The Mins Game conclusion and wrap-up

 Were y'all worried on Tuesday when this post never appeared?  Did you think I abandoned the game and that we were never going to speak of it again?

Well, sorry to disappoint you, because I'm back today with the final post and wrap-up for this series.  Just in case you haven't been paying attention, I invited my readers to play the Mins Game with me in June.  And no one took me up on it, so I win!

June 22

For this week's mini decluttering lesson, I want to talk about one in, one out.  This is the concept that when you bring a new one of something into the house, like, for instance, a hat, or a mug, you should get rid of one of the old somethings that you already had.  Hubby acquired both a new hat and a new mug when he was on an excursion, so he found three hats to let go of, and one mug.

June 23

Is anyone else delighted to be coming to the end of the current mask era?  I mean, now that we're used to wearing them all the time, I don't think they'll go away completely--I think we'll still see them from time to time, during flu season, or perhaps during the next pandemic, but the truth is, at this point, the only place I've been required to wear a mask in the past month or so has been at my doctor's office.  Oh, and the UPS store.  I kept some masks for future--just in case--use, but honestly, these three that I'm letting go, I never ever reached for.  They were never my first choice.  I think I wore each of them out once.

June 24

One thing about this challenge that makes me thankful that I undertook it is that it made me get rid of some things that I had been meaning to get rid of, but hadn't yet, for whatever reason.  I (and Dana, of A Slob Comes Clean) call this procrasticlutter.  Either you've made a decision about it and haven't yet carried out that decision, or you delay making the decision, and in the meantime the pile grows.  These dead CFL bulbs are a great example of that.  And just in case you're wondering where you can get rid of yours, many hardware stores take them for recycling, including Home Depot, which is where I took these.

June 25 & 26

This day I tackled the shelf that's in our garage just outside the door, along with the not-Tahoe.  I found some interesting things, like my husband's debit card that he wasn't even aware he was missing.  Because he wasn't missing it.  Because it was the old one.  But still not expired.  I also found a lot of straight-up trash.  Isn't it amazing how much builds up in our vehicles?

The next day, I went through part of my craft stash and decided I could part with some of my blanks (I kinda feel like if I haven't done anything with them in the three years I've owned them, I'm probably not going to do anything with them, ever), some random scraps, and this empty container of paint.  I saved the empty container because I really liked the color and wanted to remember what it was called.  Turns out, that color had been discontinued, but I still had the empty bottle.

June 27

It was around this time that I decided I needed to stop counting items each day and just declutter what needed decluttering.  The reason I decided to stop counting is that I found myself contemplating getting rid of things just so that I could say I completed the challenge.  Which is completely ridiculous, because I told you from the start that I didn't think I would be able to do it.  And also ridiculous, because if I had just chosen to count some items differently, I more than accomplished the challenge of decluttering 465 items in a month.

Anyway, I went through a bookshelf and found some books, including an old, obsolete textbook, a dictionary, and an almanac, to get rid of, along with some DVDs that we don't watch.  There was some number of items, maybe 27, maybe more, possibly less.  Who knows?  I wasn't counting.

June 28, 29 & 30

I decluttered a few random items that I came across, but decided that I was done.  Yup.  I fizzled out.  And that's ok.

I was going to end with a dramatic shot of all of the stuff in the trunk of the car right before dropping it off at the donation center, but there will be a charity in our neighborhood picking up donations next week, so we're going to go the easy route, and let them come to us.  Maybe I'll take a picture of the stuff at the end of the driveway, but probably not.

In total, I have five boxes, two large garbage bags, and a few loose items, like the vacuum cleaner.  There were also items that left the house in stages, so let's call that another large garbage bag's worth.  Not bad, eh?

And for my next decluttering challenge, I'm going to play all of our games with the fam, and upon completion of the game, have all participants vote on whether or not we want to keep it.