The Reversed 100 challenge 1-10.

I was watching hoarders so I decided I should work on my reversed 100 challenge.
 

Within the last year I went through a minimalizing kick. Just this past spring I am sure I got rid of at least 100 items,  which is making this go around a bit harder. 
 
That being said, it is only a month into the challenge year. I also found once I got started again, it was oddly easy to get rid of a lot. So I decided to group things and count them as one so as to not make the challenge too easy for myself.

1. My first item was easy.  My not so great food processor. We received a new food processor/ blender for the wedding so getting rid off the malfunctioning food processor seems like a no brainer. However, I keep not getting rid of it because I do not know how to properly dispose of it! It works like 1 out of 10 times so I don't think it's worth donating it.  There are no clear rules about small appliance diposal in Gloucester.  So I keep putting it on the counter until I figure it out. 

2. The Twilight Saga. I got sucked in and bought the books and then shared with a group of friends.  I have no intention of reading these books again. So adios! 

3. Earrings. Someone gave me these. They are cute, but, I can't wear fake earrings without developing a rash. My dad's girlfriend liked them.  Done and done! 

4. Towels.  We have an excessive amount and these are falling apart. Animal shelters are always looking for towels so that gave me the motivation to get rid of these I might otherwise have held on to for junk towels for drying off wet dogs or for cleaning. 

5. All of my old CDs! (If I counted these all individually this could have easily been my 100 things right there.) Based on the "Have you used this in the last year" rule, these should have been disposed of years ago! I already have all of the music backed up on my computer and eternal hard drive so really it is rather unlikely I will need the physical CDs. But, similar to the food processor, I was not sure the best way to dispose of them. Plus knowing how many hundreds of dollars were spent on those over the years made me feel guilty about just tossing them. My dad's girlfriend has a jukebox and is always trading in old records so I figured I would give her the CDs to see if she can get something useful that she would use. My phone was dead when I was giving these a way so I unfortunately could not snap a picture- but I assure you, it was an impressive pile from Back Street Boys and Brittany Spears, Korn and Static X, to Ziggy Marley and The Celtic Classics. I had the gamut!

6. A few cookbooks. I love food and cooking, and so people frequently give me cookbooks for gifts which is very thoughtful and I do appreciate it, however, I rarely ever use cook books. I hate flipping through them to find recipes and then try to keep the open and get food all over them when I cook. I generally either make up recipes or look online. I do have a few physical cookbooks I really like and use a lot or other ones that I keep for references, but overall I do not need nearly as many as I have filling up the book shelf. 

7. Outdated manuals. I don't know why I felt the need to hold on to all of the paper work and instructions from my first laptop or my cell phone that I have not had for over 5 years, but I think I can safety get rid of these things.   

8. Automatic Jar Opener. I will admit this is a pretty sweet device. It had been my 85 year old grandmother's for when her arthritic hands could no longer open jars. When she passed away and no one wanted it, it seemed to have wound up in my old bedroom. It is very useful, especially for anyone who is older or had any hand issues. However, I do not really need it, nor do I have room in my tiny kitchen to store it. It obviously was not doing anyone good sitting in the closet of my childhood bedroom. I tried giving it away to several people I thought could benefit from it but in the end it would up in the garage sale pile.

 

9. Old coats. This one was kind of cheating because it was not necessarily my stuff, but my father has been stating for YEARS that he was going to clean out the closet in our mud room, which was namely filled with my mothers old coats (there was literally a trash bag full) that she had left there when they got a divorce. Similar to the jar opener, they were nice coats, but obviously she was not wearing any of these coats at her old house and no one else was using them so I packed them up and dropped them off at her house for her perusal, which presumably will be donated.

10. Clothes.  Again, I am sure if i added up all of the clothes I donate throughout the year that would likely be close to the 100 items, so I am compiling this one donation bag as one item. I would like to mention, that I rarely buy clothes. I like to buy work out clothes and sneakers and that is about it. I seem to inherit most of my clothes from my mother and sister. We are all roughly the same size and they enjoy shopping. My sister is the type that buys nice things, but does not like being seen wearing the same thing too many times, so once that occurs she passes it off to someone else. My mother, is a bit of a recovering shop-a-holic. She tends to give me things she bought years ago that still have tags on them. 

Miss Minimalist outlines that one of the important steps to being a good minimalist is to be a good gatekeeper, which I will admit I am terrible about. I am generally not motivated to try things on when I am offered them so I just take them home, and then deal with them from there. Or, it it fits I will take it, even if I am unlikely to wear it. 

Like most people I am always worried about the "What ifs." For example, I probably own about 10 pairs of high heeled shoes. I have probably worn high heels maybe 5 times in the past year. But I keep them because I might need them. Right now I wear scrubs and sneakers to work, so I do not need many fancy outfits or dress shoes. I have bad feet (status post bunionectomy) so I have trouble wearing cute shoes in general.

So I am now 1/10th of the way done with my reversed 100 challenge! I look forward to continue minimalizing but I know one of the big things will be to stop letting more things come into the house!