Need some inspiration to get you through the weekend's nesting projects? Dinah Sanders invites you to celebrate Discardia, a floating holiday which, in her words, "doesn't involve obligations or expense or overblown expectations of specialness. It does not require you to interact with people whom you do not wish to interact with. In fact, it doesn't require you to do anything."
Instead, Discardia, like Apartment Therapy, is about getting rid of the stuff you don't need in order to make room for the stuff you do love. "Discardia," Dinah says ,"is the time to get rid of things that no longer add value to your life, shed bad habits, let go of emotional baggage and generally lighten your load." Happily, this iteration of the holiday runs until October 3rd.
Dinah is a fine writer and the articles on Getting Rid of Stuff and Getting to the Happy Home are must-reads for anyone in need of an antidote for Affluenza.
--Shannon
Aw shucks, thanks so much. I'm glad the idea is useful and pleasing to other folks too.
Now I believe I'll just discard a little of my bustling around the place today in favor of exploring Apartment Therapy. :)
Happy Discardia!
OK, I just started delving into Discardia online and I now feel compelled to stay home on this lovely Saturday night and sort out at least a corner of my house (I can't find a clean, unwrinkled outfit in this mess anyway)! I am always preaching the purging of stuff but I am a magnet for junk. These links are fantastic, much better than flylady, which is something I signed up for while back - it lasted about 3 hours before I took my name off their email list.
THANK YOU!
SOOO sorry, I have no idea how I managed to enter the same thing a million times. Maybe I should go out after all. I'll try very hard not to do it again! OK, back to discardia!
Is this a new holiday like Festivus?
I LOVE Discardia! Thanks Dinah for inventing it. I love that it is periodic and based on the solstices and equinoxes and that each period runs for a number of days to the next new moon. Very pagan. Also the name is befitting a pagan-esque holiday. (Not this is pagan, but it's fun to think of it in that realm.) Also, your blog entries on this, as well as all the comments, are very inspiring. I especially like the ruminations on the different reasons why can't let stuff go, such as when stuff represents something we were or still might be.
This weekend, I have continued on some decluttering that I started as per this month's AT theme. I hauled out all the junk that has been hiding out under the bed. Mostly papers that I didn't know what to do with or couldn't part with at the time I hid all of it under there. Then, I sent Roomba under there and had to empty its little cargo bin out a bunch of times.
Now, I've been going through the junk in 15 minute time chunks - I set a timer. I filled up a trash bag (no paper recycling in this city!) with lots of paper that I've been able to part with this time. I'm not done yet, but will continue in 15 minute segments throughout this festive period of Discardia!
I have to say, I've downsized all my paper significantly over about the last year or so. So much financial stuff is online, that it gets easier all the time. I've gone from two large two drawer file cabinets down to a small rolling cart of two bins, plus a transitional cardboard file box, that will eventually be gone. I've been contemplating getting a scanner/printer combo for a while, which will further help paper reduction, by letting me transfer some must-saves to electronic form.
I'm sorry, every time someone mentions Roomba, I instantly think of the Woomba fake commercial from SNL!