On Feb. 17, 2021 Lent will begin again. 11 years ago I sought a more meaningful way to enter into the sacrificial season of Lent than just giving up candy. It started a Lenten tradition of trying to live more lightly on planet earth by decluttering my home, my life, and my spirit. A decade […]
Living Lightly
Susan Vogt on living more simply but abundantlyBrowsing Posts in A Drawer A Day
Basements and Garages are natural storage places so this is the likely place to find a lot of things to give away. It’s also likely to take a lot of time to sort through stuff accumulated – possibly over decades if you haven’t moved recently. There are 3 basic kinds of storage items: 1. Seasonal […]
Lent is over but my 2019 Room by Room pruning is not. I’m taking a breather to reflect on what I’ve learned over the past 6 weeks. The photo at right shows much of what I decided to give away but not all of it since some items have already been disbursed, recycled, or trashed. […]
The 6 weeks of Lent are over but I’m not done. Despite my carefully crafted schedule and efforts to catch up at the end – life interfered. Here’s the skinny on the: Dining Room: We have a beautiful built in china cabinet which makes it easy to store misc. dining and decorative items. It also […]
KITCHEN: I spent 5 days deciding what to keep, give away, or relocate from our kitchen, pantry, and nearby cubby holes. Some days I worked for 1 ½ hours since I had the time. Other days I did nothing because I had no discretionary time. Here are the results: Cupboard clean-out: I took all the […]
The past 10 days have included a trip to urgent care, 3 days of company, and a weekend of contra dancing so I pruned my finely tuned schedule instead of stuff. Fortunately 2 of those days were Sundays and the rooms didn’t contain a lot of stuff to give away. LIVING ROOM: Since our furniture […]
BEDROOM #3 (Click on photos to enlarge) Days 10, 11, 12 I thought this bedroom would be easy because I knew I dare not remove any of our daughter’s memorabilia. It hasn’t really been her bedroom since she graduated from college, almost 20 years ago, BUT she had personalized it by painting murals and sayings […]
We’re 9 days into Lent (not counting Sundays) which means according to my master plan I should have spent 4 days pruning our Master Bedroom, 4 days pruning Bedroom #2, and 1 day pruning the upstairs Bathroom. I’m one day behind (the bathroom), but who’s counting. I know curious minds want to know how it’s […]
January 1: As we begin a new year, our hearts turn to resolutions but our practical sides often resist – at least after a feeble try at exercising more, eating healthier, becoming more prayerful, etc. In an effort to serve you better and clear my own life of clutter, I keep up with what professional organizers […]
10 THINGS I LEARNED BY CLEANING OUT A-DRAWER-A-DAY For several years I’ve been trying to make room for what’s important by clearing my home and life of clutter. I’ve given away thousands of items big and small. I’ve delved into the realm of intangibles as I tried to discern what memories, relationships, and feelings were […]
Call me compulsive, but I couldn’t resist at least finishing up the drawers on our first floor. Yes, Lent is over but I knew I had a few more drawers in our hallway and living room and one kitchen cabinet that I hadn’t gotten to in the past 40 days. I thought it would bring […]
This is the last week of Lent and I’m moving to our dining room which has exactly 7 drawers. (I won’t finish all the drawers in our house before Easter, but this will have to do for now because we’re going out of town for Easter. It was a fun room to do because I […]
NOTE: This week’s blog is longer than usual. Skip to the end, LESSONS LEARNED, if you just want the bottom line – though this means you may miss my humor too. 🙂 Lent is a penitential season so I have a confession to make. I haven’t been cleaning out A-Drawer-A-Day. In the interest of saving […]
Now we move to the kitchen which is primarily my husband-the-cook’s domain so I carefully checked potential give-aways with him. The drawers contained the usual kitchen stuff that is found around the sink, dishwasher and stove (utensils, silverware, dishwashing supplies, baking supplies and dishes, and miscellaneous stuff. WEEK 5 RESULTS: 10 Drawers* reviewed (2 of […]
I knew this was going to be a tough week because it involved our upstairs bathroom – especially the closet shelf that held medical supplies. Once a visitor opened the door and said, “Hey, you’ve got a whole pharmacy here!” Now technically this closet isn’t a drawer but it held many things that I knew […]
I’m not sure if I made much progress this week. I finished Bedroom #1 but one of the drawers took me a couple hours to go through. I had forgotten that this was where I stashed old diaries and calendars dating back to my college graduation in 1969. Eventually I decided to keep them since […]
I’m still in my bedroom because we have two extra dressers that serve as storage for gifts, mementos, and children’s clothes that we still have visions of someday passing on to grandchildren. It’s a little embarrassing to admit that I have two dressers worth of extra stuff and a bedroom big enough to hold them. […]
I started my Drawer-A-Day pruning in the logical place – my dresser drawers and night stand. Here are the stats: 5 days 8 drawers (2 of which I skipped – after emptying these drawers I chose to remove nothing.) I used the process described on Ash Wednesday – Empty the drawer and divide the contents […]
Some folk take to living lightly easily. They may have been downsizing and simplifying for quite a while. Maybe this is you. Others, however, feel intimidated by the challenge of letting go of stuff – both clothing and beloved mementos. I often suggest that they start small – perhaps just clean out a drawer. Even […]
