The Mins Game Week 2

 Y'all.  The Mins Game is getting much more difficult, and we're not even halfway through the month.

Based on the fact that no one told me they were playing with me, I figure I'm winning, though, so there's that.

Oh, and I was planning on giving y'all a mini decluttering lesson each week, but tell that to my former self, who did not include a mini lesson in last week's post.  By the way, last week's lesson was supposed to be about the container concept.  Here's an explanation from A Slob Comes Clean, since my former self deprived you of an explanation from me.

For this week's mini lesson, I wanted to talk about how using things up is a completely legitimate way to declutter.  Maybe you bought an ingredient for a recipe that you ended up not making, or you made the recipe but didn't use all of the ingredient.  Maybe you received a free sample of something.  Maybe you have two open jars of salsa in your fridge.  Use it up.  After you use it up, it will be out of your home and out of your life forever.  And that, my friends, is the very definition of decluttering.

Here's how it went this week:

June 8

I decided to start this week working in the living room.  We have had these fitness bands for I do not know how long, and I don't think they have ever been used.  If they have, it was a long time ago.  I did wonder if I would regret getting rid of these, but then I looked up the price on Amazon, and you can get a similar set of bands (but 5, not 4) for under $10.  So I decided to just go ahead and get rid of them, and if I regret it later, I can get some more.  Spoiler alert: I am probably not going to regret it.

Those cars and launchers--I was not going to get rid of them.  It is true that my kiddos are really too old for that kind of thing, but I get a kick out of them, and they're fun to have around.  I decided to test them, to see if they're still as fun as I thought they were.  They were not.  We don't even have a car that fits in the yellow launcher, and the other ones only go about a foot.  They are not, in actuality, fun.  So out they go.  And I even resisted temptation the temptation to count the cars and launchers separately.

June 9

We keep our candles behind some picture frames on our entertainment center.  I kept a couple of candles, but the truth is, we don't really burn candles very much.  Three of these won't light anymore because the wicks are too short, and we don't have (and I'm not certain they make anymore) the scented oil refills for the scented oil thingy.  I don't know.  I just felt like it was time to get rid of these.

June 10

I found this randomness in the remote control basket.  To the trash (and recycling) it goes!

June 11

Yup.  I found more resistance bands in another basket in the living room along with some other random stuff.  Since I had already gotten rid of four, the decision was easy to get rid of these two.  In the kitchen, we had acquired some food that none of us will likely eat (we would eat the wild rice eventually, but we still have about 2 pounds left in an open bag in the cupboard, so we will pass this 1 lb bag on to a food bank).  The tray is the warming tray for our latest electric griddle.  We threw the griddle away last week because its stickiness had become intolerable, but we still had the tray.

June 12

Six skeins of yarn to be passed on to a friend, two decorative flags, two DVDs, and two drawstrings that I don't use.

June 13

A wooden sign, four books to donate, two books to return to schools, a mask, earrings, sample lotion, fingernail stickers, electronics cloth, and hickies.

June 14 

Some paper mask patterns, paperwork pertaining to the child we used to sponsor, mystery shopping receipts from 2018, old coupon inserts, four packages of pencils to be donated to a school. 

Not pictured: three packages of paper napkins, a stack of papers from Bubby's desk top, a stack of papers and trash from Bubby's backpack, a stack of papers and trash from MC's backpack.

So that's 77 items this week, for a total of 105 so far this month.  Not sure if I'm going to last another week.  I'll keep you posted!