Old sayings...and more on the decluttering project...

My mother was a great one for idioms...(a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g. over the moon, see the light ); many of her favourites live on in our family through my usage and at times, also my daughters use such sayings as well. 

So let's see, what's an example?

How come when the tomatoes being sold in the shops are between $8.98 and $9.98 per kilogram and my homegrown tomatoes are stubbornly green? When mine ripen you can bet that the shops will lower the prices to as low as $1.99 per kilo! 

Even though I do realise that probably the farmers' crops aren't ripening quickly either and supply is low, forcing the prices up, that's surely an example of Murphy's Law, a saying which is used a lot ...' a supposed law of nature, expressed in various humorous popular sayings, to the effect that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.' lol

Now one  saying that my mother didn't use to my knowledge is 'there's an elephant in the room'. Its meaning, '... is an English metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is either being ignored or going unaddressed", is quite relevant to me I think...I'll try to explain. I've decided to work through Forever Organised's 31 Days of Decluttering, with a few changes to suit my circumstances. 

So far I've decluttered shoes, appliances, magazines (and some paperbacks) and some chipped mugs and glasses...

The gardening mags were in a crate in the built-in wardrobe in one of the spare bedrooms and I can honestly say that since I put them there a few years ago now, I have never gone back to refer to any of them! While I was removing the mags from the cupboard I noticed a wire hanger on which several men's belts were hung. A check with DH revealed that none of the belts fitted him any more...so out they went too!

Now the items that I've been sorting out in the last few days were not really that cluttered because at various times over the last few years,I've had fairly ruthless 'purges' of unwanted/unnecessary items. But there is definitely 'an elephant in a number of rooms' and it's  my craft stash. At various times I have worked at sorting out the room that I call my sewing room, especially when it was needed to be used as a bedroom for extra guests...I've given away fabrics that I know I won't use, but...well you probably know how it goes :-). Being empty nesters means that I've spread my craft materials into other spare bedrooms...

IKEA Expedit shelves and cubes in one spare bedroom...

 The shelves in one half of the built in in another bedroom aka sewing room...

 Another IKEA set of shelves in the sewing room...

More shelves with cubes of mainly yarns, plus colour coded mohair stash in striped bags on top of the shelves...

Same room's built in...yarns and fabrics are in one half with Christmas decorations and DH's excess shirt collection in the other half.

So during this 31 days, I would like/need to decide on some targeted areas of my crafting storage and then decide what I can realistically use...you know it's all about the SABLE principle...stash acquisition beyond life expectancy!

Day 6 on the decluttering poster is 'Guilt Clutter'...my next post I will write about my interpretation of that.

One coffee mug that will be repurposed as yet again I couldn't part with it. Given to me by a friend one birthday, the much used and loved mug lost its handle after a year or so of use...ahem...that was possibly 13 or so years ago. It has survived 2 house moves and a number of decluttering sessions and survived yesterday's too. But now it will be half filled with pebbles, then potting mix and then I will plant one of my new succulent cuttings in it.

So next time...guilt clutter...what do I think it is and yes I do have some! lol