Day 20 - Wire Shelves & Kitchen Misc.

1. Giant peroxide bottle. I was able to pour contents into two other, smaller bottles in my bathroom and first aid kid.
2. Baby doll diaper with ripped tabs so it doesn't stay on
3. Broken kitchen shears
4. Crown lid to princess chapstick
5. & 6. Cricut Mermaids saved and enjoyed from a birthday invitation
7. Kid scissors that don't cut
8. & 9. Hello Kitty postcards that DD#3 scribbled all over
10. to 16. Butterly window clings that were on the window for 5 months and are totally faded.
17. to 26. Pictured below. Wire racks & baskets given to a neighbor looking for storage solutions. It worked out perfectly because I was looking to get rid of this!




Katie

Day 19 - Baby's Room

1. to 3. Size 2 nipples for bottles
4. to 6. Size 3 nipples for bottles
7. & 8. Large avent bottles
9. to 11. Small avent bottles
12. & 13. avent bottle lids
14. & 15. souvenir cups the girls got at Disneyland a year ago
16. Dried flowers from birth of DD#3. Love them, just not pratical to keep them.
17. & 18. avent pacifiers
19. to 26. seashells

I sorted through some of the 'baby' drawers in the younger girls' room and found much I could part with. I should have counted the individual parts of the bottles, but that's OK. It'll make up for when I miss one here and there.

Katie

Day 18 - Periodicals & Medications

1. to 9. Weekly magazine
10. to 13. Sunday papers, and now a new rule that the paper gets recycle Monday night even if I haven't had a chance to read it.
14. & 15. Shoes that aren't too comfy
16. Weight Watchers magazine
17. to 26. Expired medications, mostly from the hospitals stays with my babies. The alka-seltzer had a 2002 expiration!

Katie

Day 17 - Paper Products

1. DD#1's dollar store baton that broke, leaked liquid, and stained the carpet. Grrrr.
2. Kitchen timer that still works, mostly, but falls apart all the time.
3. Kid sunglasses, broken
4. Child's book
5. Miniature flower basket
6. My Little Pony bracelet
7. Tall birthday candles
8. Marker with no tip
9. Easter napkins
10. Birthday napkins
11. to 16. Plastic containers without lids
17. to 23. Styrofoam cups (yuck!)
24. Broken cabinet girls used for Barbie wardrobe. Don't want to fix it.
25. Red paper plates, napkins, & plasticware
25. Birthday plates & napkins

We had a big party and I searched through my paper products bin. I found lots of things I didn't need including the stuff in the photo. But I still have a lot I'm not ready to toss out yet . . . maybe by the end of ProjectTwentySix.

Katie

Before Pictures - Basement Catch-All

Today I decided to show you what my basement looked like as this project started. It's messy. It's dirty. It's more than a little embarrassing. It still mostly looks like this, but it WILL look completely different 11 months from now!

This view is toward the stairs. There is stuff piled on the stairs - mostly like dressup items that come upstairs and in my haste just toss back down the stairs. The dressup chest is just to the left of the steps. On the right is our Playmobile house up on a table with a million little pieces. On the left is the Barbie castle and barbie tub and our giant TV we don't use.


Looking at the TV, you can see we use the shelves and cabinet to pile stuff up and store VHS tapes. On the right is a closet door to a great, long closet that runs under the whole length of stairs. It is full of boxes, packaging materials and things the I hope(d?) to one day sell on ebay. ProjectTwentySix will get those gone, either donated or sold eventually.

Next, you can see part of DH's movie collection. We are 85% VHS. DH doesn't see why we should replace with DVDs because technology is already past DVDs with digital copies becoming more and more available. He also likes that the kids can't ruin VHS tapes without real effort. DVDs get scratched and broken easily. These are both great points, and I shouldn't complain about a husband hobby that costs $.50 a few times a month! I do feel like this collection takes a lot of space though and it's more "stuff" that entraps us.

This is the view into the other side of our basement. Scary, huh? This used to be our office. A water leak two years ago made us move nearly everything upstairs and it's become a dumping spot for little used office supplies, old papers, and clearly, construction debris. See all the insulation? How about the 2x4s? Does anybody want some free firewood? I'll even cut it up for you if you want to come and get it. On the left is DH's old desk.

This is from the other side of the old office. You can see the desk much more clearly. I don't know yet if we'll get that upstairs into the new office (old formal dining room) or if we'll just hire a carpenter to make a built-in for us. Is resale better in a 5 bedroom house with a really nice office or a formal dining room?
You can also see another section of the VHS collection. On the left you can see the top edge of another bookshelf. That shelf is also full of VHS tapes.

This is looking into the big closet in that old office. The DIP sign came into the marriage with DH. Does anyone know an appropriate way to dispose of a sign like that? I don't think we're supposed to have it . . .
Those boxes and binders on the shelves are old magazines, DH's art student projects from Digipen, my old Babysitter's Club book collection, and sadly, several boxes that call for exploration and one that hasn't even been opened since we bought our first house over 7 years ago.

Finally, we have giant bags of construction debris. Those are mostly full of sheetrock and insulation. On the left edge of the picture you can see a giant rock that came out of our crawl space and a bit of a fax machine. Has anyone or anyone you know used a fax machine lately? Us either.



Please share any thoughts. I can take it!

Katie

Day 16 - Makeup Graveyard & Crafts

1. to 5. Spiral wires I had saved for art projects that just aren't worth the hassle.
6. 9 year old foundation
7. 9 year old nail polish
8. At Least 9-year-old pressed powder
9. Eye shadow liquid - too much mess
10. 11-year-old lipstick tube - empty (why was I saving this?)
11. Rainbow Princess DD#2 colored. She would be crushed to see it here as part of ProjectTwentySix.
12. to 17. Nail files with no courseness left or even broken.
18. Empty glitter blue tube
19. to 23. More fake flowers
24. Freebie bracelet
25. Prize ribbon
26. Kid socks

I can't believe I had such old makeup! And there will be more in the weeks to come because really, I only wear the same stuff every day (if I manage to get it on) so there's no reason to keep all the others.

Katie

Day 15 - Fake Flowers

This collection of flowers was a ProjectTwentySix casualty waiting to happen. We had a big party and our girls wanted to welcome our guests in a special way. They littered the driveway with many of these fake flowers from one of their flower girl baskets. The wedding was 16 months ago and these baskets have been hanging out in the dress up box. After the party I gathered these up and tucked them back into the basket not wanting to make the girls give these up just yet. But the next day Ed must have had to pick them up, too because they were in a little pile on our bed - the place we quietly collect our 26 items each day - Daddy says sayonara little flowers.

Katie

Day 14 - CD Player, Kid Shoes

1. to 5. Birthday cards
6. A Jehovah's Witness bible/literature
7. A City newletter I'd set aside to read
8. CD Player the kids destroyed - highly irritating to this mama
9 & 10. Colored pencils
11. to 13. Empty/dried up glitter pens
14. Yet another kid hairbrush
15. & 16. Headbands I don't like
17. Stuffed dog (1 of 4)
18 & 19. Water shoes too small for intended kiddo - new & good for consignment
20 to 23. Outgrown sandals
24. Sundress
25. Instructions for something
26. A barbie playing card
27. A kitchen toy

Whoops! TwentySEVEN today. Oh well.

Katie

Day 13 - College T-shirts

1. to 4. Wrapping paper from one of the girls' baby showers. This is the second batch.
5. to 14. T-shirts from a stack in the closet. Mostly from my university and I was able to pass them along to a current student there. One was a shirt I tye-dyed for spirit week back in high school!
15. & 16. Little notebooks that I am forever finding scribbled pieces of and are often on the floor.
17. Stained washcloth
18. Princess 'make-up' bag. Gets fought over and has no real purpose.
19. & 20. Pencils grips - just a mess maker
21. Crocheted flower brooch
22. Empty chapstick tube
23. Airplane kit - a fun party favor, but only one left and the girls will fight over it.
24. to 26. "Mister" books. Very long to read and sometimes the characters aren't very nice. Girls almost never ask for these to be read aloud.

A big thank you to a couple of friends at church yesterday who told me they are following this blog. It's so nice to know somebody is out there!

Katie

Day 12 - Baby Clothes & Toys

1. A math book I thought was really fun but the kids didn't dig it.
2. A completely painted paint-with-water book - why was I keeping this?
3. A card from one of the girls covered in stickers
4. A toy mirror
5. Princess purse - too small for productive use and often causes a fight with company.
6. A sippy cup DD#4 didn't like
7. A sanitized nipple from the hospital - under my bed for at least a year, but possibly longer if it was from DD#3 instead of DD#4.
8. Gift Bow - A kid got into the gift wrap cupboard
9. A Barbie decoration leftover from DD#4's 4th birthday. She's 6 now.
10. to 26. Clothes - mostly baby clothes including white onesies that have been through 4 kids now and won't even bleach clean. I am so happy to throw these in the textile recycling!

Katie

Day 11 - Baby Clothes and Red Shoes

1.Red, Patent Leather shoes - I love these, but the soles keep coming loose and I've re-glued them for each of the 3 older girls. They're also really slippery and DD#3 took too many splats on the tile floor for me to justify keeping them for DD#4.
2. Rubbery bracelet freebie
3. Broken costume beads
4. One of my favorite coasters! It broke and I glued it and the next day it got broken even further. I actually cried. It was an unusually emotional day! I decided to let it go.
5. Hello Kitty hairbrush. We have many, many child-size hairbrushes that we don't use to fix hair.
6. Baby headband
7. to 26. Lots of size 12 month clothes

No guilt today.

Katie

Friday Q& A: Where's this all going?

I've been lots of questions about what I'm doing with all these things I'm discarding. A great question that I always love to answer.

1. Trash - Some things just go straight into the trash/everyday recycle. Broken things, kid art projects, etc. Stuff no one else would want.

2. Donate to Thrift Stores - Lots of this stuff will get donated to my thrift store before the end of the year. I also like to take a bag to Value Village for the 30% off coupon when I plan a shopping trip there.

3. Textile Recycling - I love to drop stuff off for textile recycling! I use a ReTex bin near my house and am so happy I don't have to throw away stained things the thrift store can't sell! I also feel so much less guilt about not working at getting a stain out. I can just recycle it.

4. City Recycle Event - Lots of electronics and construction debris end up getting taken to our city's semiannual recycle event. They take anything that plugs in and a whole lot of other stuff. I've even taken prescription drugs there because I don't want to spend the time properly disposing of them myself.

5. Given Away - Just yesterday I took four boxes of baby items to my MOPS group to give away. I just love to share the 'wealth' with these ladies who are earlier on in their mothering journey. I also have given some baby gear to the nursery at church. And pretty much when I hear someone needs something I have it and I love to help.

6. Consignment - Some stuff will end up at the consignment shop. I don't want to store things all winter long for a garage sale so I usually take a lot to consignment until about March when I start collecting for a summer garage sale.

7. Garage Sale Pile - Due to this project I am planning to donate everything left after the garage sale. I also absolutely, under no circumstance, can bring anything that is in the garage sale pile back into the house. Period.

That about sums it up so far. We'll see where else our ex-belongings end up . . .

Katie

Day 10 - Baby Toys

1. Leapfrog book cartridge - we have never had a leapfrog book
2. Singing duck whose battery has died and no way to replace it
3. Bunny rattle
4. Bunny plush
5. Another bunny plush
6. Chick plush
7. to 26. Linking rings - so great for the last 3 babies, but we just don't need them anymore.

Several of these items were gifts and it's so hard for me to post a picture and share that we're getting rid of them. It's almost like a confession and I have to fight feeling guilty. But that's the whole point, right? And it's one of the goals of ProjectTwentySix - to be truly thankful and appreciative of gifts without keeping the gift forever.

*sigh*

Katie

Day 9 - Sock Basket

1. to 5. Five pairs of baby socks
6. to 11. Flower stems from flower girl basket
12. to 26. Unmated socks that have been lingering in the sock basket way too long.

Katie

Day 8 - Miscellanous

I am realizing I should try and group my discards to allow for a title that's not 'miscellanous.' Look for that in a few weeks as I have a few weeks worth of photos stored up. 1. A free frisbee from Salmon Days two years ago
2. to 4. Pieces of party favor airplanes that were enjoyed and exhausted
5. to 12. Pictures DD#2 drew for me and I saved for awhile. But I can't save everything!
13. & 14. Baby sandals
15. A VBS treasure bag
16. A VBS treasure chest
17. Another food tray claimed by DD#1
18. & 19. Pedicure/Foot lotion socks
20. Solo sock
21. Kid tights with a hole - headed for textile recycling
22. to 24. Kitchen washcloths for baby faces too stained to keep - also headed to textile recycling
25. & 26. Two glow-in-the-dark bracelets whose glow has worn off

I am so glad my kiddos haven't seen these pictures! I think their little hearts would be so sad to see me getting rid of VBS treasures and sweet little gifts of art. These things are just the ones that are laying around making clutter and are easy to grab. Wait until I get to the office/craft room!

Katie

Day 7 - Misc.

1. A flower girl basket
2. The green foam the fake flowers were stuck in
3. Green foam and flowers from the other basket (wherever it is)
4. to 9. Flower stems
10. to 14. Toy tools
15. & 16. Two sticker storybooks that I am constantly picking up pieces of
17. The last Blue's Clues book
18. Watch I have never worn
19. Baby-size bracelet we just don't use because it's not practical or very safe to put a bracelet on a baby.
20. The lid to something
21. Bath dissolving-things I use very, very rarely
22. Another food tray labeled by DD#1
23. A princess hairbrush - one of many
24. Winnie the Pooh toy
25. A Hello Kitty notepad that I am constantly picking up and has been mostly scribbled on.
26. A paint-by-number guide one of the older girls got for Christmas last year, but is still too young to execute.

Lots of kiddo stuff today, but their stuff is so much easier to part with! There's lots of it and I hate to pick it up, too. I'm sure there will be some of my things soon enough.

Katie

Day 6 - Digital Camera among other things

1. to 8. These are little serving trays DD#1 wrote her name in and I can't use them at a party or anything so they're just collecting dust.
9. & 10. Paintbrushes that I keep tripping over.
11. & 12. Random toys that don't belong to a set.
13. Kid art project
14. A blank immunization record. I just rely on the pediatrician for this
15. A package of face puffs (I think)
16. & 17. Worn out shoes destined for textile recycling
18. Magazine I kept to read, but now is just taking up space
19. to 25. Kitchen "baby" washcloths that are only for faces. Totally stained and added to our bag of textile recycling.
26. Digital Camera - set in the pile of electronics in the garage waiting for our city's recycle event where they take anything that plugs in.

Katie

Day 5 - Miscellanous

This assortment of random items has been piling up next to my bed. It's becoming a little hidey-hole for things destined for Project Twentysix that we don't want the kids to see.

1. VBS T-shirt kiddo won't wear again
2. Maternity top found in summer clothes
3. Baby toy - rattle
4. Baby toy - light up turtle
5. Book - Junie B. Jones duplicate copy
6. Styrofoam "pearl" from VBS pirate treasure chest
7. Acorn squash that sat on my kitchen counter for a month. Seriously, if I haven't used it in a month it just needs to be gone.
8. & 9. Baby Bjorn carriers
10. & 11. Coffee Filter Snowflakes one of the kids made
12. VHS tape of 'Weird Science' - a gift I'm finally mailing
13. to 18. TOPPS baseball cards - also a gift I'm finally mailing
19. to 25. Combs
26. Rubber Bands - this bag has been sitting in the sun and the bands break when stretched at all. Why have they been sitting on my desk driving me crazy every time I need a rubber band? Because I am convinced there are some usable bands in there. However, now I don't care to waste my time finding them. Out they go.

Katie

Day 4 - Cassette Tapes

I found a full plastic bin under the bed today. All of these blasts from the past were inside. 22 are sermons; 4 are music. We're going ahead and tossing them because these days we can just download what we want to listen to.

Katie

Day 3 - ByeBye Blue's Clues

1. The sippy cup the baby hated
2. A rattle that's been hanging around since DD#1.
3. to 9. Hangers that don't match the rest - I know, I know
10. Nearly empty bubbles not worth the hassle
11. Party favor the kids fight over and I have to assist in blowing up
12. VBS craft (pirate telescope) that was fun for DD#1 for a few weeks, but we don't need to save it forever.
13. A hair clip/claw thing no one uses
14. to 26. Blue's Clues books that basically drive me crazy because each one ends with a craft idea for the kids to do with parents and my kids beg me to do the craft. Usually I don't even have the "around the house" supplies required. There's one last book in this set floating around here somewhere, and I WILL find it and make it disappear, too.

Katie

Why 26?

I think I'll try to answer questions and have a little narrative on Fridays.

For today's installment I'll answer the question that 95% of folks have asked when hearing about Project TwentySix: "Why 26?"

Answer: Several years back I went to the home of a friend and fellow mommy. Her name is Mindy and her home was spotless. Really. Not a loose paper or wayward toy in sight. I naturally asked her how such a thing was possible. Her response was a casual "Oh, I throw out 26 things a day." My response was a jaw-dropping, "What?!" These were the days of hubby working hard at two and sometimes three jobs while I waitressed on Saturday nights. We had two very small children on a very tight budget. I couldn't imagine throwing anything away at that point because somehow stuff made me feel more secure.

Anyway, back to Mindy. She explained that when she brought the mail in or brought the kids home from school the first thing she did was toss papers out. No extra papers floating around, period. Usually this was between 15 and 20 pieces of paper and it wasn't too hard to find a few more things in the bottom of the toybox or wherever. I was impressed.

I took the idea home and for awhile threw out 16 things a day. I thought she had said 16. Later a mutual friend saw my 'chore chart' and said something like "Oh, Mindy does that, too. But she does 26 things a day."

"Really?" I don't know which one is right, but this mama brain can't always trust its memory so we're going with 26.

If Mindy ever hears of this project, I'm sure she can tell the true story. Regardless, I've committed to 26. The website name is purchased so I'm stuck with it. I like the three syllables better anyway.

Katie

Day 2 - Mostly Baby Clothes

1. Book - Iacoca autobiography
2. Book - Cupcake decorating
3. Book - Something about "What THEY Don't Want You to Know" about food
4. Book - More of "What THEY Don't Want You to Know"
5. to 10. - Wrapping paper saved from one of the girls' baby showers. I intended to line their dresser drawers with it but if it hasn't happened in 6, almost 5, and 2 years I probably won't get around to it. Plus they've swapped dressers around several times which kind of defeats the purpose.
11. & 12. - Worn out undies for textile recycling
13. Sunhat
14. to 22. - Clothes the baby has outgrown
23. to 26. - Socks I don't like to wear because they're too tight or too short

There you have it.

Katie

Day 1 - Many Magazines

For my first installment I am discarding all of these magazines. There are 26 in all and most of them are Parents magazine dating back to October 2009. These are all unread and for the most part not even opened. I had to add a few Family Circle to total 26.

I still have over 40 other periodicals by my bed. Those are Better Homes and Gardens, Real Simple, Disney Family Fun, and more Family Circle. I'm just not ready to part with them yet. But I pretty much think Parents is lame so I can set these free.

Katie

Welcome to Project Twentysix

What is it?
Removing 26 items daily from our home for 1 year. Pretty simple.

Why would we want to do that?
We're tired of tripping over toys, searching through stacks of paper, and generally feeling like our home is in chaos. Plus I need a project and I can't just have another baby.

What inspired this?

• It started about 6 months ago when we were looking at tiny houses and realizing that we have way too much to ever manage that kind of lifestyle change.


• Over the course of the following two months we had a significant purge (for us) and got rid of many, many things.


• We took a month-long trip this summer and arrived home 2 months ago with a car full of more stuff. As I looked around my living room overflowing with the contents of the car I was overwhelmed and a little disgusted.


• I decided to try and get rid of as many things as I was bringing in. It was a perfectly sound plan, but as I shuffled stuff, finding homes for new things and transferring the old out I realized that even trading 1 for 1 wasn't going to cut it.


• About 5 weeks ago I mentioned this blog idea to my dear husband (DH). He was enthusastically supportive. I hope that support continues as I may be typing late into the night and ask him to part with his beloved VHS collection (or at least part of it).

What are our goals?

DH and I have discussed this at length. We want to be sure the time invested in sorting, photographing, uploading, writing, et cetera is worthwhile. We think the following goals make Project Twentysix a valuable time investment for our family:

• A more organized home where time isn't wasted moving stuff around


• A cleaner home where we can practice hospitality


• Learning we can be truly thankful without keeping everything we are given


• Teaching our daughters that 'stuff' is unimportant in the grand scheme


• To give freely


• Above all to glorify God in our giving, use of time and resources, and especially the teaching of our daughters.

That about sums it up. Let the games begin!

Katie