Decluttering Annual Thread!!!

I did this over the last couple of years for my husband’s family.  This past Christmas I finished the heritage albums for my daughters and it was a hit and probably the most satisfying album I have ever done.  I scanned every single picture and uploaded them to Google Photos so everyone has them if they want them.  I then gave all of the physical pictures to my SIL who doesn’t use technology.  My husband’s nephew asked for a copy which was easy because they are digital albums.

Next up is going through the two tubs of pictures from my parents and dividing them up and deciding what I want in my heritage album.  I just looked in the tubs and put them back….not in the mood right now!

I already did paper album’s for my Dad’s side and for my Mom’s side but need to digitize them.

I got the news that my cousin lost his wife this week to cancer. our grandmothers were sisters. I never met my grandmother..she died before I was born. he never met his grandmother, she died when his dad was 10.. in the 1930's. so i am going to put together a small album of family history with the few pictures I have to send to him. I have a few pictures of his grandmother as a kid.

it was interesting to hear about his wife.. she was japanese.. but also 1/8th dutch. grew up in northern japan.

getting those pictures label is important!! I use photomyne app for home scanning.. and scan cafe for slides and more modern pictures.

I’m sorry for your loss.  The album will be much appreciated I’m sure.

And yes, it’s so important to label pictures!  My husband never knew his Grandpa and didn’t even know his great grandparents names!  I had to do a lot of sleuthing to figure out who was who.

My MIL did label a few picture and when I was scanning them I found baby pictures of one of his aunt’s  children who was put up for adoption and was just reunited with his birth family in his 60’s.  Oh what a joy that discovery was!  So many questions were answered by one labeled photo!

I'm so sorry for your loss.

This focus on photos has me wanting to pull out some of the old albums that are still in my to be scanned pile and actually make some progress on them.

My sister was here this past week and we were able to get through the rest of our mom's belongings (She is in the nursing home with dementia). We separated the photos, memorabilia and scrapbooks between the 3 of us siblings. There is still 1 bin we will have to tackle on her next visit. We tossed the photos/memorabilia of people and trips that weren't of family or people we even knew. There were things we dropped off at goodwill. I am ok with storing the 4 bins of mom's things in my basement. We started with a full enclosed trailer. I still need to go through my box of stuff as there are a lot of photos I won't need to keep as they are duplicate photos I gave to mom of my kids, etc.

When my sister left she said she was going to go through her childhood/young adult totes and purge what needed purging so her own kids won't have to when she is gone someday.


***College DS is home for the summer and just went through his closet and filled a large black garbage bag with clothes that no longer fit.....woohoo!

Today I tackled the pantry. I have been dreading this. My dh and I took everything out. It felt like Mary Poppins bag! He scrubbed the shelves and vacuumed and then we did a fast toss of expired products and will probably never eat/use. That resulted in 2 big bags of garbage. Then he declared he was ready for a nap. So DD stepped in and helped me organize. I found that I wasn’t using/currently needing a lot of the plastic containers so I washed those and boxed them up. My pantry is less than half full. I’m going to pay myself on the back for the beast I tackled today!

I was very brave and sold another huge box of scrapbooking ephemera and pocket cards I’ll never use but was keeping “just in case”. Customer got a bargain, and I can now actually flip through a couple of my bins!
Also started an album for an upcoming trip and am using all the things. For me I have trouble with saving some items “for later” for the “perfect” page, but this causes the clutter to start so instead I’m challenging myself to use all the stickers, all the papers, all the die cuts etc.

took a break from album project (have to go get prints) and pulled out the boxes of my dad's slides and movies, and my fil's slides. this is huge bins worth.. so I consolidated all of it and renewed my knowledge of what is there. so I eliminated some boxes and bins.. this all lives in my study next to the big bin of stuff to take to my daughter in new zealand (trip in may).. and the big pile of stuff to take to our condo (this summer). I have a huge box of misc photo stuff.. like 8 mm reels, I don't feel good about throwing it out,, so will find someone who wants it.

I cleaned out one of the 3 freezers. The garbage can is full because one of my cleaning ladies continues to put cardboard boxes in the garbage. The daughter knows better but the mother drives me to drink. I will bring in a recycle bag so when she finds some paper product she can put it in there. This shouldn’t be so difficult.

The Fibromyalgia is behaving badly at present. Couldn’t sit still yesterday. So, I went through the family room desk. Consolidated some of the nail polish into a carrier. Boxes to the recycling. Tossed some nuisance items.

Do not need to buy Post-it notes ever again. Also found some Muji highlighters that may be useful for the bujo.

Couldn’t sleep last night. So, rather immobile and miserable. Little Bit is with me, though.

Beautiful - and so true! After a massive house purge due to our renovations we have a lot less stuff as I was realistic about what I use. But you should see how many people hear you are cleaning out and feel like they need to fill the spaces! Fresh air is good!

This week’s fail: I totally forgot about the shredding day until I knew it would be too late to get over there with my stuff. 😩 I had too many other irons in the fire then DH had an unexpected day off that day and he was out with friends and I completely spaced it out.

This week’s win: I had a big Rubbermaid tote full of stuff that I’ve been tripping over for at least a year. I emptied it out, took pics of most of it and posted it on Buy Nothing. Some of it was snapped up within the hour and several more items left the house today. A few other things were added to the box I’m working on filling to donate to the local charity that gives away clothing to area residents who need it. I found the virtually new roller skates that DD got right before Covid and then outgrew because the rink we used to go to very week closed forever, those will be sold on marketplace. I think she wore them twice. ☹️ The bag of electronics junk got put with the boxes of stuff I was going to take to the shredding event because they will also take electronics. The next one is June 21 and I’ll set my reminder for the day before so I can get help from DH to load it up in the car. The tote itself has no lid, so it will be used for my next donatable donation box. I’m so glad that tote is now empty and out of my way!

Oh, one more thing went out the door this week too! Someone was looking for a wooden doll cradle on Buy Nothing and DD had one she didn’t want anymore so out the door it went. It will make some other little kid really happy and that makes ME really happy!

It's not my win, but my parents are visiting and my Dad brought two old laptops with him that he wants to get rid of, so I wiped both of them so they can be safely disposed of. My parents have a lot of stuff, they both come from small families and ended up with a lot of photos and memorabilia, along with household goods, when their parents passed away, and we kids are all guilty of leaving things behind when we moved out. Over the last couple of years they've been making a concerted effort to donate/sell/get rid of all sorts of things, so I'm happy to help in this small way.