Re-gifting - when the presents don't fit

from w
Today lots of people will be going back to the stores to exchange their Christmas presents as so many gifts don't fit or aren't needed. It's the thought that count, they say, but what a waste. Fortunately in our household we did well here (some vouchers were useful) and my new beautiful dress will be suitable for both church and party.

Here's what was written in today's Age newspaper. Though often these kind of gifts aren't suitable to give to charity either - I know that Donation in Kind have to re-sort everything that comes in before we send the recycled articles into containers for the South Pacific and South-east Asia. We all have too much junk don't we!

Chucking out the clutter

from w
With Peceli away I have time to do some uncluttering of the junk we collect in the household - too much paper, too many clothes, paintings, music, etc. When tackling boxes of poems, stories, cuttings, I found one ten years old entitled Unclutter your life! How useful. The writer said if you didn't use it the last 12 months, out it should go. No, NO. Some of my drawing go back many years. I still have folders of my ethnomusicology thesis in progress. I have poems that need fine-tuning! Oh, well, many of the clothes can certainly go. A Fijian lady once said, 'I have three dresses - one white for church, one coloured to go out, and one old one for the house. That's enough!'

The Geelong Council gives us three bins - yellow top - paper and plastic (fortnightly), brown top - rubbish (weekly), green top -garden cuttings (fortnightly).

Here are some tips:
I. Break down the task into small units - maybe one hour then give yourself a treat - a chocolate, or coffee, or ten minutes on the internet.
2. Remember your home is not a museum, a library or a recycle depot.
3. Get rid of old linen and enjoy the best.
3. Divide into four boxes - a. rubbish b. recycle to Op shop or somewhere c. recycle it yourself into scrap-books, etc. d. keep it.

Now I'm doing my ten minutes on the internet, then it's back to decluttering again. But I found a stack of fairly good poems that need to be fixed a little....