Never buy gifts at a shopping mall kiosk

Throw away

This is a piece of advice I read recently in a magazine: Never buy gifts at a shopping mall kiosk.

I would add more specifically, and especially: Never buy Christmas gifts at those kiosks that spring up in November.

That advice was good, but it came two years too late for me. I bought this purple item* for my husband for Christmas a couple of years ago. A very stupid purchase. He is very happy that I'm throwing it out - as he would have done himself, except that it was a gift from me.




* My husband insists that I explain what the purple item is...
It is one of those gimmicky heating pads that magically and quickly heats up when you set off a chemical reaction within the purple goo by clicking a metal thing inside of it. When demonstrated at the kiosk in the mall, it is really amazing and works so well. What they don't show you at the kiosk is the laborious and complicated process of reversing this reaction, so you can repeat the process again... This involves a large pot of boiling water, tongs, burning your fingers, not letting it touch the sides of the pot, checking carefully that every part of the purple goo is liquid again... very cumbersome and not worth it. Basically, this item just stayed rock hard in the back of  a drawer for the past two years. 

We actually own 3 simpler things that work much better as heating pads:

• a hot water bottle (fill with hot water)
• a cloth bag filled with beans or something (just pop in microwave for 2 min)
• a gel pack that can be microwaved or frozen and doubles as a heating pad or cold compress

Old medicines

Throw away

This was my husband's idea - what a great idea! I found all sorts of nasty treasures in our medicine cabinet, such as the congealed codeine syrup from when our son broke his arm ten years ago.

I freed up a whole bunch of space in both the kitchen and the bathroom by tossing all of these old, expired  medicines, vitamins, etc.

I didn't just toss them: I took them to London Drugs for proper disposal.

The shoes that don't fit

Give away

These shoes don't fit my mother - so she gave them to me while visiting at Christmas a couple of weeks ago.

Well, the shoes don't fit me either.
My usual approach in this sort of situation would be to:

a) carefully put the shoes away in a closet, and 

b) keep them for several years.

Today, with my New Approach (and my Mum's blessing), I'm passing them along in the world NOW.

They're going to the Goodwill and I hope they will find a happy home with feet that fit them.

The boys are gone

Give away

Bye, bye, army guys (and many other boy-specific toys).

These army guys were once of interest to our sons (now young adults away at university) , and are now of no interest to our young daughter. We have slowly, reluctantly been giving these sort of things away over the years. There are a number of items in this category that we've given away recently, including:

• Cars and trucks
• Transformers 
• Action figures
• Star Wars books
• Star Trek books

We won't give away the large and amazing collection of LEGO - it's too precious and sentimental. Negotiations are ongoing about what to do with all the PUZZ-3Ds that remain in our basement.

Give away or throw away something every week

My New Year's Resolution this year is to give away or throw away something every week.

I am going to do this for a year and I hope it will serve to...

• simplify my life,
• de-clutter our home,
• free up space so we can actually appreciate and use what we have, and
• make me happier.

Throw away

I hope that this will also be an exercise in generosity for me, and that others will benefit. I am however aware that Goodwill (and other similar organizations) receive all sorts of crap that they just have to throw out... so I will try not to give away any 'crap'. I will also recycle my 'throw away' items when possible.

I also plan to blog about this project over the next year, once a week, to make sure I actually do it, and to have a bit of fun with it. Plus, I am counting this as my 'creativity cycle' that I said I would try.

This apple-head doll was recently made by my daughter in school; fortunately she is in full agreement with my plan to throw it away. She spent many hours on it, but doesn't like the scary eyes and is happy to see it go.