Purge Plan Oh-10 Pt. 4

Part Four of my somewhat epic Purge Plan Oh-10 is a much smaller feat than those that have come before it. I decided to riffle through two of the random bags and containers in my bedroom closet. The rest of the closet is pretty much organized - It's full of clothes, shoes and bags which I wear fairly regularly. Of the things that need to be sorted through from this closet: one contains office supplies and odds and ends, while the other has toiletries. I'll admit, like clothes, and hand creams, I have an excessive amount of makeup and note pads. First up, my overflow of office supplies...

Before and After. This box just required some reorganizing. I needed to put some of the things in other boxes and some in my desk organizer (pencils!) but other than that I kept almost everything. The only thing I can't find a home for is my old reusable batter charger. I don't have that brand of battery anymore, nor do I know where to find them. I've also already got a newer version so ..... garbage? Seems like a waste. 

Next up is my toiletries bag. My two step-sisters bought this bag from Sephora  for me when I was in my first year of university and it was a swell shower bag while in residence. Now though, I use it as more of a storage place or more accurately, a place where makeup goes to die. I say this because once I put stuff in this bag and then put the bag in my closet, I completely forget about it. So while this has resulted in having to throw out a few tubes of mascara, it's also allowed me a few fun surprises:

Like this Soothing eye mask (maybe I'll use this tonight)! And a brand new Nars blush (though this blush proves the point that I have far too much make up in comparison to what I actually wear which is very little to none at all on a dail basis. You see, I already have a Nars blush in the exact same colour in use and not yet near finished.)

Or this tube of Estee Lauder lipstick. I don't wear lipstick - My lips and teeth are a fair size on their own without loads of pinkish red attention - but the smell of this lipstick is yummy and reminds me of the Bahamas.   With this lipstick I also got gloss that smells the same and I got it around the time I went to the Bahamas 3 years ago. 

And here is just a small sample of the shadows I have that I never use. Keep in my that these are the ones that never see the light of day, so I'm sure you can imagine how much more I have in my actually make case for day-to-day. yikes!

Done! 

Purge Plan Oh-10 Pt. 3

                                          looks benign, but ...                                            Boo!

Instead of studying I got the urge to continue on the war path against "stuff", this time in the hall closet. I have kept the majority of boxes I used while moving from home to residence to my 2nd year house to the apartment I am in now. So a lot of the extra stuff I have tucked away in closets is just empty boxes waiting to be used again when I move. There are, however, some random things in some of the boxes that need to be addressed.

this isn't even my box - I think I stole it from a former housemate?

Like sorting through clothes, it is important to have a plan of action that can be adhered to. This time however I didn't even know what I was I was going to be dealing with - I couldn't remember what was in any other boxes and it turns out - there wasn't much. I found a lot of newspapers (which I'll hold onto for packing up breakable stuff) and some random school supplies, an iron .... nothing too interesting.

Basically, this was one of the easiest steps in cleaning out my apartment and my literal closet, not the metaphorical one. I'm thinking the next spot I tackle is my bedroom closet. Though most of its contents are things I wear/use regularly, there are some things that need to be sorted through. not today though.


posting note: eek this post is a couple weeks old. whoops I've been bad at updating, but still keeping on track with my purge plan, promise!

Purge Plan Oh-10 Pt. 2

Clothes, clothes, clothes. I love clothes. This is probably why I have more than can safely fit in the one closet I have in my room. Fortunately for me there is a spare closet in the hall where I've kept overflow for the past 2 years. Now that I will be moving in a few months it's time to purge ... again. I say again because every year, usually more, I got through my clothes and choose which items to Donate or Ditch. I love the feeling of knowing exactly what I have to wear and where I can find it, but it's also very hard donating sentimental items or throwing them out altogether due to the fact that they are just too ratty. This time I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had done such a tremendous job of ditching and donating when I moved two years ago that I didn't have too many tough decisions to make!
After dumping out three bags of clothes from said extra closet this is what I had to sort through:

It looks like a lot less in this picture than it actually was (I guess it must be the angle)

The best place to start your clothing purge is with a ruthless attitude. If you know you're to weak to throw things out on your own, force a friend to sift through your stuff with you. When I moved 2 years ago this is exactly what I did and it ended up working out amazingly. As I went through my clothes I was able to give certain things to my friend instead of just donating it. My old closet (pictured below) was a dream come true! It took up a whole wall and had shelves and everything! It wasn't even the only closet I had in that room either! Currently however my closet is tiny so I had to make wardrobe adjustments accordingly. Today's Donate and Ditch was therefore much more manageable and I was able to do it all on my own.

So once again: I highly recommend employing a friend's ruthless judgment when cleaning out your closet. Unless that friend is Dorcas: ZZZZzzzzzz

My second tip is to know at the outset how many piles you want to sort things into and have a process that works in steps. Example:

Step 1 is sorting everything in to 5 piles:

1) Definitely Keeping (That's where my Rod Stewart Tour T-shirt went!)

2) Try On and Decide (I love this! - does it still fit?)

3) Check with Friends and Family (things i know i don't want but i know someone who might)

3) Definitely Donating (in good shape but haven't worn in 3 years)

4) Definitely Ditching. (ripped, torn, etc.)

Step 2 is trying things on and consulting friends to see if they want anything + reducing clothes to 4 piles:

When trying things on you should be honest with yourself. "Hey I can still fit into these acid wash jeans!" is not something you should hear yourself saying. Just because you can still fit into something and it's in decent condition does NOT mean you should keep it. If the item is so far gone out of style that it's coming back into style but in an updated way ditch it - unless you know how to sew or tailor clothes to update them.

Dresses. Oh Dresses. These are hard to part with because you never want to be caught without a dress and be forced last minute to buy something you may not even like. But if you haven't worn a dress in 3+ years, you probably won't need it again. I find dresses, skirts and dressier clothes harder to throw away than everyday stuff because I just don't wear them that much so it's hard to tell if it should be given away or not. BUT if, like me, you still have the dress you wore to graduation (Not prom, actual) graduation and you haven't worn it since first year of university ... you should probably let it go.

If friends don't want your clothes don't get all defensive: "I'm not going to let this piece of clothing go to someone i don't even KNOW!!!!" Just donate or ditch it and move on. I promise you won't miss it.

After this you should have 4 piles:

1) Definitely Keeping

3) Giving to Friends and Family

3) Donating

4) Ditching

Step 3 Donate, Ditch and Deliver

Step 3 is by far the most satisfying. Put away the clothes you are keeping. Give clothes to friends and family, deliver your donations to a charity of your choice (I donate to Salvation Army and The Canadian Diabetes Association) and ditch the rest.

le sigh. Now you can pat yourself on the back and try and be proactive by not buying so much in future. Heh.

KEEPING!

Giving to Friends and Family!









Donating!

Purge Plan Oh-10

At the end of this school year I will sadly be moving out of the wonderful apartment I share with my 2 roommates ... and I have so much crap everywhere! So I've decided to start a fortnightly cleanup plan aptly named: "Purge Plan oh-10". I realize that the 'oh' doesn't really work anymore because we've kissed the last decade of oh-number goodbye, but I liked the sound better and the 'oh' could also be short form for 'Oh Shiz I got a lot of Work to do!'. Moving on, I began the purge this past weekend with the fridge but only today did I have the idea to document it when I started riffling through my pantry. Here is how this weeks purge went down:

As you can see I had already started unpacking this cupboard when I got the idea to blog it... It doesn't look that full, I know. But you must also realize that I only feed myself and I also keep a lot of stuff in the fridge and freezer.

First off, I put my pod on shuffle while working and you never know what you're going to get....

in this case it was the theme from Arthur.

These are sprinkles from a Hallowe'en cupcake package (the orange box at the very back right of this photo) which I didn't even realized had spilled because I'm too short to see the second shelf)

I went grocery shopping with one of my housemates on Sunday and she said she was craving popcorn. I told her "No don't buy any! I have a huge box at home" ... I didn't realize that the box had expired 3 years ago ... I suppose I should have guessed - I've had this box since my first year of university in my dorm room. I also told her not to buy peanut butter because I had that too. It expired 2 years ago.

Always worrisome are the things that don't have any expiry date at all, like these chickpeas par exemple, which are probably so loaded with preservatives they'd survive a nuclear winter, no sweat. I bought these chickpeas at least a year ago in a frenzy. The downtown A&P was constantly out of them and when I saw that they had a few in stock I snapped them up.

Quick Game.

is the residue on this expired popcorn...:

(a) flour

(b) sugar

(c) coke

........

.............

........

It's (a) flour.

Oh! There's my Twinkle! I'd thought I'd lost it.

I bought all this stuff to make crab cakes. obviously I haven't gotten around to it yet. 1) because I'm lazy, 2) those aren't the right breadcrumbs.

et voila! Purge Plan oh-10 Kitchen complete!

Next I'm thinking I'll tackle the upstairs hall closet which has loads of clothes and boxes of random stuff - FUN!