Hi, I've been gone a few months too. I love reading about everyone's progress for motivation! The end of the school year just got too crazy and I haven't done much of anything. Now that we're all done for the summer, I'm trying to make up for lost time. The garage and basement continue to be dumping grounds and need a good overhaul again. *sigh* I should have taken a before picture of the garage. DH helped me with some stuff last weekend. Now there are several piles but I still have a few areas to sort. He put a few things in the attic which freed up some cabinet space. I'm hoping to get motivated to load up the car and drop off all the different piles to where they need to go. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow and go to Starbucks for a reward when it's done.
Right after school got out, I went through my teaching storage trunk and organized a bunch of papers and books. Tossed a bunch of stuff but there is still a huge pile in the garage to sort. UGH.
I promised DD15 I'd paint her room while she was gone this week. It's almost done and turned out really cute. We are having to put new carpet upstairs so it's forcing me to make sure things are painted and decluttered. They are in ok shape but will be totally decluttered before installation.
Hulagirl -thanks for the reminder on Kon Mari. I read that book last winter and need to reread for inspiration.
I am a teacher too and have tons of stuff here at home as well as school I need to sort through and weed out. The last day of school, I stayed behind by myself in an empty school and decluttered there for three and a half hours straight!!! Since I've been home, I have made some progress on decluttering. I loaded up a lot of empty binders I had here at home and took them to school. There are always students of mine who need a binder when theirs falls apart.
I am working on weeding though all the extra papers, teaching stuff and household stuff combined that needs to be recycled. I have dumped tons already that are huge recycling bin from the city (think huge city garbage can size) is totally full to the brim and it won't be picked up until next Monday! I will just have to bag the rest this week and store it in the garage until we can fit it in the recycling bin next week.
I haven't checked in for a while - glad others are making such good progress!
For me...ugh....oops. End of the school year is right around the corner which means DD6 is bringing home all her unused school supplies as well as tons of art work, school work etc. So need to go through all that and purge (sorry DD but we can't keep ALL your art work lol). I've also got a pile mounting of clothes etc to take to the charity shop. Haven't sold any kids stuff for about 2-3 months so I need to get back on that - since the warm weather is already upon us I've got a stack of summer clothes the girls have grown out of, some sellable, some donate so hopefully I can make a few bucks, just need to get my rear in gear and post them online. This time around if it sells the first time, great. If not, it gets donated. Tired of reposting things 2,3 etc times.
I, totally understand your situation with all the artwork and school papers. Over the years, I have saved WAY TOO many school papers, art projects and drawings from my kids. I have read that you should take digital photos of them and then you can ditch the originals. That way your child still has a record of the stuff. I need to do this! Over the last year, I have been trying to be more selective in what I save to keep as keepsakes.
I applaud you in that you actually get items photographed and listed on ebay. I am constantly saving items that I think might sell for something on ebay that I intend to post but never seem to get around to actually doing so! Ugg! So the items just sit around cluttering up things. I HAVE to get self-motivated to either get them listed or just donate them. This is the biggest thing I want to work on this summer.
On a side note: if anyone has a tom of unused school supplies, I suggest first putting them in your kids' backpacks and storing them for next school year. Any you know you will not need in the future, take to your local school and donate them. We, teachers, would love the extra supplies to have on hand to share with students that come to school without them or for any student who runs out or forgets them during the school year. I know in my own classroom, I have two drawers set aside for extra lined paper and random extra markers, pens and pencils and glue that any student of mine can get into and use throughout the school year. I have the drawers marked and tell them from the beginning they are there. I want to avoid a student just sitting in my class and not actively participating in class note-taking, assignments or activities because he or she does not have supplies and doesn't want to ask a peer for anything. I teach junior high so kids are really self-conscious about asking for supplies sometimes. Since I have had the drawers, all my students have used the supplies at least once. So, there is no negative stigma associated with getting supplies out of my classroom drawers.
We've had a neighbor ask if she and her husband could buy our house, which was not officially on the market. So we are now rapidly decluttering and downsizing. I've been slowly decluttering for three years, but will need to pick up the pace quite a bit now.
and spent the last month moving things from school to home. I had my daughter-in-law come through and take some things, but since she doesn't yet have a permanent position, she was very careful about what she took. A lot of stuff that she'll need in the next year or two came home with me, since I couldn't let it go. 
MOST stuff was tossed or given away. (I do not count my books....they came home. What can I say, good picture books are an addiction with me.
) Until that last week. 
You know.....the boxes and bags where everything goes and "I'll sort it when I get it home." 
