Declutter November – end of week 3

We’ve finished another week of Declutter November – and I’m beginning to struggle a bit!

I think I snagged a lot of the low hanging fruit earlier in the month and during the garden & wardrobe, and this week’s kitchen, mini-challenges so now I feel like I’m picking things just to meet the target rather than because I actually want to get rid of them. That said, I don’t have any wobbles about the things I’ve selected so perhaps it’s good that I’m being forced into it – I’m looking for stuff to declutter rather than it jumping out at me.

This week’s selection then:

• three books (3 items)
• a pair of candlestick holders that we got as a gift nearly ten years ago and have never used (1 item)
• a cute … thing (pencil case? make up bag) that I bough on eBay thinking it was purse size (it’s not) (1 item)
• two necklaces I took to my mum on Saturday so they’re not pictured (she gave me some of her clutter in return – clutter swap! – but I’m still counting them ;) ) (1 item)
• and another not pictured – a cute little cotton hoodie I bought for one of our nephews when he was born but forgot to pass on until it was too late. He’s two in a couple of months so it’s sat on my desk for quite a while now! (1 item)

Declutter November mini-challenge week 3: the kitchen

While I’m starting to struggle in the rest of the house, the kitchen mini-challenge was easy peasy! I got rid of:

• six big egg boxes – lots of people save egg boxes for us but we don’t have much use for these big 12/15 egg ones. They’ll go in the compost as it could use some bulk at the moment.
• an old bamboo steamer – since we have since inherited both a better bamboo steamer set and a metal one from friends.
• a cute little tea bag dish which is too small for our teabag mountain
• the chicken-shaped egg holder I mentioned in the mini-challenge launch – he’s nice but not for us right now
• the blue thing on the top of the pile, which is a thermos flask for soup/leftovers. I bought it when I temporarily didn’t have access to a microwave at work in … 2002? I then got access to a microwave and it was easier to take things cold then reheat them than carry the bulky flask. I have never used it!

I also moved a lot of things out of the kitchen: six plates, two bowls and four cups into cupboard space elsewhere along with our plastic picnic cups/cutlery; a carrier bag full of old teatowels to use as dirty rags elsewhere; two little shelves of misc; and all the medicines in the box below, which had been stuffed on a toddler-height shelf instead of being properly put back in the medicine box in the bathroom:

We now have some paracetamol, a pack of ibuprofen and a pack of plasters in a little drawer in the kitchen – that’s more than enough on hand. And now we’ve moved everything that nearly two year old nephew who never got his hoodie is far less likely to accidentally overdose on Strepsils and sticky plasters too…!

Between getting rid and clearing out, we now have a lot more cupboard space, an almost completely empty drawer, and three small shelves that are clear. Woo!

How has your week of decluttering gone? Are you still making progress?

Other posts you might like:

Declutter November – end of week 2 Declutter November – end of week 1 Declutter November mini-challenge week 3: the kitchen Declutter November is under way!