February 21, Day 52 of Net Loss 352

So far this has been easy and painless. I’ve had to figure out what my rules mean in some unusual circumstances, such as the boot that were returned to me yesterday, they are mine, but I have not seen them since December 24th. I can’t decide if they are a new item and I should balance that out by getting rid of something more or not… probably should since all I’ve done so far is clean out my closet!

There is a telephone pole right beside my driveway. We’ve been putting our stuff out there for yea s, we tack a sign to the post that says “free” and away it goes. So far only unemployed daughter Elizabeth has been a known recipient of any of my stuff. I have had several really interesting suggestions on what to do with my give away stuff, and I really like the one from Charlsie the best, she made some deep comments about our society and how much stuff have that we don’t need, so giving it away here does not really get it out of our consumer stream. But I am going to stick with my free pole, Watsonville is a town with hunger and a big population undocumented homeless people, I have a feeling that whomever is taking the stuff is either using it or selling it for stuff they really need.

Net Loss 352, Day 38

This past week during our morning math intervention at Mission Hill Middle School students were asked to come up with a question they could ask 25 people and get numerical answers to in order to do a mean, medium, and mode study. One of the girls in my class decided her question was “How many pairs of shoes do you have?” I was surprised to find that my students think 30 is a shocking amount of shoes for one person.

Later, in the afternoon I counted 42, which is really ridiculous, I only have 2 feet and not that many places to go.

I have heard the saying, “less is more”, and I’ve read accounts of people who feel a great relief when they give away lots of stuff.

I’ve decided to make this one of my projects. For the year 2010 I will give away one thing a day. Rules for myself:
• Has to be stuff someone else would want, trash does not count
• I have to take a photo of each item (which means that the leather coat I gave away on Wednesday can’t count)
• I’m giving this away, if I get money for the object it does not count.
• I want a net loss of 352 things, so if something new comes into the house I have to get rid of an extra item to off set the new item. (Bill is ordering new curtains right now…)
• Consumables like food and cleaning supplies, home repair things and art supplies are the exception to the net gain rule above.

I had some catching up to do as I began this process on the 6th of February, so far, finding 37 items has not been so difficult, I wonder at what month this will start to get painful… I bet I will need to revisit my shoe collection and the coat closet again before this is over.