I spent the day Wednesday & Thursday going thru my house and purging. Between the books and the craft supplies it was getting out of hand. I started with the books and went thru all my gardening , homesteading and how-to books boxing up any that I haven’t opened since the day I got them, I figured if I hadn’t looked at them by now I never would so they were just taking up space. I whittled them down from 2 piles waist high to 1 1/3 piles hip high. I did keep most of the how-tos, all the homesteading, and just under half of the gardening, the rest got boxed up to be given away. I then started on the cookbooks and did the same thing , I kept the few that I use regularly, the ones my son uses, and the ones on food preservation, again the rest got boxed to be given away. I ended up with 3 paper ream boxes of cookbooks, 2 of gardening books , and one bag of houseplant books.

Once the books were done I started on the craft supplies and anything I haven’t touched in over a year went. I had a banana box and a smaller box full of just embroidery and needlepoint stuff , then I bagged up yarn into a big trash bag and assorted knitting stuff into 2 smaller bags, the knitting stuff will go to a neighbor who knits hats, scarves, and mittens for charity. The embroidery boxes will be given away. The only things left now are my sewing machine, materials, patterns, notions, and a few small boxes of supplies for making our own fishing gear. I do have to finish organizing all this but that will come after I’m done purging everything else.

I posted everything I have boxed up so far on Freecycle and gave away all but one box of cookbooks, if there aren’t any takers for that I will take it to the local transfer station and leave it in the Reuse room there this coming week.

Now I plan on starting tomorrow to fire up the heater and do the same thing in my storage area. I know there is a lot there that will be able to be offered on Freecycle. The plan is to purge enough excess that I will have more room to completely organize my emergency supply storage and have it all in one area. Everything that will go in this area are the things that won’t be harmed by freezing as this is only heated if we are working there, our only heat in this area are a couple of kerosene heaters.

The last area I have to purge & organize is my gardening shed but that won’t happen until spring when it warms up again as that area has no heat and is too small an area to heat with a kerosene heater, but an electric heater isn’t enough this time of year.