Out with the old in with the new.

"Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful and believe to be beautiful." William Morris.

Reverb10

Prompt for December 11 – 11 Things

"What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?"

I'm pretty much a constant "purger" I don't hoard much, but on the flip side I am somewhat frugal and practical and try not to chuck things "just because". But then it comes to a point when all the things I hold on to look shabby, get worn out, no longer fit and no longer make me happy to see. When I sigh or cringe every time I whip out an old scratched up plate or use a tattered towel, it wears at me, be it ever so slight.

A lot of these things I want to eliminate are going to end up as "projects" take #9 for example, I will most likely sort all my recipe clippings and then decide I want to try a few, or sort and organize by type, or perhaps store in a proper folder. I have to be brutal and recycle like mad .Other things are pretty straight forward elimination and are just costing money / creating mental clutter and / or are not really getting used.

I can go room to room, cupboard to cupboard, closet to closet to spruce things up. Donating, recycling, swapping as appropriate. I feel like these things I want to eliminate are in fact mostly just "things" and will take time and money to weed through and replace. The mental clutter will be the easiest to eliminate, MySpace is a simple account delete, subscriptions can be eliminated as they flow into my inbox- my husband calls it going on an anti-spam campaign.

However, with the case of #1, red meat, it will involve more of a lifestyle change, recipe modification and friend and family wrangling, too.

I don't know how my life will change by eliminating these items, maybe I will be in a better mood, be more confident about having guests over, and feel healthier in body, mind and home.

11. Discontinue Netflix membership

10. Delete My Space Page

9. Old recipes clippings and cookbooks I never use

8. Recycle plastic containers with missing lids

7. Framed art I put on walls because it kinda went with the room at the time, or was put up because I needed to fill a blank space, but doesn't really do much for the room.

6. Subscriptions to e-mail generated newsletters, store advertisements

5. Out of focus pictures, and poor videos on my computer and phone

4. Worn out, ripped, stained and otherwise ugly linens and towels.

3. Mismatched, dinged up and scratched plates, cups, glassware, etc. -

2. Enriched bread products, if a whole grain choice is not available, do without.

1. Red meat

So there it is, I'll check in with this list at the turn of the new year, and I hope to get through most of this list by summer!