I was looking for a tin of chopped tomatoes to make spaghetti bolognese this evening, and I couldn’t help but tidy up the tins of soup that were stacked next to it. Being in decluttering mode at the moment, I also couldn’t help but check the expiry dates. I couldn’t believe that five out of the fifteen tins were dated last year with ‘chicken noodle’ embarrassingly needing to be eaten by January 2019. I was sure that I had checked the dates towards the end of last year, but obviously not – that’s one of the shelves in the food cupboard that I haven’t got my hands on yet this year. I need to start rotating the tins like I used to.

More Rubbish and Recycling

After dinner, I decided to go through the rubbish bags from my youngest teen’s room, which was the result of the mass tidy up that she did a week or so ago. I knew that it was mostly paper clutter, so I had asked her to keep the bags in the conservatory ready for me to separate out the recycling. It gave me great satisfaction going through separating paper, plastic and non-recyclable items ready for bin day tomorrow.

I sat there listening to an audio book in the pleasant evening temperature, guessing that my daughter must have tipped the entire contents of her desk drawers into the black sack; I literally found stacks of paper containing old homework tests, drawings, notes, cards and other things. I kept back some of the drawings and notes etc. that I wanted as memories, and the rest went into various ‘exit’ piles.

I ended up with a much smaller black sack and lots of paper recycling…

I then went around looking for anything else in the dining room and conservatory that I could throw away. I’ve still not completely removed all of the surplus items from downstairs, but I’m very close. The house is slowly getting lighter.

(Hands up… How many of you thought about going and checking the expiry dates on your tins in the cupboard after reading this? 😀)

Until tomorrow…

Sandra