Sunday, November 04, 2012

Clutter Wars

You may recall that 2 summers ago I did some serious book culling.  I was proud and felt lighter after the process.

After last months trip to the yarn store, my yarn/book room was overflowing with stuff.  Good stuff, but still stuff.  I decided I'd see if there was any more culling to be done.

As a result I probably donated $400 or more worth of books to the school librarian and three plastic bins (not the biggest but the medium size) to the used book store where I bought most of the books in the first place.

I cleared the shelves of about 5 bags of knitting yarn for the Trick Or Treat exchange at knit night.  I also finally parted with several of the Namaste bags that weren't my favorite and took the financial loss as a lesson in how many knitting bags any one person actually needs.

And then I decided.   No more new hobbies.  No more old hobbies that I don't do anymore.

Knitting and reading are officially my hobbies.

The dried up painting supplies will be thrown away.

I have a fabulously wonderful plan for all of the sewing fabric and notions that I buy every time I see an awesome seamstress on the blogs.  Better still, it does not involve me sewing. (in fact won't that master seamstress be surprised when all of her inspiration shows up at her doorstep?- but sometimes we need other people to either use or throw away our stuff for us)

I don't need to go visit that lady at the quilt store who forgot to call me when classes started.  I don't need quilting classes.

While I am glad to have the computer programs that play with film editing and video, I don't have the skills, time, computer memory, inspiration, or motivation to really dig into it.  Ditto with photo editing.

I can admire a craft, skill, hobby, whatever, without throwing myself into it and imagining that I will become the undiscovered superstar of that medium.

There is still some work to do when it comes to digital information- my new place for reading.

I had another episode of iTunes insomnia that brought all of the early music of The Police back into my life.

 It takes a good bit of restraint (sometimes unavailable) to prevent myself from online purchasing every book  that I've read a good review about.

While I am finally letting go of a notable amount (for me) of the physical clutter I have, I still have no system for monitoring and managing and preventing the digital clutter.  I'm thinking that time will come when it's time.

However small my uncluttering steps are in this lifetime, I am proud.  I know people who do not ever have "enough" in spite of everything new they acquire.

And while I am not really a comment whore (I know you're out there reading and for that I'm grateful), I am truly interested in how other people manage "stuff"- both the digital and the physical.  If you have time and are so inclined, it would be interesting and helpful to discover other people's secrets of stuff.

2 comments:

roxie said...

I go with the flow. In Spring and fall, there is a natural urge to organize the home and tidy up. That's when I purge old makeup, books I don't want to read again, clothes that just don't fit anymore, no matter how earnestly I intend to lose 20 lbs, and cheap shoes I have loved to bits. During the winter, I do a lot of knitting of hats for charity, using up yarn that I no longer love. During the summer, I sew quilts that I donate to MedicalTeams International. They support orphanages in many third world countries and also do disaster relief. If your house fell down in an earthquake, you might be very happy to get any warm covering you can find. Crooked seams, quick and dirty techniques, and garage sale blankets for batting are all just fine, as long as the blanket holds together and provides a thermal layer. There are lots of little kids who sleep warm because I used miscellaneous fabrics to make quilts. SO I give away my excess to people who need it.

LisaBe said...

you are wise. the business about learning (and then constantly reminding myself) that i am not going to master, or even try, every hobby that i encounter is the biggest thing. i knit and weave and color. that is it. i have a bit of embroidery and needlepoint (one project each). the biggest way i avoid accumulating too much other stuff, to the extent that i do avoid it, is pinterest. i just pin stuff or (for books) add it to my amazon shopping list. then it's there if i decide later that i want it, and it kind of gets the OMG HOW DO I EXPRESS HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS I'M GOING TO HAVE TO BUY IT out of my system most of the time.