Decluttering

Decluttering. Hmm that is a great word. It makes me feel great to rid my house of useless to me things and free up more space.

I am in the process of decluttering my house. It is interesting how many "cool treasures" (according to my mother in law) one family of 5 can collect. I have been through the closets and managed to donate 3 trash bags of clothes. I could probably get rid of another one or two but The Man refuses to get rid of any of his too-small-haven't-been-worn-in-10-years shirts. I am convinced now I am going to find someone who can make a quilt out of these shirts so atleast they might be useful. I am hoping I can find someone to do it for a reasonable amount too since I will have to ship them off and pay to have them shipped back too.

Toys. Oh My Goodness Toys. With 3 boys we have quite the collection of toys. I cant remember ever having 1/3rd of the toys these boys have. I managed to donate about 4 full trash bags of toys and they still have enough to have an entire cluttered playroom full of toys. I have tried and tried to convince the grandparents to only send one toy per child per occasion but I have figured out I can tell them til I am blue in the face and they will never listen. I think I am going to try again this year to enforce that, even if they dont listen I wont feel as bad donating the toys they send. I just cannot replace the good quality toys that all three of the boys play with to keep some random new toy that will be broken or forgotten about in a matter of weeks.

I have managed to get the kitchen and living room in pretty tidy order but the one place I am having a HUGE issue with is the "room of doom". This room of doom is a tiny bedroom that is full of stuff. I am not sure there is much stuff that is worth keeping in there but I have tried to convince The Man to clean it out and he will not part with anything. We have an old xbox and playstation in there that have not been played with in the almost 5 years we have been married but he will not part with them. We have the new versions of each so there really is no reason not to donate them and let some other family get some good use out of them. There are also many random computer parts in there. I do not understand the logics of keeping so many parts that probably havent been used in a few years either. Aside from all of the electronic treasures I couldn't even start to tell you what else is in this room. This room is going to be the last of my decluttering effort as it is going to be the most stressful. I am still trying to figure out how to convince The Man to get rid of his "cool treasures".