06 March 2015

Update on what's been leaving

I meant to post an update on the Minimalism Game every week, and of course that didn't happen.  I did keep going strongly after the first week.  I need to finish totaling up everything, but so far recorded:
  • 278 items to the thrift stores
  • 35 lbs of fabric sold on Craigslist
  • Three household items on Craigslist that will go to the thrift store if they do not sell
  • Three soap kits that I'll donate to some homeschooling friends if they don't sell on Craigslist (and which I count as one item because they are listed together)
  • Six bags of paper and non-redistributable magazines (mostly old, boring professional ones) to recycling
  • Three bags of magazines offered on Freecycle (and which will be recycled if they don't find a new home soon!)
  • Four items rehomed to others (a huge ball of cotton yarn to a friend who makes facecloths for the New Start Washcloth Project; a wooden box of soaps from England to another friend; a Scottish wool sweater to a male friend who fits it better than I do - it's a bigger medium than I apparently need; and a can of Tazo "Calm" tea to the dance mistress of a show I did at the beginning of the month, that I'd been given but I cannot tolerate chamomile)
  • A Lantern Moon tote bag to the raffles at DFW Fiber Fest
  • Two cartons of paper items to be shredded (one box was 13" high and I forgot to measure the other - the friends who inspired that decided each inch of paper counts as a "thing")
  • 37 items into the trash
If you are counting, that's only 381 items and not 406, because I didn't count the magazines separately and only have one measurement of inches of paper being shredded, and I didn't count the extras that I put into the lot of soap kits.  Plus, I think I have not finished counting items because there's a pile on the guest room bed......


Now some people are doing a "one bag for every day of Lent" thing, and I'm not ready to enter into that, but will keep it in mind.  I suppose you can always pick a month to do "a bag a day" and see what you can discard.

In other news - I've made a couple-three scarves to take to my friend whose church gives them to The Samaritan Inn.  Some people have talked about attaching scarves and hats and such to fences or trees in low-income neighborhoods and near shelters for people who need them, but it hasn't happened in Hartford to my knowledge.  I've also done four pink-and-purple cat hats for a friend's daughters and nieces (a commission project!) and a hat for her SIL (that I promised to make less pointy on top), al in reflective yarn because the SIL thinks they need to wear lots of reflective gear when walking home from services at night.  My friend thinks these are a bit more chic than the construction workers' vests her SIL distributes.