Making Space...

Early in the week, I went through a medicine cabinet and gathered together stuff that had expired (mostly things like lotions or weird one-time prescription items someone had and didn't use all of).  Then Hubs came along and decided to discard what I had boxed up to take a picture of.  

I was annoyed at first, but then decided it's just as well - twenty year-old calamine lotion isn't very photogenic.  

Though I have to tell you...  I found three small containers of our sons' baby teeth!   I'm saving those to give to them just to see them laugh, and I imagine they will then discard them.  I'm amazed I saved them all. 

So, while most of that stuff is now gone with no picture to document it (and I'm thinking some of you are thankful now), I'm counting 10 items purged from the medicine cabinet.

Then mid-week painting started happening here.  With a few rooms turned upside down to accommodate that, I didn't imagine I'd have anything to show for a Making Space post this week, but hubs decided to help out by telling me he had more empty slide trays:

Whoa!  That's a lot of trays that represent a lot of slides that either got digitized or tossed this year. I think, though, we're all done.  Well... until I let the last 15 or so go that I'm still saving my family slides in.  Until I can make some prints or be utterly convinced they are saved properly, I'm hanging onto my family slides.  Total slide trays leaving this week:  37!

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And I remembered that before things got all messy here (for painting) I had collected some plastic serving dishes from the furnace room that I hadn't used since youngest son graduated from high school. Let's see... how long ago was that?  Seven years ago!?!?!   How could that be?  

Quick! Outta here before I change my mind. 

A few of you are downright pretty. 

It's not that they're not perfectly usable, but the fact is, I haven't used them since our three sons' graduation parties (that I can recall), so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to miss them.  I bid them adieu and hope they bless someone else who's going to go to (or host) more gatherings than I am these days.  When I go to a potluck or pitch-in I rarely take items on trays.  It always seems I'm lugging a big ol' crock pot or large bowl of something or other.

So adding 7 plastic serving pieces and 2 Tupperware shakers, I've got 56 more things leaving!

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And finally here, I need to readjust what week I'm on.  I don't know where I miscounted (probably - when I took several months off), but as I look at the calendar, I see I have 8 more weeks in this year-long challenge.  Which would make this week 44.  So yay me!  I have more time to reach or surpass my goal of 1000 things gone.

Just for inspiration, these are areas I want to go through yet:

My clothes closet - as the weather turns cool I'll naturally have a reason to go through it again.  And I have imaginings of being ruthless this time. 

The garage - I'm planning on rehoming some seasonal decorative stuff I am storing out there.

The laundry room and furnace room - these two spaces are adjoining and miscellaneous things are purposely stored there, and sometimes things just migrate there.

Books - we're still looking for our next home, and I'm pretty sure we're not going to end up moving to a house that has room for all the books and bookshelves we own, nevermind that I won't likely live long enough to read them all, so why not pare them down now rather than later?  Much easier said than done, but I'm still eyeing them with the thought to rehome more.

That's all from me on the Making Space front this week!

Making Space Week 44:  770 things gone!