Under the Skin

I can't even tell you how much I recommend this 40 Bags in 40 Days thing.  I have felt so much catharsis as I clear out places of my apartment that I didn't even realize were cluttered. I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff that I didn't even realize wasn't really contributing to my life.  I'm not one of those people who finds value in living out of a suitcase, nor am I really a hoarder, but I once heard it described as if the object doesn't give you joy, it's detracting from your joy.  So, I have been really trying to use that.  I am trying not to look at "could I someday find a use for this," but can I see a use for in the very soon future, or is it just taking up space? I cleaned out my couch shelves today.  As I told you on Saturday, you will be jealous that I have couch shelves, and you will want them too.  My sister built this for me, but I think furniture companies need to catch on, because this is one of my favorite things in my apartment.  C...

I know.  I missed a day.  But part of the rules of 40 Bags in 40 Days says that there is to be absolutely NO guilt for "missing days."  You just pick it up where you left off the next day.  So, that's what I'm doing.  Continuing with my left-hand book shelf. My sister, Beth, and I built my desk.  Or rather, Beth built my desk and I assisted, because she builds things from plans she made up, and I am spatially defunct in the brain.  But because of that, I have a massive desk-shelf monstrosity which I love.  But, that's what I mean by left book shelf.  I love the thing. I was actually surprised at how much stuff from the bookshelf I let go.  I thought I would fiercely hold on to all of it, but I actually achieved quite a good declutter. True, most of it was Sunday School manuals from years past, me reasoning that those will easily be available on line whenever I want them, and I could get a new one for next year if I don't  have a...

The linen closet.  The bane of everyone's existence.  This is probably, hands down, the most cluttered place in my home, and everyone else's.  So cluttered, that I'm doing it in shifts.  Today was the top two shelves. Before:  After: I know what you're going to say. "Hannah, it looks exactly the SAME!"  Yes, it does.  But here's what I decluttered: 1) Expired medications, contacts and empty packages.  Please note:  expired OTC medications are usually not dangerous.  They just significantly decrease in effectiveness.  So, I trashed them (appropriately) 2) Four (yes, count them, four) sticks of cherry chapstick.  I hate cherry chapstick.  I really do.  I think it is pretty much the epitome of nasty.  Unfortunately, cherry chapstick comes in the chapstick three pack that also includes spearmint (my third favorite), and strawberry (my second favorite).  And there is no other...

No pictures today, as we have a virtual one. The downloads folder.  That's that folder on your computer that you NEVER empty out.  Seriously, I had things in there from September.  And that's when I changed my computer operating system.  Most of the things here have permanent homes, but are still sitting in this holding ground, cluttering up your computer, taking up space, and basically making a black mark on your organization. So, I did that.  I also found one thing that I needed that I hadn't saved (a certificate for a webinar that I sat through and really want credits for towards my recertification as a medical lab scientist come 2017), and a couple of programs that I hadn't put back since my computer died in the Windows 10 update that I should have there. I call it a success. Join me tomorrow as I clean out something very cluttery. The top two shelves of my linen closet.

A couple of words today as I cleaned out my bedroom closet.  First, since starting my 40 Bags in 40 Days quest, I have run into a very wonderful problem.  My coat closet it overflowing with my thrift store box!  I have nowhere left to put clutter leaving my apartment.  Today, the things that I decluttered got stuffed into the box haphazardly.  Second, part of this was not as productive as it could have been, because I only got rid of the clothes that I hands down do not like.  Because I was already doing a clothing declutter program in which you turn all of your hangers backwards at the beginning of the year, and then turn them forwards when you wear it.  Anything not facing forwards in June, you obviously don't wear (because you have hit all the major weathers by that point), and can be thrown away.  Of course, evening gowns, temple dresses (even though I have been keeping up with wearing that regularly per one of my goals) and seasonal things (l...

Today the biggest part was cleaning out the candy stash.  I just amassed candy from Halloween, activities with kids, and more. But, a lot of it isn't candy I love, and it just sits there.  So, I only kept the candy that would actually give me legitimate joy to eat, and the rest I took to work. Yes, I did. Before:   After:    (NOTE:  I have more pans.  They are just not clean right now) So, there you have it.  Join us tomorrow when I clean out my closet!

I can't even believe all of the trash that I have managed to remove from my apartment in the past just-over-a-week.  And it's even crazier to think about all the stuff that I have yet to remove from my apartment.  Because really, it doesn't look all that different!  Part of that may be that I was planning on really cleaning it up while I was off.  But I have spent most of my four-days off (yeah, I know), being sick, or just recovering from my nine-on-one-off-three-on-nine-off.  We had four off so that I can go into my ten on tonight.  Ugh. But, today, I cleaned out my file box.  I'm sure everyone has one of these.  This is the place where you store all your financial records, titles, licenses, certifications, that sort of stuff.  Well, I cleaned it.  Now, there's some level of just inherent clutter in this, as you should save financial records for a hoarder-amount of time.  But, I did get a lot of stuff out of this box that I just...

Today, there are no pictures.  Because in the 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge, it stipulates that the bags of clutter can be virtual bags. And today was a virtual day. My phone was a mess.  Inboxes of text messages that needed deleting.  Phone books on my past phone that needed to be transferred.  You name it.  So, today, I finally sat down and just took care of all of the clutter on my phone(s--as I still have my old one...it had a bunch of contacts in it that I needed!) Well, it is clean now.  So, no pictures...I don't really know how I would represent that, but I did do my decluttering for the day.

I have three favorite books.  (See note at the end of the post, though).  East of Eden, by John Steinbeck, A Tale of Two Cities , by Charles Dickens, and To Kill a Mockingbird , by Harper Lee. Today, Harper Lee passed away at the age of 89.  I wasn't alive to make a tribute to Steinbeck or Dickens.  So I suppose my tribute to Lee will have to account for that.   Every once in awhile, someone will be born to this Earth who changes it completely.  And some of them change them in obvious ways: Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, Hitler, Martin Luther King, Lenin, Genghis Khan. Whether they change for good or bad, they changed it completely.  And they changed it by changing the setting or the plot.  Others change the world so subtly that we don't even feel it.   They change it, not by changing the setting or the plot, but by changing the characters. I think Harper Lee is one of those people.  The effects that she, and her legacy, will h...

Today's decluttering is my backpack.  I carry a backpack, yes.  No, I'm not a student (well, not at the moment).  No, I am not ashamed.  No, I don't intend to stop. But I do intend for it to be less full of junk. The before and after pictures are hard, because it's dark in there. Before: After: I decided that it would be more effective on this one to show the stuff leaving rather than the stuff staying.  For the trash.  For somewhere else. Join us tomorrow for our first, non-physical decluttering...my phone!

Today, I cleaned out my fridge.  The day after grocery day.  Part of my fridge problem is that I am very produce-heavy in my cooking style.  That takes up a lot of space.  And it also goes bad.  Unfortunately.  The majority of today was spent trying to salvage the poor radishes whose greens I forgot to cut off and they went bad--they are saved, by the way.  Before: After:

I have recently noticed a trend of just purely over-analyzing Disney movies.  In this category, I also include the fascination with photoshopping Disney characters to swap genders, races, or eras, as well as making princesses have "realistic" body shapes (which is something I could write a whole other post about, and it wouldn't be pretty.  Spoiler alert:  I find it to be one of the most unempowering trends of recent years).  However, I sometimes wonder at how much people are reading into Disney movies.  Today, I'm going to over-analyze their over-analysis. I recently read that the fact that Eric is a white prince is a representation of how we white-wash racial expectations for our children.  I'm not even sure what that sentence means.  It seems to have a lot of buzz words.  But I'm going to show you today, using evidence from the film, why Prince Eric is, in fact, the correct color. (I will, however, say that Eric is the only Disney prince wh...

“We clung to books and to our friends; they reminded us that we had another part to us.” How about a book review to break-up all of my cathartic purging of my apartment? One of the lab assistants (actually micro's lab assistant) and work recommended this book.  He told me to read it, and then whenever he came into the main lab and I was reading something else, he would say, "I told you what to read!"  So, I finally did.  Apparently, I also remind him of the main character. Juliet Ashton is a writer in London in 1946.  Through letters, she eventually becomes acquainted with the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society--a society formed to keep the people of Guernsey emotionally going while the British island of Guernsey underwent Nazi occupation.  As Juliet comes to know the people of the society, and the spirit of the island, she has to make a choice about what she wants from her own life.  Anyways, I really enjoyed this book...

As many of you know, I am a writer.  I have considered myself a writer since I started to finally write down the stories in my brain when I was about twelve.  I also found then that I have a knack for creating believable characters (though I struggle with physical descriptions), and, if I'm in the right frame of mind, can turn words quite well.  But being a writer accumulates so much paper!  I have a crate of crud from writing. I decided to take on that crate as one of my days in the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge. This one actually took a long time, mostly because I would start reading it to decide whether I wanted to keep it or not, at which point I would start remembering this story that I never finished and start thinking about it.  I actually found myself with a red pen editing some of these crazy-old stories.  Which isn't necessarily an unproductive thing to do, but that wasn't in the plan.  I guess the side effect was that I now am fired up ab...

At church, I am a Primary Secretary.  Ever since I was called, I have felt like my church bag has been the embarrassment that I don't want the rest of the presidency to ever see.  Bits of old notes on move-ins, props for old sharing times.  I have always thought that getting this bag under control was going to take hours.  It actually took about twenty minutes once I sat down and took care of it!  Now, the only things in my bag are a binder for all the papers with sections, a published, sharing time outline, a notepad, and a pencil pouch with paperclips, pens, and the like.  I also made a sheet which new move-ins can fill out so I'm not saying, "Here.  Scribble your info on this scrap of paper." I threw away a ton of paper, and my 2015 Sharing Time Outline!  This one felt so fantastic.  I can't even explain it. Before: After: YAY!  Tomorrow, I will clean my writing box.  Dun-dun-dun.