Ascetic Austere April in which we Abate the clutter and Ameliorate our Anxiety!!

[Morning Glory]

I gave away a bunch of stone blocks to a nice guy who brought his daughter to play with our kids while he was collecting them. He told his friend that we had more and she ended up being someone who had messaged me about something else I was giving away. We were all delighted by the coincidence.

I sold/ gave away more barn and garage clutter. Met lots of nice people that way. I also spent some time weed eating and raking around the house. Only 9 days left until the photographer comes. I'm trying to convince my husband to do a run to the dump on Monday with all the garbage we've sorted out.

I made the turkey today and the bones are now in the instant pot for tomorrow's soup.

[Morning Glory]

We made $1395 this weekend from selling stuff on Facebook. Most of it was from lumber that my husband bought a couple years ago for a project he never completed: he thinks we doubled our money on it. I priced it at 25% less than the big box stores are charging right now and someone showed up the next morning with asking price in cash.

We also gave away a ton of stuff and sorted out more to throw away or donate. Of course more stuff managed to show up though: my husband unearthed a cart and another fire hydrant out of the rubble pile after the guy removed the stone blocks. Who knows how long they have been there.

[lazycow]

@Morning Glory I am in awe of your industriousness and ability to make cash from clutter!

@Serendip thank you for introducing me to Oxymel!  That is right up my alley. We have local honey, I make my own apple cider vinegar, and grow (almost) every herb imaginable!! Although, wouldn't you know it, I am actually out of honey today so will have to source some later in the week to try this.

[wenchsenior]

@lazycow I read a beautiful series of books about carcassonne a few years ago and can't remember the damn name of the author or titles. It was about religion???? Maybe

What color is your velvet kirtle?

Probably Labyrinth etc by Kate Mosse?  That series was a huge hit. 

On topic, I should hang out here more to get inspired.  I really want to own less stuff, and I donate a good sized box or two every year, but we still have so much stuff. Ugh.

ETA: Generally speaking, I love plants. And generally speaking, I have so much clutter related to gardening, but my garden (which was stupendous only a few years ago) aged to senescence almost all at once, so it converted to a giant space of straggly weeds and few pathetic old perennials last year.  Gardening urge failed to spark last year or this year (only depression at the lack of garden sparked). So I ordered some more plants this year and am resenting the expense and the work I'm going to have to put in.  And I'm irritated at having yet more garden 'clutter'.  Sometimes I think the only way out of this trap is to move to a condo LOL.

[iris lily]

Today DH got $46 from the metal scrap place.

[Morning Glory]

@wenchsenior I think it was Kate Mosse. I read the whole series several years ago. My memory isn't that good for books: I will often pick one up at the library and get a few pages in before realizing I've read it before. I used to read about 200 books per year when I worked nights before my kids were born. Now I'm lucky if I finish 20.

Today I took some time to empty and close a few bank accounts that were still open from churning. I am taking a break from that for now because I don't need the mental clutter.  It will be nice to have everything consolidated into a couple of accounts again.

My husband told me that a friend of a friend wants to buy his gun and associated ammo, so one less armament to be anxious about!!!!!

@iris lily good job getting rid of the metal scrap!!! I hear prices are high for that right now so it is a good time to get rid of any you have been holding onto.

[Serendip]

@Serendip thank you for introducing me to Oxymel!  That is right up my alley. We have local honey, I make my own apple cider vinegar, and grow (almost) every herb imaginable!! Although, wouldn't you know it, I am actually out of honey today so will have to source some later in the week to try this.

Oh yes, hope you enjoy them.
Sage & rosemary is a brilliant combo...it's the one I make the most often and then mix with sparkling water.

[Morning Glory]

Husband added up all the cash again last night and we are over $8000. That is without even selling any of our running vehicles yet.  The fire hydrant that my husband dug up is sold already!!!

Today I cleaned the rest of my kitchen cabinets and sorted out two boxes of things to donate. Husband scanned another batch of books and DVDs to Decluttr and whatever they wouldn't take went into the donate boxes too. I relocated an armful of textbooks to my office where they will hopefully not get into too much trouble over summer break.

@wenchsenior I am definitely going to take a break from gardening for the next couple of years. Maybe when we buy a house again I will have a couple of raised beds, nothing huge. For now I will give myself permission to spend as much as I want on fresh vegetables at the farmers' market. If I ever remember to go....

[ender]

This is inspiring :)

I haven't sold anywhere near as much but reading this is convincing me to get thing sold.

[Serendip]

 I need to abate more clutter to ameliorate my SO's anxiety :)

He kicked/tripped over the seedling trays last night (on the living room floor after being brought in from the patio) and then tripped over another tray this morning while trying to vacuum up the dirt from last night!
Needless to say, we bickered about it and it turns out that my habit of leaving things on the floor causes him distress.

I will work on returning everything to its' home or final destination instead of all the half-moves I tend to do.

Our piling of books everywhere in the living room is also out-of-control.

Will do a little tidy/vaccum and wash of the floors this morning, clear the air and the space!

[MaybeBabyMustache]

I went through my husband's CD collection (which, has been in bins for 10+ years, and we've apparently now moved 3x.) I've scanned a bunch for Decluttr, and need to get them packaged up & mailed today. I'll donate the rest and/or see if I can find anyone interested on Buy Nothing. It feels awesome to get all of this junk out of our garage.

[Car Jack]

I probably have exhausted all the books, cds and dvds with decluttr with 6 boxes out to them.  While I'm at it, searching all our crap for these, I've managed to get rid of probably the equivalent of one more box full of junk.  Certainly plenty more to get through.

[Josiecat22222]

A little late to the party here, but have been decluttering and selling on Ebay and facebook as my pandemic hobby, too!

Sold a bike and a beach cart this week as well as donated cookware on our Buy Nothing site.

@Morning Glory, I don't know where you live, but here in the states, Cabela's will buy guns in good condition.

Have a great day, everyone!

[MaybeBabyMustache]

-140 CDs (and, a few DVDs) off to Decluttr. It took 3 boxes to get them all mailed out
-All remaining CDs (and a couple of DVDs), plus the two cases off to a neighbor via my Buy Nothing group
-A few other CD cases were recyclable (and, beyond salvage), so they are in the bins
-Located a few new VHS recordable tapes in shrink wrap. Have them listed on eBay, so someone who can use them will get them
-Gave away two bottles of jewelry cleaners, a pair of new fuzzy socks, an adult coloring book, a Keurig + 20 pods, & a bunch of new base layer outgrown kids ski shirts on our local Buy Nothing group

SO much junk out of our house!!

Also sold a handful of items on eBay this week. I did, however, pick up a couple of new items. An unopened box of my favorite chammomile tea (I drink it every evening) via Buy Nothing, & a Waterford crystal candy dash from a neighbor's free pile. Hopefully I can sell the latter quickly on eBay, but I felt I should confess my "incoming" items, along with the wins.

[Morning Glory]

I put in two straight days of sweeping and scrubbing. The house is looking a lot better now. I keep noticing one more thing that needs cleaning or repair.  Yesterday I picked up two bags of litter from our road frontage. Today I helped with yard work and cleaned the basement and organized the coat closet and sorted out a box of donations and gave away a ski rack. Tomorrow morning I'm taking a break to go hiking with a friend.

@Josiecat23503 I will ask my husband to look into Cabela's. We have one about an hour away and he should be able to call them for information before heading over there. I don't know if he wants to sell all the guns or just the one. I wish he would sell all of them. He is good about locking them in the safe at least.

[lazycow]

@Morning Glory I bet your house looks fantastic now and you might have second thoughts about selling??

After a couple of days' break (husband and I went away for a couple of days for our wedding anniversary) I am back. Though looking at the purchases on the cc we only spent money on coffees, a pub dinner and a very nice brunch. And we went into a homewares store that was having a huge sale and I bought a thermos (I had 3 that somehow disappeared, tipping the kids took them to school and lost them!) and he bought a knife sharpener as ours was broken. We spent the rest of the time going on lovely walks in the bush and on the beach, spotting echidnas, emus, wallabies and kangaroos.

I am spending the weekend not doing very  much at all, just walks, washing, knitting and reading. The big AFL Anzac day footy game is on free-to-air TV later so we will all watch that. Might make some Anzac biscuits if I can be bothered. My daughter requested strawberries from the local roadside stand so will take my son for a driving lesson and we'll get some. My husband defrosted some slow cooked beef cheeks we will have with home grown potatoes for dinner.

This week I need to get stuck into the garden and do all the autumnal tasks I've been putting off, in particular, planting my garlic crop. The weather forecast is perfect for it!

[Morning Glory]

@lazycow I have very mixed feelings about selling. I've been going back and forth on the idea for four years. I finally made the decision because I am tired of the cold winters here and I would like to travel more. The property always needs a ton of maintenance and it doesn't leave us much free time.  It is beautiful though.  I wish I could bring my kitchen and sunroom with me.

I have asparagus coming up in the garden now.

I would love to visit Australia and see some of your amazing wildlife!!!

[Morning Glory]

Today my husband and I gathered six bags of trash from the outbuildings and took them to the dump, along with some old paint, 2 pieces of old particle board furniture, and a roll of carpet. Cost was $40. Also some people came to get some cinder blocks that we are giving away.

I'm making minestrone and homemade bread for dinner today.