There is no "away"

What if you no longer had garbage? Think about it. We have a piece of garbage and we say, "I am going to throw this away." Where is away, exactly? There is no away. If you create garbage and throw it "away" it goes somewhere else on earth. And if it is toxic? Then it becomes someone else's problem. Portland, OR is rolling out (pun intended) new roll carts. One is for mixed recycling (paper, plastic and metal) and one is for yard debris. The idea is if they make it easier to recycle, we won't throw recycling in the garbage.

But what if you took a different tack entirely? What if your goal was zero waste? That is what the city of Vancouver, British Columbia is thinking about. Read the Worldchanging article here.

The best part of clearing out clutter

$47 found! Cha-ching!

The worst part:

$130.00 in birthday checks from 1997. :(

Here is my weekly report. First, I went to clear out another of my small wicker file boxes and, ta da! It wasn't mine! So I put it on W's desk (he hates when I do that) and now it is one more box out of my office. I also looked through the files that were outstanding from last week. I got rid of a box (I still have a pile to shred and a pile to put away) and I got half way through another box. The pile dwindles...

In another room, I cleared off my dresser which hadn't seen the light of day in a while. That felt good but I still have a small drawer to go through.

Summer cleaning

As I recently wrote about, I made a weekly appointment with myself to go through one box and bag per week. This week I was not able to do this task on Wednesday at the scheduled time but instead worked on Thursday. I went through a small wicker file box which mostly contained bills and receipts dated circa 2002 to 2004. Sigh. I was left with 3 file folders to go through in depth, a pile of paper to recycle and a huge pile of paper to shred. I did this and ended up with three bags of shredded paper in addition to the pile of paper to recycle.
I still have to go through 3 files but I am pleased with the progress I made this week because...I also cleaned out our linen closet! And got W to work on it with me! And I made labels! Can you tell I am excited? It was long over due and is the kind of activity which makes you feel great.

Trash Talk

How is this for a crazy idea? You get someone like Phoenix Suns All-Star guard Steve Nash to work with you on creating an environmentally friendly shoe. Then you take your manufacturing waste and craft it into a high performance basketball shoe and send it on the court. This is what Nike did when they created their "Trash Talk" shoe. Check out the photo closely and you will see that the upper is made from many tiny pieces of scrap leather stitched together. While this isn't exactly closed loop recycling, it does reduce waste overall and turns those scraps into green.

Thanks to M via A for forwarding the story.

P.S. The Suns won the night Nash debuted the "Trash Talk" shoe.

(This was originally posted on my internal blog at work.)

Recycling in Portland

Shauna, looking at clear plastic tray from Newman-O's Organic chocolate sandwich cookies, "Do they take #8 here?"

Court: "Yeah, yeah."

Bob: "Just let God sort it out."

This conversation was followed by caroling at Paul's house but sadly, he was not home. We did, however, make a video which I am sure will soon be on You Tube. It is good to spend time with old friends.

p.s. A shout out to Jean MacDonald who is getting an RSS feed from this blog on her sweet iPhone.

p.p.s. W - you should read Jean's post.

Happy Birthday Creation Halt!

Year One

Today is my blog's birthday. Creation Halt is O-N-E. How do you celebrate the birthday of a blog? I created this blog around the holidays last year in order to come to terms with all the stuff in my life and stuff that was likely going to come into my life (and my kid's lives). During this past year, I have worked hard to get my "stuff" into some sort of reasonable order. I have given lots away to friends, given some away to Goodwill, recycled a lot of paper, and the list goes on. This blog has provided me with a "non-stuff creating" creative outlet, a place to bounce ideas off my readers and a way to keep me honest. It has also been a vehicle for me to learn a new skill (blogging) and to participate in NaBloPoMo.


A big thank you goes out to all my readers (all 3 or 4 of you). :)
A special thanks goes out to anyone who has ever posted a comment or linked to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Year Two
As I move into year two of this blog, I need to think about what my focus will be. I know I enjoy reading blogs that have a focus. Here is a question for all of you readers...what do you want to read about? I know that M has requested more "dooce-esque" type stories and I will try to capture those when they happen (but they don't happen every day). More sustainability? More novel writing? How about the novel editing process? What else? I'd love to hear from all of you. You can help guide this second year.

Thanks again!

Saving Grandma Kate's Needlepoint

Well, I am finally giving up...in a sense and replacing Grandma Kate's needlepoint on our dining room chairs with something much easier to clean. It feels like in the past 2 months there have been several near catastrophic spills by my children. It seems crazy to put these pieces of history at such risk. I have been resistant to doing this and I don't know why. I do know that it makes me smile when I see the needlepoint and I will miss it. But the replacement is just temporary. In a few years, the kids will be at a place where we can bring them back.

Clutter Battles - Part 4 - Turning the Tide

I forgot to take a "before" photo.

This past week was a clutter battle blitz. For a variety of reasons, the universe conspired (in a good way) to give me some space and mental capacity to get rid of some of my clutter - primarily in the area of children's clothing. So far, I have gotten 23 grocery bags out the door to new homes. Yes, I really said twenty-three!!! So where did they go? Most of them were "recycled".

* 5 bags to a friend who is having a boy
* 5 bags to a friend who is having a girl
* 5 bags to Goodwill
* 2 bags to a consignment shop (and now I have $61 credit there)
* 1 bag to another consignment shop (where my daughter got two skirts as trade)
* 3 bags paper recycling (2 of them were shredded on our new shredder)
* 2 bags to other friends (one is clothes loaned to my kids, one is clothes we are giving to someone else)

I also got my office painted and my shelving units installed. I have put my already organized bins onto the shelving units and am hoping to move my desk back into my office this week. We have a lot of work still to do but it feels so great to be making progress. It is very freeing!

Another area I am working on at the same time as working on my clutter is my health. One habit that I am finding hard to break is not eating within 2 hours of bedtime. During the week I do ok but on the weekend, especially Sunday nights, I have a hard time. I have heard that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. Does anyone out there have any good ideas for breaking this habit or replacing it with a new, healthy habit? I'd love to hear from you.

Clutter Battles - a note

Today I recieved a complementary 30 minute session with Kathie England, professional organizer. It was a great conversation and I told her all about my progress since I attended her presentation "50 Ways to Leave Your Clutter."

I told her that I had been reading the books she recommended and mentioned Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. I related that this book was perfect for me because we had moved into our house last September and had been wanting a "house blessing / clearing" but hadn't been able to make it happen. The book actually teaches you how to create your own sacred space. Then she told me that she hadn't recommended that book -- she had recommended another book, Clearing your Clutter with Feng Shui by the same author. Looking back to a previous post, I realize I wrote it down correctly but when I ordered it from the library, I ordered the other book instead. I can't help feeling like it is the perfect book at the perfect time for me. I love when that happens!

Clutter Battles and How to Win - Part 3

While this is Part 3 of a 3 part series, this particular post is only semi related to the two previous posts. What I want to share is not something I learned at the "50 ways to leave your clutter" presentation by Katie England. Instead, I wanted to share something I found it on one of my favorite blogs, rebecca's pocket. It is a post that compares permaculture zones with organizing your home. If you are on the A, Assigning an appropriate home, step of organizing, read the below article first!
Cultivating your home: Permaculture zones for getting things done

Clutter Battles and How to Win - Part 2

In my previous post, I wrote about a presentation I attended on personal organizing by Kathie England. She mentioned several books which I would like to share with you. The first is called Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. The idea behind this book had a big impact on me. She told us that sometimes we have a hard time letting go of things. But often, letting go of things makes room in our lives for new things. What was more impactful for me is that she said sometimes we hold on to things because they represent who we used to be. By holding on to those things, we can't move on. But by letting go of those things, we make room in our lives to be someone new. Whoa! I know I have a lot of things that fit into this category and I haven't come to terms with dealing with them because I know they could really shake my life up. I think I have to do some mental preparation.

Another book Kathie mentioned is It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys: The Seven-Step Path to Becoming Truly Organized by Marilyn Paul. I have this book on order from the library and all I can say is the title cracks me up.

Kathie's presentation came at a good time for me. Work on our basement was just about done which meant two things: 1) we could start to organize the basement and 2) we could start to organize the garage. If you are wondering what the garage had to do with the basement, it was the pathway for the workers to the basement. Knowing that it was the garage that was bothering my honey the most, I decided to put my learnings to practice there.

Sometimes a task seems so overwhelming that you don't know where to start. For tackling these tasks, Kathie England suggests starting small. If you spent 10 minutes a day organizing (or doing anything for that matter) at the end of a year you would have spent 60 hours working on it. She actually recommends setting the timer for 10 minutes and then stopping when the timer goes off. Crazy, huh?

The first thing I did, per Kathie's advice, was take "before" photos.

Upper left wall.

Lower left wall

Full left wall.

The first day I grabbed some empty containers and started sorting. I was sorting in very general categories such as tools, metal things to attach other things (nails, screws), adhesive related things (tape, glue, grout), weatherizing, peg board accessories (we had a peg board at the old house but not the new one), painting supplies, etc. The presentation was three weeks ago. That said, I should have spent 210 minutes (or 3.5 hours) working on the garage since then. Truth be told, I would say that I haven't spent quite that much time. I do think I have spent 1.5 hours on my own and another 20 mintues with my honey sorting. He spent 20 more minutes sorting as well. Not too bad considering we went camping for 3 days in the middle. I think we are making really good progress but I have to tell you, we are still sorting! I am thinking that if I post about this process, perhaps I will be more likely to stay with it. I am hoping that this weekend we can finish up the sorting and do some purging. I will definitely keep you posted (pun intended).

Clutter Battles and How to Win - Part 1

A few weeks ago I attended a presentation by a professional organizer. Kathie England has an organizing business called Time for Success. She presented some excellent ideas on how to get started taming your clutter. I don't know how much clutter you have but dealing with my overwhelming amount of clutter / stuff is one of the reasons I started this blog. I have a serious paper problem. I have a crazy, messy coat closet which doesn't work. I have a tiny garage that needs some serious organization. And the list goes on.

Kathie taught us a method for organizing based on an acronym that she learned in Julie Morgenstern's book, Organizing from the Inside Out. The acronym is SPACE. Forgive me if I hack this...I took notes but haven't gotten the book from the library yet.

First, S, you Sort like items with like items.

Second, P, you Purge. Once you can see that you have 5 potato peelers, you can pare down (pun intended).

Third, A, you Assign an appropriate home. For example, Christmas ornaments or your menorah don't need to be easily accessible. On the other hand, stuff you use every day should be right where you can get at it. A tape measure is going to be invaluable in this step and in the next step.

Fourth, C, you Containerize. I cringe at this word but basically, you find appropriate containers for the homes you assigned.

Fifth, E, you Equalize. This is maintenance where you make sure that your system is integrated into your life. One thing that she suggested is after you finish a project, you set an appointment with yourself in the future to make sure that you system is still working.

As you go through the process, she suggests having a "Quandary Box" (or bag or bin). This is where you put the stuff that defies sorting and that you don't know what to do with. You can go back to it later and make decisions. You may not be ready yet to let something go. This gives you an opportunity to get used to the idea of letting it go.

Another thing she mentions is to be sure to take before and after photos. She cited a client who had a 5 foot stack of papers to go through. During an organizing session with Kathie, she reduced the stack by 2 whole feet. The client was so excited! The problem was that when her husband returned home, he couldn't see the difference. It still looked like a huge stack of paper. A before photo would have been great proof of progress.

As a mama with 3 under 4, I really liked her idea of bins for kids with the word and the picture so kids can help clean up. Granted, I wouldn't even know how to categorize all our toys but it is still a good idea. One of the other ideas she had for kids was to take a photo of how you want a room (a bedroom, a playroom) to look. Then, set a timer, turn on some music and make it a game to get the room back to looking like the picture. Are you overwhelmed with toys? She suggested making it a fun event with your children to purge toys. You can build social awareness by talking about who would get the toys and why they might need the toys.

This post is getting super long so I will break it into Parts 1 and 2. Look for Part 2 in the near future.