Seven Things, Week 15

Alan cleaned out our camping closet and found the following things that have become Week 15 of the project:

ONE blue tarp-bag (which held we know not what)

FOUR carabiners (which we have never used for anything)

ONE plastic flask (which is not as nice as the fancy leather-sided, stainless-steel bourbon flask we already own)

ONE water-bottle holder that says "For women who thirst for knowledge: Women's Colleges 2003"--given to me by a colleague because I attended Smith College (a women's college in Massachusetts)

TWO enamelware camping mugs that are oversized (which Alan deems too large to be decent)

ONE opened packet of unused rubber tie-downs

ONE hand-operated air-pump

Salvation Army Thrift Store gets the lot.

In addition I released TWO books that I had read and am unattached to into the wild: The Guide: A Novel and Telling Tales

Total for this week: 13
Total so far: 123

Seven Things, Weeks 13 & 14

Catching up from my hiatus, I didn’t take pictures for the project, but I did offload the following:

TWO bags of grout powder (a kind of mortar) that have been in our utility closet since we moved into the house ten years ago. Also, TWO other mysterious bags related to grout and tile that we also inherited when we moved in. I returned them to the workers who had used them in the first place (ten years ago), thus freeing up space for dog food and rawhide chews.

I forgot to count the ONE bag of pig-skin twisties that I had bought for our puppy and that he wouldn’t touch and that I gave to my friend Anne several weeks ago. Anne has two exquisitely behaved Blue Healers who also seem to quite like the twisties.

The other dog-related purchase which was a mistake was ONE bag of puppy training pads. The Dog Bible had them on the list of things to buy in preparation for one’s puppy, so I dutifully did—and never used them once. We’ve crate-trained our puppy and have never used the pads. So they will be put out in the break room at work with a sign that they’re free to a good home.

Also to put in the break room is ONE can of lighter fluid for barbecues. I hate this chemical stuff and have used either Chimney Starter to make fire or paraffin fire-starters (which are also fairly toxic, but for some reason they frighten me less than lighter fluid.) Don’t know why we even have a bottle of lighter fluid. Someone must have left some at our house…?

So that’s seven for May 26.

And then there’s last weekend, June 2: I do not think this can count toward any total number of things offloaded, but I did gather all the books that wonderful friends had lent us in the last month and returned them. As you can see from the picture, it was a rather huge pile, and rounding them up and sending them back to owners actually managed to de-clutter our home quite significantly!

Total for these weeks: 7

Total so far: 110

Seven Things, Week 12

Yikes.

This is for last Saturday's contribution to the project.

No pictures, I'm afraid. The batteries in the camera went. But I do have seven things to report!

TWO things to throw out:

• a pair of Al’s stained and ripped jeans
  
• a pair of worn-out shoes with actual holes in them (lovely Sesto Meucci loafers purchased new from eBay only last summer but worn rather incessantly since then

Next, TWO sets of coasters from Japan, one set depicting the Tales of Genji and the other of Sumo wrestlers, go to the Salvation Army Thrift Store. We've had them around the house for ten years, but now that I'm making the cd coasters, so we no longer need a pile of cardboard coasters. Alan always hated the Sumo guys....

Finally, THREE beautiful, almost-new books to be released into "the Wild" tomorrow (a la BookCrossing.com):

• Life of Pi (Martel)
  
• Founding Brothers (Ellis)
  
• Second Honeymoon (Trollope)

(Feel like hunting a book? Click here to hunt for books in over 95 countries!)

Total this week: 7

Total so far: 103

Seven Things, Weeks 10 and 11

So my life has been turned a bit upside down this week with the adoption of Sweet Baby James, who sleeps through the night but wakes up on the button at 4:48am and needs a pee.

We've had lots of walks and cuddles and training sessions--fitted into my part-time office work schedule and my examination marking and my online work.

I've let somethings slide--like this blog. :(

Having missed the project last Saturday, I'm making up for it this week. I've had two opportunities to give things to good causes and have taken up both.

One is my friend Edith, whose daughter is a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Senegal. Edith is leaving at the end of the month to visit her daughter, and she wants to take gifts to the whole village.

For the women, she wants to bring costume jewelry; for the men, headlamps and small DYI tools; and for the children, small soft toys. I looked around an unearthed

• a lovely vintage glass pearl necklace which I haven't worn since college


• five cool pearl bracelets which are, alas, too formal for my rural New Mexican life


• a jade necklace, which I like but never wear


• two pairs of hoop earrings and some other single pieces which I forget about


• a fan I brought back from Japan ten years ago and haven't used


• and a WebKinz monkey, which I got only a few weeks ago for my birthday. I love the WebKinz games I get to play, but I must admit to not playing with the monkey itself.

I also got an email for a campus yard sale to benefit Compassion Beyond Borders. Heading to the closets, I harvested

• a black sports bra


• a leotard


• a pink nylon t-shirt that is too short and shows my midriff (yuck)


• a reversible skirt that I like but that doesn't flatter


• a striped cotton skirt I knit but am too old for


• a dress that I sewed about ten years ago in a Jane Austen style. I wasn't too old for it then, but I am now.


• a book on rugby
  
• a wine dossier


• a learn Spanish kit


• a set of napkin rings


• a blue Japanese oni mask

On a previous Seven Things Saturday, I had almost thrown out Al's old slippers, since he got new ones for Christmas, but James is putting them to new use:


Total this week and last week: 22

Total so far: 96

Seven Things, Week 9

It's Seven Things SUNDAY this week because I missed Saturday because I was obsessed.

Not sure if this week's seven things is sort of cheating on the project, but it did involve clearing out an entire kitchen cupboard, so I think it is ok.

This week I have seven plastic food containers that were purchased (with original food), used, and then reused and reused and reused.

The trouble is that I keep buying yogurt and frozen green chile, and so my stash of plastic containers to use and re-use continues to grow.

My kitchen cabinet was BURSTING with them, and so I took the seven largest and decided they needed to go to the recycling center rather then remain in the cabinet. I still have at least seven others with which to store leftovers.

Most of my plastic containers are yogurt containers, and I am wondering if I should be making yogurt instead of buying it. Making it myself would be more in line with my food philosophy, and I would not accumulate unneeded the plastic yogurt containers.

I used to make yogurt when I lived in Tokyo--but it was so easy to do in that climate: you just mixed milk with a little yogurt and left it on the kitchen counter in a glass jar over night. In the morning, there was an entire jar of yogurt, which you ate, saving a little bit to start the next day's batch.

Here in arid, high-desert New Mexico, it just doesn't work.

So, recommendations, please:

Does anyone have a no-fail yogurt recipe tested in high altitude and dry climate? Or does anyone have a great yogurt machine that s/he would recommend?

Or, for those who regularly purchase yogurt (like me), do you do anything innovative with those pesky plastic containers?


Total this week: 7
Total so far: 74

Seven Things Saturday, Week 8

Week Eight of the project: more linens go this week, plus a few random casualties.

A set of FOUR maroon and blue cotton placements and a set of TWO red and green cotton placements.

They are nice place mats, but we use tablecloths daily, since our table is too ugly for place mats only.

I have a minor anxiety about shedding these mats, since if I ever get around to painting the table (as I had planned to do last summer), I am going to want these place mats back. Hmmm.

In addition to not using placements regularly, another reason to get rid of these place mats is that I have matching fabric napkins (which we do use daily) that my husband has difficulty distinguishing from the place mats.

Did you know that British place mats are fundamentally different from American place mats? It's true. British place mats are hard, cardboardy things; American place mats are like mini-tablecloths.

Alan is British, and he sets the table. This explains is why I sometimes wind up with an American place mat in my napkin ring or on my lap.

So the place mats definitely go.

There is also ONE small runner with a Picasso-like print on it, given by my lovely surrogate grandparents in Japan. I think it was a gift or freebie that they didn’t want. I got some mighty nice stuff that way, but I have not used this pink runner for years (I now try to avoid decorating in cotton-candy pink) and have kept it because I was being sentimental.

There is ONE random fabric napkin (burgundy) which is much smaller than our other napkins and simply waits in the closet to be selected. It never is.

I also shed ONE large-ish length (a few yards?) of tartan/plaid material (poly/cotton broadcloth), which I have used as a Christmas tree skirt. But we no longer ever get a Christmas tree—we have no kids and usually travel at Christmas--and Alan doesn’t like chopping down a living tree for our seasonal amusement.

Then there is ONE rusty spatula which Alan has begged me to throw out. He doesn't like rusty kitchen implements, whereas I get attached to my favorites. But this one is actually cracked and about to break, so it goes in the garbage.

Lastly, I sold ONE music CD on Amazon: Africa: The Music of a Continent.

All except the cd and the spatula go to Salvy Army.

Total this week: 11

Total so far: 67

Catch and Release Books

Reading the amazing Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century, I find BookCrossing.com in the chapter about global culture.

BookCrossing's goal "is to make the whole world a library."

It's the upside of globalization: sharing something inherently good and watching how others have taken pleasure in it (or not).

The "3 Rs" of BookCrossing are:

(1) Read a good book .

(2) Register it here.

(3) Release it (for free!) for someone else to read and get notified by email each time someone records a journal entry for that book.

So you share your book and then are able to track what happens to it: where it travels, who reads it, what others think of it, etc.

And then there's bookhunting--the optional, interactive, task-oriented element:

After registering and releasing a book, members have the option of making Release Notes, specifying where exactly (or approximately) they left a book. You can browse through these active releases here, by Country, State, City, and Crossing Zone. When someone finds a book listed here, and makes a journal entry, it will come off this list.

There's also a special Earth Day project.

I think I'll have to add this to my Seven Things Project routine.

Seven Things Saturday, Week 7

For Week Seven of the project, I tackled the linen closet.

I still have old sheets given to me when I was first living on my own--cast-offs from my mom's linen closet. But they still have years of life left in them.

Cheryl Mendelson's Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House advises that "It does not pay to overstock bed linens, for they will simply age on the shelf. An overstocked linen closet also makes more work for you. It is prey to odors and dust" (p. 672).

So I took her advice--somewhat. She advises stocking three sets of bed linens per bed. I kept some extra pillow cases and a few extra top sheets that I really love--but the rest--especially the polyestery sheets and pillow cases--go to Salvy Army:

TWO cotton flannel sheets (a fitted sheet and a flat sheet)
FIVE top sheets (white)
THREE pillow cases

Total this week: 10
Total so far: 56

Seven Things Saturday, Week 6

Onward with Week Six of the project:

TWO old towels that have now been transformed into rags for chores.

TWO nightgowns: I have finally realized that I am not a nightgown person. I am a pajama person. Nightgowns twist around and ride up while I sleep--and they are just not warm enough. I like tops and bottoms! Nightgowns go to Salvy Army.

TWO old very math books from Al's collection: he doesn't use them any more, and they are too old to sell on Half.com or Amazon. To Salvy Army.

ONE brown leather purse-type thing (designed for neckties?) which came with a piece of luggage. Have had the luggage for a few years but have not used the weird necktie-holder thingy once. Off to Salvy Army.

Total this week: 7

Total so far: 46

Seven Things Saturday--Week 5

It is far too easy for me to find seven things every week to give away.

Clearly I have way more junk than I had realized. Thank goodness for this project.

F0r this week:

TWO lampshades, brand new, that fit no known lamps in our home.

TWO Asian chotchkies, one Thai and one Japanese, given to me by very sweet students. Have collected dust on bookshelf for far too long.

TWO black purses, one leather, one velvet. Both have traveled with me to abodes in three countries; neither has been used more then three times.

TWO Christmas chotchkies from the top shelf of my closet--one cookie tin and one Dickens-themed tea pot with no lid.

ALL are on their way to Salvation Army Thrift Store, which I'll stop by on the way to the knitting demonstration that I am about to do with others from my Kaffee Klatsch.

I should be home working at the computer--but I won't be.

Total this week: 8

Total so far: 39

Seven Things Saturday--Week 4

I continue with the project a bit late this week—but here they are:

1. Aluminum tent stakes which are not macho enough for my spouse. We now have very, very big steel ones that go into rocky New Mexican ground, so we don’t need these wimpy ones that actually came with our tent. Salvation Army Thrift Store gets these.

2. Kitschy metal flowers that I had outside in a pot one year during the drought to break up the horrid dusty brown. But this year we have real flowers and even rain! Salvation Army Thrift Store gets these, too.

3. Le Nozze di Figaro —full opera cassette tapes and libretto book—sold on eBay; payment pending.

4. Cosi fan Tutte-- full opera and libretto on cassette tapes – listed on eBay, didn’t sell, so off to Salvation Army. One can’t list cassette tapes on Half.com or Amazon—the technology is too old. I am offloading these lovely operas because last week I offloaded our only working tape player.

5. Brown wool skirt purchased at Salvation army for $1; worn several times, but difficult to iron and not as flattering as I need it to be…so back to Salvation Army it goes.

6. An Illustrated History of Australian Cricket which has been in the bookshelf for years, has been listed on Amazon and Half.com and has never sold. Perhaps there is some Australian cricket fan other than my husband in New Mexico who also shops at the Salvation Army Thrift Store.

7. Set of four VHS tapes of lectures on understanding wine which had been listed on Amazon and Half.com and eBay—never sold. They are rather old, but the information is still rather interesting. Maybe the Salvation Army shopper who likes Australian cricket will also want to learn about wine?

Total this week: 7

Total so far: 31

Seven Things Saturday--Week 3

I'd almost forgotten! I got rid of my stuff so early this week that I'd forgotten that today's the day to share.

So, in adherence to the rules, here is this week's offload:

For the first four, I have no pictures (because I completely forgot to take them in the delight of ridding myself of four things!). They are two CDs I sold via Amazon Marketplace and two that I sent off in Lala trades. These were CDs we owned but didn't listen to--so no difficulty there.

But the rest of the load was a result of a major closet clean out. I have a guest coming next week, and I couldn't even close the sliding closet door in the guest room. Most of it was just stupid--empty boxes saved for shipping or gift-wrapping, etc.--and much of the rest just needed to be organized better. But the salvageable/donateable were:

a mostly functional boom box (the tape-player and radio work; the CD player does not); a hand-knit bag with a backgammon design (???); two old racquets (squash?) that no one ever uses; an adapter from my early Audible.com days that would let me use an MP3 player in a tape deck (since our old car had only a tape deck); and a red and black Chinese runner, a gift from a student that was very sweet but that we just haven't used. All went to the Salvation Army Thrift Store with no qualms whatsoever.

Total this week: 10
Total so far: 24

Tablecloth Rug

Regarding my attempt to recycle old stained tablecloths (pictured in Seven Things Saturday--Week 2) into rag rugs: I frogged the first one last night, as it was evident that one tablecloth would not make a very big rug. It makes a strip.

I then used both tablecloths to make one rug, alternating colors.

It is amazing that two rather large tablecloths (the rectangular kind, for a table that seats six) knit on 15mm needles (US size 19) will make a rug that is just 31x19 inches--doormat size. (Sorry, Steph, not big enough for furniture! I think it will relax and stretch a bit with some use.)


I often measure my knitted projects in terms of audiobooks or movies. This one took two movies--Off the Map and The Corporation--and it was done.

Seven Things Saturday--Week 2

For this week's seven things to chuck, I have

TWO old tablecloths--one irreversibly stained with wine or curry; the other, a hand-embroidered Hungarian cloth purchased about ten years ago and used regularly despite it being weirdly shrunk (by me) so that it is really too lumpy to use (polyester embroidery thread + cotton fabric = puckering).

I decided to try to transform these useless tablecloths into something useful and borrowed the idea of the Alterknits t-shirt rugs. I cut each of the tablecloths into a one-inch strip (one very, very long spiral strip, from outside edge to center)...

...and then knit each up into a rug. (To be honest I am still knitting, but the transformation of each table cloth is imminent.) I was thinking of sending them to my friend Steph, but I am not sure if they will be nice enough.

Onward!

I also chucked ONE collective thing: the crap on my refrigerator.

I threw most of it away. It was a bit tough to throw away photos, but the ones I threw out were those of kids of people we never see, photos that had been sent in Christmas cards several years ago. I kept the pics of my amazing nephews, and I tossed the schedules that we never look at along with the recipes that I have not yet made despite the fact that they've been on the fridge for over six months.

Before:

After:
Lastly, ONE cd sent to Lala and THREE items for Salvation Army: a CD too obscure to list on Lala or Half.com, a strapless bra from the days when I was frequently asked to be a bridesmaid (goodbye, 1990s!), and a sun-faded teddy bear that I have inexplicably kept for the past 20 years.

Total this week: 7.

Total so far: 14

The Seven Things Project

The Blog Party has been more fun than I expected. I've visited many blogs and found some that I will regularly read (I've added them to my blog list on my sidebar should you want to check them out).

Earthchick has three of the blogs that I listed, and one is most intriguing and requires my action today: The Seven Things Project.

Starting last July, Earthchick has gotten rid of seven things a week. She intends to do this for one year, in order to de-clutter and simplify her life.

Sounds like a good project. I'm in!

Her guidelines are thus:

Sell, donate, give away, or recycle seven things a week. Every Saturday, post the Saturday Seven, a picture list of the seven things one got rid of that week, along with an explanation of how long one has had these things, what made it hard to get rid of them, and what one chose to do with them.

I have had my own less structured de-clutter strategies. I routinely drop things off at the local Salvation Army Thrift Shop. I sell books and videos and music on Half.com and Amazon.com's Marketplace. I sell other things on eBay, where I can give a percentage of the sale to a charity. And I recently joined lala.com in order to get rid of cds to which we no longer listen.

However, I've never approached this in a structured, goal-oriented way, so here we go!

My Seven for this Saturday:

1. A pair of boots from eBay that make my feet hurt because of the very pointy toes. Haven't had them very long--cannot wear them at all. I love the way they look, but the torture is not worth it.

2. A skirt that sometimes fits me but is mostly too tight and makes me feel like Butt-Girl. I have had this skirt for about seven years. I keep thinking that my butt will shrink. It hasn't.

3 and 4. Two classical music cds that I couldn't list on Lala (they were too obscure). I have no idea where we got these or why. They might have been freebies from an NPR fundraising campaign. One is a recording of the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra.

5. A random candle in a Spode china cup that has been collecting dust since the Millennium. It must have been a gift around seven years ago.

6. A box of photo frames that someone gave us for Christmas--and which we will never use.

7. A box of film (yes--actual film, for a camera). Not sure if it is too old to be useful, but we converted to digital years ago, so I have no idea why I found this in a drawer.

I find none of these things particularly difficulty to part with. I expect this becomes more difficult later in the year, when one has less stuff!

I will take all of these things to the Salvation Army Thrift Store--and I will try to restrain myself from going in and shopping for more junk that I don't need.