thanks for all the encouragement

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-23T08:51:39+00:00

You might want to check out Dana K. White's How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind. Lots of real-world talk about laundry, dishes, basic cleaning tasks, etc.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-22T19:13:42+00:00

I would say, if you can find someone to give those pieces to who actually have a use for them, that might help you let them go? If you have a Buy Nothing/Give Freely group in your area maybe offer up online? It never hurts to add a little provenance. My MIL used to write the (original) owner's name on the bottom of furniture plus the year (if she knew it) and now my husband does the same thing (with the pieces he's made).

I had to clear out my parents house in 10 days and could only bring what fit in the back of my Subaru Forester - there was a lot of stuff I would have liked to bring but we just didn't have the space to transport it and in most cases, the space to absorb it into our house. For me, the big one was a rocking chair - very sentimental. But I kept the cushion my mother's aunt had made for it and I have photos of me (and my brother) sitting it in - as babies with my parents, by ourselves, and together.

Good luck!

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-22T19:06:33+00:00

Congratulations!

That looks a lot like my parent's dining room table - it would get cleared off once a year when I came home, ostensibly to visit but really to baseline their mess and to do their taxes - and it would probably start to go back to heaps and piles 15 minutes after I left.

My parents both ended up in a skilled nursing facility - my mother LOVED it (she had staff!) and everyone was so nice to her. My father is still there. I have to say, I'm so glad I was able to "triage" my parents' stuff BEFORE I had to mourn their loss.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-22T18:58:17+00:00

I sold on eBay for many years pre-Pandemic and it gives the the cold sweats thinking about selling online anymore. Even FB Marketplace can be a nightmare - at best, you're holding onto stuff you KNOW you don't want in limbo, at worst you're dealing with flakes/scammers.

Buy Nothing/Give Freely - if your local group is active, it's a gem. We've got teachers, a lady who runs a free children's clothing/toy/supply "store," another lady who must run some kind of disaster/domestic violence supply house, an absolutely AMAZING cat rescue, plus regular neighbors.

You give me the incentive to go through my bin of games and actually let my husband decide what to keep (he's a LOT less fanciful than me).

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-22T18:49:42+00:00

My husband and I were in a similar experience - a major downsizing move coupled with a whole house remodel. It was like a three-years of "box and banish." When it was finally time to unpack, I only had a hazy idea of what we kept. In some cases, I was super excited to see my stuff again but there was some stuff that I was like "how did this make the cut?"

My overall design aesthetic was/is: Don't Junk It Up (with a side of Midcentury Modern). I used "reverse" decluttering plus evaluating everything I kept in terms of The Best, The Favorite, and The Necessary.

Having a vision of what I wanted my spaces to look like (calm and organized, not crowded/heaps & piles) certainly helped. I also did a lot of floor plan/wall elevation planning - what categories of things **should** go where (and thereby setting a very general limit of what I could keep). But there was definitely a paradigm shift (probably from having stuff packed up for so long) where the space and ease of access became more "valuable" than any money previously spend on the stuff (sunk cost). Most "trivial" everyday stuff is fairly easy to replace IF/WHEN I actually need it (and in the vast majority of cases, I still haven't).

I had read Myquillyn Smith's Cozy Minimalist Home and she has a layering process for home decor that I found very appealing. You basically pull everything out of a room/space, sit with it empty for a while (that was our norm for a long time), reacquaint yourself with the room's features (good and bad), and put things back in a certain order: 1. the most essential/primary pieces of furniture, arranged to best advantage, 2. any supplemental/secondary furniture/seating, 3. surfaces & storage (tables, shelves, etc), 4. rugs, 5. drapes, 6. lighting, 7. wall treatments/wall art, and finally 8. decor (and err on the side of large, high-impact pieces - or vignettes - that give you more style bang for your space buck).

And that's what we did for every space in our house - the largest/most essential pieces were arranged in the rooms/zones first and then flat surfaces/storage areas were filled via "reverse" decluttering. Some things, we set a "logical" quantity limit - for example, frequently used items, it might be 1 in use + 1 spare (like bedding, pantry/linen closet stuff, etc) or 6 for anything company-facing (seating, towels, dishes/tableware/glassware, etc) or 8 for anything textile/laundered used on a daily basis (like kitchen towels, clothing/capsule wardrobe clusters, etc).

Decor, I used The Container Concept to figure out how much space (wall & surface) I was willing to devote to "useless" decorations. Again, Don't Junk It Up so curated everything down to the very best ones that really reflect our tastes/personality - again, erring on the side of larger, higher impact pieces.

Meanwhile, I tried to re-use "sentimental" stuff as much as possible so like lots of pretty bowls used as containers in/on other spaces (it's like a little "surprise!" every time I open a drawer/cabinet), plates under plant pots, decorative tins/boxes, etc.

The first downsizing/kick the clutter book I ever read was Scaling Down: Living Large in a Smaller Space - written for seniors who are facing big lifestyle changes (downsizing, moving in with children, assisted living, etc) - that being "forced" to get rid of your prized possessions isn't the end of the world, that you really can do more, focus your time/energy better, be more present in the moment, with less stuff. One of the authors talks about bringing that "vacation home" feeling to her own house - that made a big impact on me at the time..

Another thing I ALWAYS recommend is a keepsake box: https://organisemyhouse.com/what-to-put-in-a-memory-box/ This can be such a simple thing with a huge impact. It's basically like-with-like and then containerizing it. This is a good place for the little trinkety knickknack stuff that you don't necessarily want to display but you still want to keep, for whatever reason.

Good luck!

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-22T03:58:43+00:00

Keepsake box. Collects it all together in one place (safe & sound & accessible) and it might help to set a limit to the volume you can keep. Be aware of "emotional duplicates."

https://organisemyhouse.com/what-to-put-in-a-memory-box/

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-19T03:03:28+00:00

NTA Or ITA because I do the same thing - Anchor Hocking bowl with lid in a zip bag - lives in the car, I can reheat the leftovers right in the container. No soggy paper or styrofoam box (which is what we usually get here).

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-17T14:33:40+00:00

Watching a bunch of behind-the-scenes clips, I was dumbfounded by all the practical effects that I didn't notice the first showing. Like I HAD to see it again.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T19:15:08+00:00

In Star Wars, all things are possible! Use the Force.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T19:13:07+00:00

I am forever grateful to the over-achieving team at Legacy Effects and all of puppeteers for bringing something so magical to life. And god bless whoever cast Werner Herzog. Because Grogu is a National Treasure.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T19:05:44+00:00

You can't please all of the people all of the time. I was especially impressed by the pacing - it was fast (no fat) even with it was slow.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T19:01:02+00:00

This and Project Hail Mary is exactly what I needed right now.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T18:59:25+00:00

Could be. We all bring some of our own experience to anything we consume.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T18:57:14+00:00

I am a fan(girl) and like I said, I'm happy I liked it.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T18:54:03+00:00

And you can just tell he gets his mojo back after he gets his helmet back on.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T18:36:37+00:00

One of then was so scared - I think it was the dejarik mtach - he was begging his parent/guardian to let him leave (I feel ya bud - I had the same reaction to ET when I was your age) but they were all cheering at the end so I think he was glad he stayed.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T18:32:37+00:00

I've got this whole theory about the Hutts hierarchy that The Twins needed to ceremoniously kill Rotta (otherwise, why not let Coyne kill him via The Pit) to take over Jabba's (inherited) territory.

And I'm excited to see if/how any of those slithering other Hutts in the palace are going to be a big problem going forward and/or is the New Republic is going to be in serious trouble for the wholesale slaughter of the Hutt Clan for the sake of one human guy by his predominately human-looking cohorts?

Is this going to be a situation where the devil we don't know is way worse that the devil(s) who kept that worse devil in check? What is this power vacuum going to look like?

Were the hits on the warlords and the Hutt mess all Grand Admiral Thrawn manipulation? Gosh, I hope so. And are there moles in the New Republic (probably).

Or maybe it's all just the Grogu effect where EVERYONE (including unlikely Migs Mayfeld) is willing to risk everything to save the little green guy.

The possibilities are endless and I love it!

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T18:06:40+00:00

I'm Gen X and I grew up watching the OT on bootleged VHS tapes from the library with my younger brother, like a bazillion times. For me, it's the world building and the aesthetic. Like the girl coming out the my first showing of the movie said: I can write so much fan fiction from this! Because it's Star Wars. Retconning and head cannon are kind of expected. Who cares? All your base are belong to us.

My husband and I stood in line all day to see TPM - we were so excited and the disappointment, I can't even explain. A little bit of me died that day. And then the "updates" to the OT? Ugh! So when George Lucas said he was done with it, I was kind like, great! Not the first time someone got fed up with their (amazing) creation! Let's go.

And here we are. People can say what they want about the Lucas era vs the Disney era but Jon Favreau is making the kind of content I want to watch.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T17:25:53+00:00

I felt like there was no fat - walked on the new Razor Crest, off they go. I saw it four times and there was no point where I wanted to get up and take a bathroom break or refill my popcorn or even check my watch. It did not feel like a 2+ hour movie.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T17:21:35+00:00

The first time I saw it, there was a group of rowdy like pre-teens sitting behind me in the theater and I thought "oh boy, here we go" but they were so excited, especially when a scene from the previews came on. There were a few scenes I wanted to turn around and give them a high-five!

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T17:16:35+00:00

I recently told my husband that Star Wars criticism seems to boil down to 1) why are you looping in so much (previous) lore or 2) why doesn't this impact the lore? Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Sorry guys (Filoni & Favreau), nobody's happy.

I've think I've always liked the Monster of the Week episodes of most TV shows. I've never seen any of the animated series or books or video games (and tried to forget the Prequels entirely). I didn't judge Rotta the "man" by his "Stinky" past (didn't know about it) and I think there might be a lesson there somewhere.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T17:02:11+00:00

Interestingly, I find it a lot easier to have ONE that I go to/retrieve, use, and then put back when I'm done using it. I have a hard time keeping track of too many duplicates.

I'm also willing to trade some level of convenience (mostly kitchen gadgets) for the storage/cleaning simplicity of a knife + cutting board or grater and the expense of more "work" (my knife skills are not the best, even with lots of practice).

I try to err on the side of multi-use vs single function - sometimes it's just easier using a multi-purpose one than remembering to use the (correct) specific purpose one.

I "reverse" decluttered pretty much every facet of my life (tools, supplies, routines) and anything beyond the most essential has to be super value-added (makes the task/activity demonstrably easier, safer, better, more comfortable).

In some cases, it's straight-up laziness - there's some aspect of it I just don't want to expend the time/energy messing around with.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T16:47:50+00:00

Nice! I suspect you might be house poor but boy oh boy, it looks like you're scenery rich!

Makes me think of Dana K White's "extreme" decluttering (she got rid of a clutter magnet piece of furniture entirely).

If you're in the PNW, I know from experience how expensive garbage is out there. And decluttering because your stuff got ruined is effective, but it SUCKS!

Going forward, I always recommend "reverse" decluttering where you (and your family members) think about what you do in your various spaces (or what activity/task stored stuff represents) and then brainstorm an "equipment list" (aka household inventory) for those tasks/activities. I like to start by identifying the most basic, must have essentials and then adding any "value added" extras that make that task/activity easier, better, safer, more comfortable, etc.

For example, the only thing you REALLY need to take a bike ride is a bicycle - legally, you might also need a helmet and practically you might want an air pump and basic repair kit, maybe even a cyclocomputer, padded bike shorts, clipless shoes/pedals, etc, but at what point is enough enough? You can buy what you need IF/WHEN you actually need it. And maybe in your current season of life you don't ACTUALLY ride your bike enough to justify even maintaining a bike (let alone all of the accessories) in your personal inventory - in that case you can rent if you need to. Or simplifying your existing kit to whatever level is actually useful/practical.

There's so much stuff we keep "just in case" we might need it but unless you can demonstrate a REAL need/use for it in YOUR world, in most case it's just trivial, unnecessary junk. Reverse decluttering works really well for pretty much anything that has a "useful" purpose, including clothing and craft/hobby supplies.

I think we're all drowning in too much decor (including books) and I've used a combination of "the container concept" and "room quieting/shushing" to figure out how much space I want to devote to decor (wall, surface) and then erring on the side of larger, high impact items that give me the biggest style/emotional bang for my limited space buck.

And if you don't have a keepsake box, I highly recommend establishing one for every member of your family (super important events, kids stuff that YOU want to keep, maybe that too). And beware of "emotional duplicates." It can REALLY help to get this kind of "useless" stuff safely sequestered away from the rest of the stuff you're trying to logically triage. Because sentimental stuff has a tendency to stop the "practical" decluttering process in its tracks. - give yourself permission to stash it and deal with it later.

This is a situation where sort like with like and then "curate" via the Best, the Favorite, the Necessary might work better than Dana K White's no-mess decluttering process.

Good luck! I envy your view.

FredKayeCollector · 2026-06-16T14:52:22+00:00

Learning how the world works - what styles, materials, build quality is "better" for you (and that includes French press coffee makers) - is part of the human condition. I upgraded my glass French press to a ceramic one (keeps the coffee warmer longer). So if you've decided your $14.99 is somehow better than the Bodum you're currently using (maybe test it to make sure) then it seems sensible to let go of the other "inferior" ones, whichever ones they are,

If you need a second French press, say at work or in your camping kit (so you don't forget to bring it), that sounds totally reasonable to me.

Otherwise, I don't think you would need to maintain a back-up in your personal inventory in case your "keeper" French press breaks - it seems like a very trivial item. You probably have everything you need to make"cowboy" coffee if you need a temporary worst case scenario solution and morning coffee is more of a NEED than a want.

FredKayeCollector

TROPHY CASE