Solar Queen

Give away

The solar-powered queen is waving good-bye, and so am I.

This is my final entry in this blog.

It was a fun project for a year - but now I'm done and I'll finish up with a quote:

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
     ~William Morris

Puzz 3D

Throw away

This PUZZ 3D was on display and gathered dust for many years. Now the layer of dust is just too thick and we can't salvage it.

The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go.  ~Steve Maraboli

Stool

Give away

This is a great stool.

We just don't need it anymore.

Cute little cross-country skis

Give away

Children's cross-country skis:

10 little ski boots
8 little skis
4 little ski poles

Booster seat # 2

Give away

I'm trying without success to give away this booster seat. It's hard to do!

No one wants it. Hmm, now that I look at this picture, I see it looks pretty stained and unappealing.

But I'm going to keep trying.

Boots

Give away

Fun boots. Too bad they're not my size.

More clothing

Give away

More gently used clothing... and not just pink and purple this time (but certainly pink and purple are well represented).

Stack 'o' Binders

Throw away

Up until today, we had three tote boxes filled with empty binders.

I went through those boxes today, and now we only have two boxes filled with binders.


Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.  ~Leonardo DaVinci

Dance shoes

Give away

little ballet shoes 
little jazz shoes

my daughter's dance gear
outgrown in one year

Ugly shoes

Throw away

black shoes

brown shoes

worn out

throw 'em out

insoles missing

yes I'm dissing

Man, those are ugly shoes!

Outdated First Aid Information

Throw away

Throw away

I just noticed these two pages of outdated first aid information from the 1950s pasted on the inside of our medicine cabinet.

Although they are quaint and historic, they could do more harm than good (The Sylvester Method?!) - so I ripped them down.

A bunch of movies

Give away

I'm taking my inspiration from Socrates this week...

How many things are there which I do not want. ~Socrates

I went through all our old movies and I found a number of them that I really do not want, such as:

     Dude, Where's my Car?
     DodgeBall
     The Love Guru

School projects

Throw away

More school projects - all approved for elimination by my daughter.

Old lotions

Throw away

don't smell good
don't feel good
these old lotions
are history

Radio

Give away

radio work just fine
don't need to be mine

Pink and Purple clothes

Give away

Here is a whole basket of mostly pink and purple clothes that my daughter has outgrown.

FYI: Just to clarify, as some readers have been confused by this... The 'giveaway' items that appear on this blog are not still up for grabs - usually I am giving them to charity (or sometimes to a friend or family member). 
~GG :)

Boys clothes

Give away

A stack of clothes for my nephews - to accompany the pile of books.

More books for my nephews

Give away

It turns out that one of my nephews went through the last pile of books in about one week (see July 15th blog entry for more details) - so here's another bunch of books for my nephews.

Hopefully they'll last longer than a week this time!

Booster seat

Give away

Our daughter is growing up!

5 of my ugly shirts

Give away

Here is my husband holding my top 5 ugly shirts (according to him).

He is happy to see them go.

I'm going to miss them.

(See last week's related post as well.)

5 of my husband's ugly shirts

Give away

This is me displaying 5 of my husband's shirts I don't like.

Here is the deal:
This week I get to choose 5 of his shirts to give away.
Next week, he gets to choose 5 of my shirts to give away.

Neither of us have any say in the other's selections for giveaway.

It's 5 for 5.

Radio alarm clock

Throw away

I just figured out that this radio alarm clock hasn't worked in years. It looks like it works - but the alarm never goes off at the time that it's set.

Several different people woke up late over the years thanks to this alarm clock.

It is very satisfying to finally throw it out!

Bob the old Laptop

Give away

This was a state of the art Apple laptop in its day - and we fondly called him 'Bob'.

Now Bob is outdated. He just can't keep up with his younger, faster relatives.

We didn't know what to do with Bob - so I was happy when a colleague at work (who is an artist) said she was looking for an old laptop to display photos as a reference while painting.

Croquet set haiku

Throw away

the old croquet set
chipped mallets and bent wickets
into the garbage

Teen books

Give away

Most of these books are part of a series about Alex Rider, a 'reluctant 14 year old spy' (maybe not really that reluctant - after 7 books).

There are also a couple of books by the same author about 5 teens who must save the world from evil.

I remember being a kid and loving to read books about courageous kids who were my age - or a few years older.

This weekend, I gave these books to my two nephews who are in the right age bracket.

I hope they like them.

Exercise bike

Give away

I bought this recumbent exercise bike for myself at least 12 years ago.

Now, after all this time (and minutes of use), I'm ready to let it go.

You may note the similarities between this post and a post from exactly three months ago (April 8). Only this time, it's my piece of exercise equipment, and the grass is a bit greener.

Children's books

Give away

There once were some sagging bookshelves
full of monsters and monkeys and elves,
old books and new books
cat books and zoo books:
We got rid of them all by ourselves!


My daughter helped me go through her books last week. In the end, we chose 40 children's books to give away. 

Hockey Game Haiku

Give away

Plastic men on sticks-
looks like fun, but it isn't.
So long, hockey game!

Boxes of Doodads

Throw away

A couple of weeks ago, I included the word 'Doodads' in one of my limericks. This reminded me of our boxes of Doodads. 

Yes, I live in a house where we have three labeled boxes of Doodads*. This week, I pulled them out of the closet, where they had been stored (and unopened) for about five years.

I was determined that I would give away or throw away at least one box-worth of Doodads.

Well, I failed. I was only able to throw out one item* in all three boxes. I need to keep everything else. There is just too much sentimental value in those boxes. So, I'll return all three boxes to storage, and try again in another five years.

*Definition of Doodads (in this context, anyway) = small decorative items, gift items, knick-knacks, souvenirs, etc, that may have sentimental value, or that we are compelled to keep for whatever reason (but we don't have the room or inclination to display them on our shelves or walls).

*I can't even tell you what this item is, as it was a gift. (No, Mum, it wasn't the Solar Queen you just gave me for my birthday. She hasn't even made it into the Doodads boxes yet!)

Dollhouse Limerick

Give away

The following limerick was inspired by my unsuccessful attempts to give away this very nice (but admittedly quite large) dollhouse to a number of friends who have young daughters:

Your daughter will love it, I say
She'll play with it day after day...
It's big and it's plastic,
It's truly fantastic!
...So why won't you take it away?

June 24 Addendum: They were very happy to take this dollhouse at the Goodwill. I'm sure someone will love it!