Clothes, clothes, clothes, books, and papers!

So, the other day I was watching PBS with my daughter and Sid the Science Kid comes on. We learn that the show is on recycling and reducing waste. It starts out with Sid throwing away a much prized toy robot that has lost both of its arms. The toy is clearly broken. I silently commend him for throwing it out. Then in walks his mother and asks him what he is doing. He explains and then she guilts him into removing it from the trash saying that maybe it can be used for something else. I'm thinking HOARDER! And then the plot gets worse. Later in the show the kids are digging through the recycling bin learning about things that can be recycled. This is great, however, then they are encouraged to remove things from the trash to see if they can reuse them and make them into new things. And this my friends is why America is consumed with garbage and houses are overflowing with trash. I fully support recycling, but when something is broken or no longer worth saving get rid of it! Don't keep it in your house to cause clutter and disorganization, just let it go.


This would be Sid the Science Kid



And now on to the projects I have been working on at home:



This is one of my 4 bookshelves full of books. This one is primarily for textbooks.


I thought that it would be a great idea to keep all of my textbooks because I figured they would be a great reference for me one day. (The "I might need them one day" mentality). I have now come to realize that I have not touched these textbooks in over 3+ years now and that what is going to happen is that they are not going to serve as a reference for me after all, but rather as something else to add to the clutter in my house. Not only that, I have found that some of them are still worth money! The older ones that I have from undergrad are, of course, obsolete and therefore no one wants to buy them back, but I found that Amazon has a Textbook Trade In program online and it's super easy to use! You don't even have to pay shipping for your books. You just enter the books ISBN, see if they are buying back and how much the will give you for it (they give you credit on your account to buy from Amazon, not cash). If you want to sell it then you just print the slip and drop them off at a UPS store! Here is the link: Amazon Text Book Trade In. I figured it's a great way to fund some Christmas shopping as I love ordering from Amazon anyway!



The books that I traded in on Monday - 5 books got me $191.22 credit at Amazon.com




This is a bookshelf containing every single paper for every single class I had in grad school. It also contains half the work I did in undergrad and even some from high school!



Grad School in a Nut Shell! This is over 2 feet of papers from grad school that took me over 6 hours to go through last weekend. These are all going to be recycled!




All of the empty binders left from my grad school purge! I will donate these somewhere as they are all still very nice and someone can certainly use them!


Another major project that I have worked on since last week was going through all of my daughter's clothes and getting them organized. She is almost 11 months old and I have everything she has ever worn plus clothes that people have borrowed to me. I first started by going through her dresser and closet. I pulled out all of the clothes that no longer fit her. I got her dresser set up in a way that made sense to me and in a way that it is easy to quickly put outfits together for her. I wanted no more piles of clothes on the floor so I hung everything up in her closet or put it in her dresser. I designated the bottom drawer for things that are too big for her yet so that they are not mixed in with the clothes that currently fit her.

One pile of clothes

More clothes

Yet more clothes

And the end result of all the clothes that no longer fit and needed to be gone through and either sold, donated, or packed away for another baby

The end result. I'm quite proud! All of the clothes are packed away nicely in hopes that they will be used one day again if we have another baby girl. Don't worry, there are a few gender neutral and boy items in these bins too! I also have a few boxes for garage sale or donate, so don't worry. And I have two bags of items to return that were borrowed.

Upcoming projects:

• I have gone through about half of the kitchen cupboards and re-organized and gotten rid of items we no longer need. I plan to finish up the kitchen so it is all done in the near future
• I have about half of the book shelf of 3 ring binders cleared off I want to work to finish going through all of those items that are remaining
• I need to sort through all of my clothes in my dresser and closet and get rid of what I don't wear any longer
• There are doing a winter collection here at work and I would like to go through all of my winter gear and see what I have that I no longer use and donate some of these items along with scarves that I have made

What projects are you working on in your house at this time? What do you have for upcoming projects? How do you tackle an overwhelming project to get an end result that you are happy with?