little white truths

This was the post I'd intended to write yesterday when I went off on a tangent and talked about recycling household items for children (see here), so I thought I'd better jump on today and do this one before we're too far into the year and it becomes redundant.

You may have heard me say before that I'm not a resolution kind of person - I used to make them when I was younger but soon got over that because I didn't want to save changing bad behaviours and habits for the new year only (which tends to happen) - so for as long as I can remember I've never even thought about them, or if I have, they're more about encouraging the good habits and letting those overtake (but not necessarily wipe out) the ones I would rather leave behind. 

Less pressure and smaller, more organic changes - rather than forcing the issue - tends to work better for me personally. So let's look at the things I'm already doing that I would like to do more of this year and call those resolutions. 

Note also that I did write a separate post on my 2018 panning resolutions: it's here if you're interested.

Without further ado...

Reduce household clutter by 20 per cent

This is something I've already started doing, and I'd like to continue doing it. I'm including absolutely everything in this - from clothes to books to packaging and toys, to nail files that I won't use and dead candle jars that I either need to throw out or clean out so I can use them as glasses.

As you may know, I reduced my makeup collection by something like 30 per cent in 2017 and I'd like to do another 20 per cent this year, bringing me down to no more than 80 products total. With skincare I want to go even harder and reduce what I have by half.

As for everything else in the house, I'm aiming for an average of 20 per cent overall. This extends to everything - clothes, bags, books, scarves, jewelry, you name it - and it includes the kids' stuff too. We don't need the toys they never use and we also don't need all those destroyed books that can't be fixed.

I'm hoping that all this decluttering will encourage Mex to offload some stuff, too: he has so many clothes and shoes that he's currently spread out into cupboards and drawers in three rooms (yep, he has ten times more clothing than I do), so I'd like to see him condense himself into the one room only. All I can do is lead by example.

Eat through the pantry and freezer

This is something I've always been good at because I really hate waste, but with young kids I've not been as good as I've been in the past. I just don't have the time or energy for 'extras' like that.

I don't know about you, but for some reason we always end up with a bunch of stuff in our freezer that stays there for months. Now I can safely blame Mex for this because I always use what I've put in there soon enough, but ever since I've known him, he's had a freezer full of random wedges of cheese, salami, tortillas, stray sausages he's forgotten about... The list could go on.

So for the next few months I'm going to start cracking my whip and make sure that it gets cleared out. We need the freezer space so there's room for other things.

I'm also sure that we have some things stuffed at the back of the pantry that need to get used sooner rather than later, so my aim for January is to go through everything and find a way to use what we have in meals. I usually enjoy the 'what can I do with this?' creative side of cooking, so I'm looking forward to that.

Deal with the packaging

If you read this blog, you may know that I'm a packaging hoarder. I save empty boxes for the kids to use or to use for others' gifts, but it's gotten to the point now where they're overtaking the spare room so it's time to find something to do with them.

Happily that 'something' has appeared. My daughter starts her new kindergarten in two weeks, and we were told at the parent information evening (I can't even believe I've even attended one of those - what's happened to my life?) that the kinder is huge on recycling, so they want us to bring in household items that can be used in arts and crafts.

Yep, it was like I'd come home! All those boxes I've saved, all those empty containers, all those empty makeup compacts that aren't on my shelves because they're not 'pretty' enough but I haven't wanted to throw out - they're all heading for kinder. Probably not in one hit because they'll think I'm nuts (!), but I'll certainly be ferrying off what I have as the months pass.

This in itself is going to create plenty of space in the cupboards - and you know what? Bring on that space. If we have nothing else to fill it, that can only be a good thing.

Sell or donate the old

Mex is the eBay vendor in this house and for the last couple of years, he's been selling things off as the months pass. Whether it's kid-related paraphernalia that we no longer need, jackets and shoes that he's barely used or household items like white-goods that we're replacing, he's been listing them and offloading them when he can.

I'm glad about this for two reasons: first, it means that he's created a (very) small and (very) inconsistent income stream that occasionally helps with new purchases; and second, it's sending more things out of the house than we're bringing in.

While I don't have much that I can add to the pile because I own so little of value, I'm still going to spend the next few months working out what might be sold as I go through the closets.

And for anything that I'm not using or that isn't going to garner much coin, I'll donate it. It has to be done.

Get better at managing our citrus overload

We're lucky enough to have three orange trees, one lemon, one lime and one mandarin tree in our garden (not to mention the apples, peaches and herbs), but the lemon and mandarin trees especially are bursting with so much fruit that it's impossible to use it all - or even to reach the stuff on the upper branches (must buy one of those long scoopers soon).

While I've always been pretty good at passing off the unneeded citrus to family, neighbours and friends, there's still some wastage and I absolutely hate it. One day I'll get back into pickling, preserving and jamming, but for the moment I don't have the time. 

So one of my aims this year is to stop the citrus wastage and make sure that even the stuff on the high branches is picked, used or passed on.

It will be a constant battle, but I'm determined.

Get through the random toiletries and pharmaceuticals 

We can't be the only ones in this situation. Somehow we've accrued a bunch of hotel toiletries (or the toothpastes and skincare kits that get handed out on planes), and they haven't come from us - they're usually from Mum and Dad, who bring them to us after they've returned from a trip. We never use them.

Not only this, but we have so many mini nappy creams, almost-finished tubes of things like Dettol or Canesten (you can't find the old one so you open the new one, but the old one eventually shows up and then sits there gathering dust because you can't be bothered squeezing out the remains but don't want to waste it by throwing it out), or courses of antibiotics that were never finished and have likely expired. All of these need to go.

I've got a bee in my bonnet about this stuff at the moment because I feel like I've been seeing the same almost-dead tubes and unused minis of cheap shampoo for years.

So I'll use the remains of the creams, turf the dead medicines and use the hotel/plane stuff. The shampoo mightn't be good for my hair but it will make decent bubble bath for the kids, and the conditioners make for good shaving creams.

Consider it done.

In sum

That's all from me!

As you'll probably have noted, none of my resolutions are related to losing weight, exercising more, eating better, buying less, taking more time off - the usual things that you might see on one of these lists. The reason for this is that I focused on those kinds of things in my early twenties and they're now (mostly) the way I live anyway.

Oh, but the junk in the house. Somehow having children has made me lose the reigns in that department (I mean obviously, I have so little time to myself that I'm not going to spend it doing any more cleaning or organising than I have to), but I would like to use the first half of this year to gain the ground that I've lost. Otherwise the problem is just going to get worse over time, and as we all know, the bigger the task, the harder it is to start it.

Hope all's well with you, and speak soon x