As I mention in another post we have a room in the basement which we call “The Toy Room”. As the name says: it is a room where we keep our kid’s toys since they were born (oldest is 11). The room is cluttered with boxes with toys my kids no longer use. Some are damaged, other are baby toys, others are not functioning because they don’t have batteries, a lot of them my kids don’t even look for them anymore.

My problem is: my oldest don’t want to give away any toys, he says he wants to keep them for his own children. My daughter wants to give some of them to other children but when she starts choosing them, she just gives up and wants to keep everything.

Today I brought up four boxes with puzzles and we are going to build them. We decided that if one single piece is missing we will put them in the garbage because there is no fun in building a puzzle knowing that some pieces are missing. They agree with that.

Some of the learning toys they have for ages five and under are already in a bag and ready to take to a local institution to be reused. It’s are games that teach the colors, numbers, food, etc. Regarding the damaged toys I’m going to put them in the garbage whether they want or not. They are useless and they are just occupying space.

I decided that some of the toys they want to keep I’m going to make a selection of what is in the bottom of the boxes and pick up those they don’t use for years. The good ones will be reused and the others will go to the garbage.

I would like to know, if you want to tell me, what do you do with your kids toys that they no longer use?
photo credit: caramelody

Image via Wikipedia

It’s time to clean up the clutter in the garage and remove everything that is not in use for years.

I have in the garage several plastic items I brought from the company I worked for. They produced plastic products like basins, dish drainers, flower pots, buckets, garbage bins, etc. and sometimes, the products with less quality, were thrown in the recycling area so we were authorized to bring some of them home. And I brought some too much in fact and most of them were never used because I just don’t need them. I’m thinking about making a selection, the good ones I ask the neighbors if they are interested in keeping them and others, if I can not reuse them I will throw them away. I wish there were garage sales here!.

Other stuff I have in the garage is Christmas decorations which I will keep; music tapes from the 80′ and 90′ which I don’t know if they still work;I also have baby clothes from my kids that I refused to give away because they were from their early days, weeks and months. I still don’t know if I’m going to keep them or give them to someone in need.

I also have some camping equipment from my single years. I have one camping tent with one room, a camping gas oven and one camping cabinet. I really don’t know if I should keep this because the tent is to small for the four of us. On one hand I think my son when he is 25 one day, might want to go camping with friends and the tent can be useful by then; on the other hand I think it will be too damaged for him to use.

Oh…and I have in the garage, home decoration items that I never used and which I don’t want to use. Maybe I will give them to an association to be used in a raffle.I like to reuse everything and if I can make some money on the process the better.

Let see if I don’t forget to take the before and after photos!!

Image by stevegarfield via Flickr

One of the things people usual do is skipping meals. This can often lead to out-of-control hunger usually resulting in eating too much.

When we are very hungry, it’s also tempting to forget about good nutrition and eat what we find even if it isn’t healthy.

Eating snacks between meals can help curb hunger, but don’t exaggerate and use snacks as an entire meal.

This year I decided to grow a vegetable garden with my daughter.

Every year we have strawberries; they are a “must” in our garden, however, this year we decided to go further and plant different varieties of vegetables. I bought the packs of seeds, prepared a few flower pots, bought compost and we planted the seeds.

The seeds? Seeds of what?
Yes, this was our dilemma. We planted the seeds but we did not use labels in the flower pots. Next time I will have to get a sort of id card software to print out the labels.

I know we were supposed to watch two types of lettuce grow as well as carrots and turnips, I just didn’t know where they would grown. But, when they are make their appearance through the soil it’s difficult to identify what it is but, when they grow a little more, we can figure out by the shape and texture of the leaves what vegetable is.

On this picture I can identify the two types of lettuce, carrots and the turnips. This vegetable garden was not well planed, we just threw the seeds into the soil and waited to see what grew.

It’s wonderful to watch the kids, specially my six years old daughter, checking everyday to see if the lettuces were ready to collect or if the carrots were big enough.

The contact with “live” vegetables gardening is excellent for the children. Most children only see the vegetables in the supermarket and they don’t imagine how they grow. They just think they are “made”, so, I’m very happy to show my children that even in small spaces we can grow vegetables and herbs.

Next year I’m going to prepare more recipients to plant a lot more vegetables.

This is a recycle bin made of recycled materials. Gianluca Soldi, an Italian architect, designed this beautiful and fashionable recycle bin which is build with polypropylene, a reused material. This product can match any decoration and its three recipients are excellent to separate the materials you are recycling. Totally awesome.

Stay tuned for more “Eco Findings”.

Image by incurable_hippie via Flickr

One of the things I always do is reusing the things I have at home. This week I took some time to organize my kids closets and remove all the clothes that are already too small for them. I managed to arrange nine bags of clothes!

Why do my kids have so many clothes?
We receive clothes from family members and close friends. As you know kids grow at a high speed and sometimes clothes are used only a few times and they keep the quality and look. I have no complex of using used clothes and I always transmitted that to my kids.

The bags with clothes were delivered to a friend of mine that volunteers with an institution by collecting used products (clothes, blankets, school material, plastic boxes, etc.) and given them to people in need.

Well, yesterday I received a phone call from my best friend saying that she was cleaning her garage and she wanted me to take a look at the things she doesn’t need. I went there with my kids to find a garage full of stuff all over the place. From cook books to paints, from wooden toys to a desk lamp, from kitchen items to decorative items, she had a little of everything.

We ended up loading the car with two paints, flower jars, some toys, a Matryoshka doll (my daughter loved this one), a complete set of wooden toilet accessories among other small decorative items.

I find reusing a great way to get rid of items we don’t use but that someone will use. My son chose a beautiful blue handmade paint to put on his room wall and I chose a gorgeous dark blue cloth paint (handmade). Both paints have a sentimental value but they don’t match my friend’s home decoration and they were getting damaged by the garage humidity. For me, they will be a great add-on to my home decoration and a way to stay within my budget.

Do you exchange items with your family and friends? or Do you prefer to buy new items instead of used ones?