30-30

I didn't know what they were. Did you? Answer at the end of this post.

All this is just Stuff. Stuff I have to have, stuff I've bought from people who probably fished it out of their Grandma's trash can. Stuff I have no idea what to do with but have to have just in case ...

So what is 30-30? It's something to do with Stuff. Grit your teeth and consider this:

You have too much stuff. Too many clothes. 

Too many books (Ackkk!!!).

Too many dishes and kitchen things.

 Too many pencils and pens and old towels and just stuff.

So gather up 30 bags, preferably the small sort you get at the grocery store for vegetables, or those T-shirt bags that everyone hates but they are handy.  Mark them with 30 numbers, beginning with your start date number - for example, if you start today, the first bag is #23, the second #24 and so on, following #31 with #1 as you head into February. You need to have 30 bags for the next 30 days.

Put the bags in a prominent place where you can't ignore them. Each day you pick up the appropriately numbered bag and fill it up with Stuff to either give away, donate, or throw away. For example, on our first day we went through all our miscellaneous junk drawers and put in all the old pens and pencils and highlighters that didn't work. Did we really need 11 pencils in the kitchen drawer?  No, and they didn't fill the sack totally up but that's not the idea. What did happen is that we deliberately took care of eliminating some Stuff. The theory behind the small sack size is that it doesn't seem like such a monumental job to do when it's just one small sack, every day, for 30 days.. If you get to gathering up old clothes to donate you'll probably need a bigger sack but that's OK, it's the action that counts.

Today Susan is filling up the sack with cookbooks she really doesn't use anymore. She's thumbing through them to see if there was one stunning recipe she remembered and she'll make a copy of that. Then the sack goes off to Goodwill.

So is any of the Stuff shown on this post going to go into a 30-30 sack? NOT A CHANCE! These are treasures. Shown above is a very special treasure that was gifted to me by a talented, interesting friend, who now has me thinking about my favorite five (later).

Top picture? Old hair curler rods.