Lately, I've been working to cut through my yarn "stash" and have probably used up at least 35%+ on Knit for Japan. Every little piece of yarn left can be linked with a project I'd like to do in the next year and a half (yes, even my little left over pieces.) Somehow, the thought of running out of yarn saddens me... knitting/crochet addicts will attest, no yarn doesn't feel good. Well, with no funds to buy more yarn and me not really wanting to bring any more "stuff" into this house (even if it is yarn.) how can I still have yarn to keep my hands and mind busy? I think most of us have heard of t-shirt yarn, right?? I saw this blog entry at http://www.luckypennymake.com/luckypennymake/ with a tutorial for t-shirt yarn making by a very nice woman named Barbara, got up, picked up my big basket of laundry, walked into my bedroom. After you see how easy it is to make with Barbara's tutorial I think you'll do the same! To be honest I think I got most of my t-shirts in grade school through middle school. I may be young but I'm not fresh out of middle school! I looked at myself in the mirror... clingy, worn out, slightly stained/discolored t-shirt that rides up.... that's what I'm constantly wearing. It doesn't look good.. and although it feels good (as in it's soft) it doesn't feel good to look at. Why do I have all these nice shirts I never wear? Yes, my little boy is doomed to get yellow mustard or some sort of berry juice that will never come out on my shirt... and when that happens, it happens, it's just a shirt. So I grabbed a big plastic bag, dug through my literally overflowing dresser drawers and started throwing shirts in. If it was 100% cotton and wasn't flattering it went in the bag. I kept maybe 2 over-sized shirts that I didn't care for/about for painting, heavy cleaning, etc... but the rest went. I opened my pj drawer and glared at the two granny nightgowns that my mom gave me when I was pregnant. I hate them. They're comfortable and airy, yes. They also are exactly what you see old ladies wearing... they're also 2 sizes to big and make me feel like a blimp. I lived in them for months... I wore them while I was hugely pregnant, after I had 2 surgeries and after I left my job, was depressed and didn't feel like bothering to wear real clothes... they're stained, faded and hideous! They're also 100% cotton. Into the bag they went! Into our closet I went... white clingy, discolored long sleeved shirt, you're 100% cotton? Awesome, I'd never feel comfortable answering the door wearing you anyway! Form fitting t-shirts that don't cover my post-baby stomach properly and are too worn and stretched out to donate? Into the bag with you! Oh, it was so freeing! I nearly filled the bag! I should really take a count before I finish cutting them all up. My dresser drawers actually close now! Granted, I'm a little behind on putting laundry away right now.... So I will have my yarn, I will have another project (crocheting and knitting rag rugs.) and I will have less clothing. All in all it feels like an accomplishment.
Another purging project was that of our socks. Any socks that were worn into holes that I couldn't repair or were so shot they wouldn't stay on our feet they were so stretched out were bunched together and stuffed into a long knee high and given to our dogs as a toy to tug and chew on. The remaining socks will be used to dust and clean with. I learned from this particular purge that my husband doesn't have many socks and he really abuses the ones he has... Me... socks last me years, probably because I'm normally running around barefoot. I'm also a girl and have socks in probably every color of the rainbow... and some of my socks are striped with rainbow colors. Not necessarily my taste but I like getting socks for gifts.. honestly.. sometimes the weirder the better. I normally dress pretty reserved... it's fun to see people's expression when I cross my legs and they get a view of my crazy socks.
On going is our book, movie, cd purge. My husband sold a few of his comics which I know was hard for him, but he did it so that he could have a little spending money for an online Marvel comic book subscription site... It's better for us to have less in our home and opens up the ability for him to read as many comic books as he wants. As I've mentioned before we also both pulled together a bunch of textbooks and books to donate to his college's library book drive. My husband is down to 3 cds... mine.. are somewhere in packed away but I should probably donate mine somewhere also once they're pulled out.
My "de-stuffing" of our life process is currently just picking away. We did those major purges less than a year ago and haven't brought in much more so the bulk of what is going is gone. At this point it's just lessening things slowly and getting rid of what's really worn out and only replacing what's necessity. Although I try to keep this philosophy going in all areas of our home, some things are really hard to let go of.
Pictures... I can't part with, in fact I have a ton I want to print and put in scrapbooks. I hesitate to get started on that right now though.
My son's baby clothes that were kept are in my parent's attic several states away so I don't have to even think about them... but it would be hard to part with them all. Most of the clothing that I wouldn't have emotional trouble parting with are very worn and chances are they wouldn't be as appreciated as I would like to think. Most of it came from bag sales at thrift stores where it couldn't be sold. Much of it is in pretty bad shape... but my mother couldn't turn down $5 for a big bag of baby clothes, and it was worn by my son (if the really tattered stuff was here I'd probably be going baby t-shirt yarn crazy!) The pieces that are in really good shape have a lot of sentimental value.. I didn't buy much for my son when I was pregnant and he didn't have much in his smaller sizes so nearly everything from 0-12 months is something I can remember him wearing all the time.. or I'll remember where I got it from or who gave it to me. Plus... in our current financial situation if we were to have a "surprise" (which I would honestly very, very, very, very happily welcome) I wont have the funds to replace it and having very few friends who could even pass on clothing to us. I feel like I should at least keep staple things such as cloth diapers and baby blankets. At minimum I at least want to keep the blankets that were made by different family members even if we never have another child.
That all being said, I'm slowly trying to part with outgrown toys and clothing that is here. I'm also not keeping every drawing, painting or scribble made by my little boy, I've accepted that I just can't. I'm making an active effort not to just replace things like crayons, markers, paints and playdough when it runs out. I can make playdough when we want to do some sculpting and crayons as well as markers seem to magically appear and our supply seems to somehow get bigger instead of smaller when I think we should be running out. When we were visiting PA and I was cleaning out boxes of my "stuff" that my mom came across we found two giant boxes of crayons that were barely used. Alex will still be writing with crayon when he's in college to use up all the ones we have a this point. Since one of the things we have the least of is paint, we'll have to do some crayon painting! The truth is more like the moment we find a child in our area that is ready for crayons and doesn't have any, we'll be passing on bunches of ours. I hope to replace many of our art supplies with more natural supplies. I would like his art supplies to be more quality over quantity but someone in our financial situation can't really be picky. I don't really buy coloring books. Between what I learned in one of my art for young children courses in college and my own personal beliefs, coloring books are not for us. We have a couple that were gifts and ones that were more activity books than coloring books that I kept for long car trips so that we don't have papers slipping onto the floor, but we use a lot of one sided scrap paper that my mom brought home from work for when we're at home. My husband doesn't even buy notebooks unless one is required. We all use that scrap paper and then recycle it when we're done with it.
I probably in someway should be considered a hoarder. And not just because my apartment is currently a mess. That my friends has been caused by the 2-year-old tornado that has been leaving more destruction in his path than normal. I have the hardest time parting with things that most people would consider trash. Take a top sheet from a set that the fitted sheet has been worn through and I'll hold onto it. It's possibilities are limitless. The ones in our home have been used for kitchen table forts and more currently for dog bedding. Of course this hot weather is making me wish I had kept one for fort use as one of our pups chewed holes in their sheet bedding immediately. Our big thick blankets make the fort too stuffy. And just today I came across an adorable idea for upcycling an Altoid box! Can you believe I found one at my parent's and tossed it in the recycle not even one month ago!?? And of course we've stopped buying non-essential, sugar filled things like mints. Every time someone new comes into our kitchen I get the "didn't you bother taking out your garbage before I came" look because of my counter full of glass jars. Yes, I keep glass jars from some different things to keep left overs in. They're all neatly lined up and clean.. but people just assume they're trash. I can't tell you how many times people helping me clean up after a meal have just tossed them in the recycle to "help me out".... No matter how much I try I can't explain my disdain of plastic food containers to someone who thinks nothing of filling their kitchen with plastics.
Maybe I'm strange in my thought processes... but I actually feel a sense of relief when I can get rid of things or when something has been all used up. I feel like I can breathe when I see empty shelves, collapse and recycle boxes that used to be clogging up my life. Of course, it feels 1,000% better to find usable things that I thought there was no purpose for and re-purpose them for something my family needs or pass them on to someone who will use and appreciate them too.
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