Do you buy a real pumpkin at Halloween or do you put out the same ceramic or plastic one on your front porch each year? There are advantages to both kinds. But the ceramic/plastic ones will require storage where the real ones don’t. …
Real Pumpkins vs. Ceramic/Plastic Pumpkins Read More »
When I opened my mail box today there was one lonely envelope in there. A sad feeling came over me for a second. Then I remembered this is a good thing! In the past I use to get all kinds of junk mail, catalogs, bills, and lots of magazines. Now it is reduced down to a few pieces of junk mail occasionally, a few bills, and a couple of magazines that actually get read.
I use to love getting a full mailbox because it made me feel like I was important enough for people to send me mail. But most of the mail was just trying to get me to buy their product or service. They weren’t giving me anything, they wanted something from me. Then there was the fact that it took so much time to go through that pile of mail to find the few pieces that really were important.
If you feel this way then it’s time to take the steps necessary to reduce most of the unimportant mail. The sites below will help get your name off the lists that fills your mailbox with mail you don’t want. It can take several months before you see a big difference so now is a good time to start.
To reduce general junk mail: DMAchoice.org
To reduce unsolicited catalogs: Catalogchoice.org
To reduce the credit card and insurance offers: Optoutprescreen.com
To a lighter load along the way
Janice
P.S. For more support on getting control of your paper clutter, please join the free Facebook group “Controlling Your Paper Clutter Support Group”.
How to Declutter the Junk Mail Read More »
Yesterday was beautiful weather after 11 straight days of the heat index being over 100 degrees. With it being a Sunday I decided to “seize the day”. We went to a local park. Forest Park is to St. Louis like Central Park is to New York. It’s a park that was established when the 1904 Worlds Fair took place.
With all the stress going on with the economy and our cluttered lives, it is good to take some time to enjoy the outdoors in a pretty setting. Here are some pictures.
The Baseball All-Star game is being played here in St. Louis this summer. That’s what this small arch is all about.
Carpe Diem, Seize the day!
Janice
Before I talk about summer clutter I want to first apologize to anyone who may have sent me a comment during the last couple of months that didn’t get posted here. It seems that all comments ended up in the spam folder and I forgot to check them. After 15 days the blog company (WordPress) automatically deletes the spam so any legitimate comments before that time are lost. I’ll be checking the spam folder daily so please feel free to leave a comment or share an idea or suggestion. Thanks.
Now, to get to the summer clutter.
Today I was going through the Target weekly ad and noticed some items that are destined to become clutter. First there was the ad for the ingredients for s’mores. I love roasted marshmallows squeezed between crisp graham crackers with melted Hershey bars oozing out. What caught my attention in this ad was the 4-pk s’more skewers. What happened to the wire hangers or long handled BBQ fork? Unless you have s’mores several days a week why would you take up the drawer space to store such a specialized item?
On the next page I saw an item called a Bubble Generator. It’s a battery operated bubble blower. What happen to the small bottle of soap solution with the bubble blowing wand? When my boys were small they loved to go outside and blow bubbles. They would see who could blow the most bubbles or the biggest ones. There is no challenge with a toy doing all the work.
On another page I did see an item that was not clutter when my children were young. It is the Wham-O Slip ‘N Slide. They spent hours in the summer heat running, giggling, sliding, and cooling off with that toy. It was also an easy toy to pack away when they were through with it for the day. Just roll it up. That was a good thing because if it was left on the grass too long you ended up with a large brown area in the middle of the yard (it happened a few times).
Sometimes the specialize tools and toys can actually take the fun out of the activity instead of adding to it. If they are not fun over the long haul they sit on the shelf and become clutter.
Do you have summer items that have become clutter? Please share your story in the comment section. (I promise I will check for legitimate comments daily.) By sharing our experiences we can all learn to avoid adding clutter to our homes.
Janice
Here is last week’s newsletter. I want to post it here so people can leave comments if they would like.
We all make mistakes. Most of the time we learn from our mistakes and move on. When it comes to clutter “mistakes” sometimes we hold on to the clutter as a constant reminder of the mistake we made. Why do we do this to ourselves?
Think about some of the things we do that we consider mistakes. What if you go out to eat and end up disappointed with it. So what do you do now? You acknowledge your mistake and either don’t go to that restaurant again or make sure not to order that item or a similar one.
What you don’t do is dwell on it every time you drive by the building, nor do you bring home the leftovers and preserve them so you can look at them daily to remind you of wasting money on that dinner. This idea seems way out there but it is exactly what we do to ourselves when we buy a material item ( clothes, books, decorative items, furniture, etc.)
Yesterday my son, who just graduated college, was going through his clothes. He will be heading out to Los Angeles to find a job with computers and visual arts. He came upon a pair of jeans he bought two years ago. The price tags were still on them. He never like the way they fit but his older brother convinced him to buy them.
At first I felt angry for the wasted money spent (my money) then I saw his face. He also felt bad. I realized it was a “mistake” and it was time to let it go. I told him to put the jeans in the give away bag and someone else will get a chance to enjoy them. It was time to let go of the mistake and move forward.
How many “mistakes” to you have hanging in your closet, sitting of a shelf, or staring at you every time you walk into a room? Was it a waste of money? Perhaps. But so was the dinner you didn’t like or you thought you were overcharged for.
So why do we continue to hold onto the material things and constantly punish ourselves for that mistake? I think it has to do with the fact that nobody likes making mistakes and we feel guilty if we make them. We feel like we should be punished for wasting money. We value the money more than we value our own piece of mind.
Those “mistakes” are clutter in your home and mind. Let them go! Stop punishing yourself. The piece of mind and freedom you get with a clean and decluttered home is worth more than any supposedly wasted money.
Let me know what you think about “mistakes as clutter”.
To a lighter load along the way.
Janice Scissors
Mistakes As Clutter Read More »
