Declutter: Week of Sept 5.

Marcia over at Organizing Queen is encouraging us to keep up our decluttering progress, so here's a recap of my week,  a short one as we spent the long weekend (most of it, at least) in Montreal at a wedding.

But I did get a start on my books.  It's REALLY difficult for me to weed these out, but I'm trying to use these criteria:

• Have I already read it?  If not, am I likely to?  
• Is it in good, readable condition?  I have some older, yellowing penguins that my forty-something eyes would have difficulty with.
• Am I likely to read it again?  If so, can I get it at the library?
• Are my children likely to want/need to read it sometime in the future?
  
• For non-fiction/reference:  does the information exist easily on the internet?  Do I still need/want easy access to this information in a book form?

I got two boxes together and have taken one to my local book exchange where the owner pulled out the ones she was willing to take, and I took the rest to Goodwill.  I will do the same with the second box next week.

I need to have another go through my closet now that the season is changing.  However, there was one item that I have been pondering giving away for some time.  I wore this suit (dress and jacket) to two weddings but will not likely wear it again, so it's been carefully folded up and given to Goodwill.

With the lads back to school this week, we recently had to replace their grey uniform trousers as they had both grown out of last year's.  So I sent four pairs of grey trousers off with the suit to Goodwill.

Finally, as I disclosed previously, I did some organizing of school supplies a couple of weeks ago.  This box housed our supply of pens and pencils, but was really too small to hold all the tools the boys need to have on hand for homework, so it's off to Goodwill as well.  I'll miss the "Gracious Living" branding on it though.  I can only dream.