I've been tagged!

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Ten years ago, summer of '98. I was working for the church, giving tours of historic buildings. I had met a guy I thought I could marry. We ended up not getting married, but I married his statistics tutor!

Five things on your to do list
Make invitations and mail them
Plan a birthday party
Learn how to make frosting roses
Clean the house
Pay bills

What snacks do you like?
*popcorn, made from kernels in the microwave at home.
*chocolate, preferably dark
*ice cream, usually with brownies
*trail mix- the 'indulgent' kind from Wal-Mart. I make my own and leave out the almonds and white chocolate chips.


What would you do if you were a billionaire?
I would... get debt free, build our own home in the country with a fabulous mountain view, travel to Europe, donate a bunch to charity. Some of it would go to church and humanitarian efforts, some would go to finding a cure for diabetes and JRA.

Three bad habits
*not throwing away items
*late library books
*Digital says that I'm bad about follow-through

Five places you have lived
Illinois, various places
Cleveland, OH
Laramie, WY
Tampa, FL
Colorado, various places

Five jobs you’ve had
I don't know if I've had five jobs total!
'utility clerk' (grocery bagger)
tour guide
admin assistant
data entry clerk
deli clerk
Look, I have had five jobs.

How did you name your blog?
I wanted to emphasize the food take-out habit, but in reverse. Take more stuff OUT of my home than what I bring in. Right now, I am so fed up with all of our stuff that I may get rolling soon and really give away a bunch.

Success!

Look at that. My total is over 365. At least I made it that far! By no means does that mean I'm done, but it's a milestone, for sure.

I want to hit 730 before Halloween. Would you keep tabs on me? Then you can celebrate with me when that happens.

Get moving already!

Already today, I've done a 27 fling boogie. Most of it were craft scraps, baby wipes and kleenexes. NotMe has been to our house, I suppose.

I hope to have more to post later today. Errands seem to make it really hard for me to get work done, because I have to focus on it. That leaves little energy for cleaning.

There are a lot of things that get thrown away every day, of course, and I've not felt the need to report on those. But I do have to mention that I cleaned up two boxes of cereal dumped on the floor. A lot of it got thrown away, but I salvaged what I could. All in a day's work, right?

The bedroom, soon to be a getaway.

I will admit, I think the nature of the bedroom has gotten much better. I used to stuff random things in the bedroom when company was coming. This hasn't really happened in our new home. To me, that's progress!
But, living life leaves messes, too. I cleaned up the bedroom months ago, sometime since Christmas. It's gotten cluttered again. Like a Warm Cup of Coffee is working a 31-day challenge. I was on top of it until it came to doctor appointments and going on vacation. I left off somewhere around "cleaning your bedroom."

All that to say (gee, I'm long-winded) that I cleaned up most of the bedroom again on Tuesday. All it takes is about three minutes of "How Clean is Your House" for me to get moving again. ICK.

Most of the mess was toys and blankets, but I did take out a grocery bag's worth of trash and some newspapers. I'll count 25 items toward that ever-growing total.

A little linky-love, an update and more STUFF!

My goodness, I've gone on nearly a month without a post. We've been to see the doctors in Denver three times, we drove to KC then to Illinois to see family and attend a wedding.

That brings me to one of my clutter-busters. There have been a couple of little birds in my ear about having too much stuff.
Meredith at Like Merchant Ships commented on how packing everything means there's not much left. I also love the link she (and Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer) posted about getting down to 100 things. If you don't need it on a long trip, do you need it at all?
Not to mention, Jeana at Days to Come went to London for several weeks! I think she's gained a lot of lessons from it, and she's spreading it on to me. Jeana, it was such a short post, but it had a BIG impact on me.

So, when we got back from the wedding, all of our toiletries were in a carry-on sized bag. Since this was for a wedding, I really did take nearly everything. I decided to take a look at my bathroom shelves and purge everything possible. I was BRUTAL. My husband and my sister will attest to how many medicines and bottles and vitamins and soaps and shampoos I've collected.
Now I only have one problem- how do I get rid of barely used shower gel and vitamins? I can't bear to throw them away... at least, not without a strong admonition from the internets.
They're still filed away in a corner of the shelves, still cluttering up, but I'm ready for them to go, as soon as I figure out how.
Oh- I should say I DID throw away quite a lot. This is the stuff too "good" to throw away.

Now, I know I should do the same with the clothes. Honestly, we just have SO many, it's too hard a task to tackle. This needs to be a priority in the near future.

****************
Yesterday, a friend was looking for a particular used homeschool curriculum. I knew there was a flyer in a bag of freebies- from a HS conference IN MARCH! Ugh, sometimes I'm disgusted with myself.
So, I picked up the bag, sorted through it, found the flyer, looked for the website, and three almost all of the rest AWAY!

I am FREE! Why didn't I do this three or four months ago?

I threw out... maybe twenty flyers, and probably fifteen misc bathroom items. Add 35 to the count!