4 Things I've Tossed This Year That I Wish I Had Gotten Rid Of Sooner
Whether it's sentiment, nostalgia, or simply just putting something off that I don't feel like dealing with, there are a few lucky little items that have bought themselves more time in our shelves, drawers, cabinets, and closets than they have any right to. Maybe you'll take a gander at this list and realize there are a few items lurking around your home that you've held on to for far too long, too. If so, drop me a line because my clutter-loathing heart will be ever so happy to say adieu to anything else standing in the way of my dreams of finally achieving a perfectly edited home.
Receipts
I have no idea why I hang on to paper receipts like it's 1995. I recently happened upon an entire folder of them and realized I needed to take a quick inventory of my life. In the trash they went and the next time I hit the coffee shop and the barista asked if I wanted a receipt I said nope. Just kidding—bad habits don't die that quickly, but I did opt for a text receipt instead. Baby steps.
Children's Books Our Family Has Outgrown
I am a lover of all things literature, so saying goodbye to books is hard for me. That being said, well-loved toddler books, double copies, and a very creepy children's story gifted to our son by a well-meaning family friend certainly don't need to clutter our shelves. I've realized that letting go of books has to be kind of a phased process for me. I am able to whittle down to the good stuff, little by little. Each layer I take away reveals one more that I can also do without. Plus, it helps me not feel guilty for hanging onto our more cherished stories while also making room for age-appropriate books as the children get older. They're happy, and I'm ever so pleased to see them peruse our shelves to find their next good read.
Plastic Cooking Utensils, Storage Containers, and More
I am fully on board with the healthy-cooking bandwagon. Getting rid of flimsy plastic utensils, cutting boards that haven't aged well, and even damaged cookware has been a project of mine over the past year.
Cookware is expensive—especially some of the high-quality pieces I'm slowly starting to accumulate, so it's been a gradual process, but one that I certainly wish I had started sooner. Tackling my kitchen clean-out is resulting in a more organized space, as well as one that reduces redundancies. I'm finding myself with more storage room in addition to a kitchen that's stocked with what I need to whip up meals in a flash, while actually enjoying the cooking process a bit more. It's a fine-tooth editing process that you shouldn't put off if you're considering taking the plunge. Start by tackling one small zone—maybe a storage container drawer or even a cooking utensils crock—and you'll soon find it snowballing from there.
Random Appliances
Vacuums I no longer use, a milk frother that's still in the box, and the most random of cold-press coffee brew kits sat taunting me for too long. I bet you're thinking, for a self-proclaimed minimalist, you sound a bit like a hoarder at this point. Honestly, sometimes I wonder too. It's true that I often find myself simply putting off getting rid of things because I don't want to deal with a run to our local donation site or putting a busted-up appliance down by the curb for trash pickup day. But all of these scenarios have one thing in common: Once they're out of the house, I feel lighter, brighter, and wish I had tackled the job sooner.
Taking constant inventory of my spaces, room by room, closet by closet, and even drawer by drawer, can help make quick work of cleaning out. It helps ensure I don't find myself happening upon a cast-iron barbecue sauce baster three years from now, requiring a full-blown internet search to uncover what said random item even is. Off it goes to a household where it will hopefully be put to good use!
So, now what remains? Nothing but a coffee table shoved into the corner of our guest room (just in case our next house has a basement—I know, I know) and a pair of swivel chairs in 'performance fabric' that never stood a chance with our young, peanut-butter-and-jelly-loving kiddos. Since we replaced them a week ago, we've been debating whether to pop them up on a marketplace or schedule a donation pickup. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Read the original article on Southern Living
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Woman Says 'Toxic' Future Mother-in-Law 'Needs' to Talk 'Every Single Day,' Expects to Be Included in Big Life Decisions
Now, she writes, "it's gotten to the point where my fiancé is debating whether we should even go 'home' for Christmas" NEED TO KNOW One woman says her fiancé's mother is going off the deep end since the two moved out of the country In a post on Reddit, she explains that her future mother-in-law has to speak to her son every single day, no exceptions Now, she writes, "it's gotten to the point where my fiancé is debating whether we should even go 'home' for Christmas" A woman says her future mother-in-law is an "unaware toxic boy mom" who has to talk to her fiancé "every single day." Now, she says he's debating whether the couple should even go home for Christmas, as her behavior is getting more intense. In a post shared to Reddit, the woman writes that she long thought of her fiancé's mom as "a sweet woman," but since the two moved to a different country together, "signs are showing." "It's a combination of a typical emotionally immature boy mom, with devouring mom syndrome and empty nest syndrome. And of course, her husband (fiance's dad) is emotionally distant," she writes. She adds that her future mother-in-law recently decided "she needs to talk" to her fiancé "every single day (calls or texts) and wants to know literally every detail about his life." Her future in-laws recently took a week-long trip to visit, but the poster says her fiancé's mom "whined" about her son being so "distant" the whole time because he is "not wrapped around her finger anymore." "After the trip she straight-up sulked because he didn't make some huge gesture like buying her gifts or taking her to a fancy restaurant," she adds. Now that her fiancé is cutting back on the constant calls and texts to focus on the couple's engagement and future, his mom is accusing him of 'abandoning' them and "only caring about himself." "She's also upset that he 'doesn't depend on them anymore' for advice or opinions on his life decisions. God forbid he act like an adult," the Redditor adds. She notes that "it's gotten to the point where my fiancé is debating whether we should even go 'home' for Christmas. I know it's an important holiday. But honestly, it doesn't feel like a healthy environment for either of us right now." Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Others on Reddit offered advice in the comments, with one writing, "[Your] partner needs to tell his parents what the problem is otherwise nothing can be done to fix it. It's possible that she's not even aware of how unhinged she's becoming. Obviously crazy people don't know that they're crazy." Another adds, "It's his job to be the go-between with his family, and it's your job to be the go-between with your family. If he's not sure he wants to go see his family for Christmas, follow his lead. It sounds like he is aware of his spine, and is in the process of shining it up." Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Weaponized incompetence is back, and it's driving modern women out of their marriages
Mila had been dating her boyfriend for a year when she got pregnant. They had been keen to have a child together, but shifting into "nesting mode" gave Mila fresh eyes. Her boyfriend would constantly dodge basic tasks like grocery shopping, she said, telling her he didn't know "how to do it," even if she gave him an itemized list. She said she shouldered the cooking and cleaning, even as intense pregnancy symptoms left her sick and depressed. "You know everything, inside and out, about your favorite car. All the things that you truly care about, you know all the details," Mila recalled thinking about him. "But when it comes to basic necessities like getting groceries, buying stuff for our child, remembering things about us, you act as if you're incompetent." Mila's ex-boyfriend didn't return a request for comment from Business Insider. Her surname has been withheld to protect her family's privacy. Already feeling like a single mom, Mila left her boyfriend when she was about three months pregnant. About one year after welcoming her daughter, while scrolling on her phone, she came across the term "weaponized incompetence," and the unsettled feeling in her gut crystallized. "I'm like, that's what I've been dealing with for so long," she said. "It was so nice to put a name to it." The term "weaponized incompetence" emerged in the mid-2000s. Two decades later, it reenters viral discourse every few months. Stories like Mila's are littered across Reddit and TikTok, usually pertaining to heteronormative relationships. People — mostly women — vent about the people in their lives — mostly men — who seem to excel at the office, at school, or in their fantasy football draft, but regularly drop the ball at home. Despite measurable advances in gender equality, the workload is not shifting at home, the Pew Research Center found in a 2023 report. Dennis Vetrano, a divorce and family attorney in New York, said he's been hearing a familiar complaint from female clients increasingly over the past five years, "and that is the failure of their husband to be a true partner in their relationship." "In fact," Vetrano added of weaponized incompetence, "that's become one of the core issues or one of the leading reasons for divorce these days." Matt Lundquist, psychotherapist and founder of Tribeca Therapy, echoed Vetrano's observation and timeline. "I see this in my work with female patients, I see this in my work with straight couples," he said, noting that the pandemic reignited tension over the division of housework. The widespread lockdowns, which confined many working couples to their homes, raised questions of whose paid work is "more valuable" and deserving of undivided attention — such that a whining toddler or the chimes of a dryer in its final cycle will go unheard, or worse, ignored. "The sum of all of this was, for many couples, regressive. The default party responsible for domestic labor again became women," Lundquist said. Even now, with return-to-office mandates in full swing, the psychological ripples remain. "It feels like we've gone backward a couple of steps." Incompetence becomes 'weaponized' when 'I don't know' really means 'I don't want to' Feminists have been studying weaponized incompetence for decades. In her 1989 book, "The Second Shift," Arlie Hochschild describes how women tend to assume the unpaid labor of cooking, cleaning, caregiving, and emotional maintenance, even after returning home from their paid jobs. The concept went mainstream in the aughts, when The Wall Street Journal's Jared Sandberg coined the phrase "strategic incompetence," as a useful way to "deflect work one doesn't want to do — without ever having to admit it." I see men offering counterpoints in the comment sections of women's viral TikTok videos, arguing that women are simply observing genuine, harmless ineptitude. When I polled a group of my straight, male friends about this buzzword, the majority said they'd never heard of it. One said he hadn't considered how it plays out in the dating world; he added that between mothers and sons, it's "100% a thing." Only one friend could define the term in his own words: "It's like intentionally playing dumb, right?" He sometimes tells his fiancée that he doesn't "know how to make a salad," he said, because he knows she'll do it anyway — but he also insisted that she makes salad more delicious than he ever could. It's true that some people are not natural cooks or don't know how to change a diaper, and find it difficult to learn the right technique. For a man, it's possible that he was raised not to know these things and struggles to break out of that mindset. This incompetence becomes weaponized when he doesn't take the time to learn, improve, or understand how his role as a partner can broaden beyond the patriarchal archetype of "breadwinner" or "provider." "It's the continuous presentation as if, 'I don't know how, this is hard for me,' when in terms of your capacity and capability, you are actually equipped to learn and do it," Bukky Kolawole, a couples therapist and founder of Relationship HQ, told Business Insider. Jordan, who asked for her surname to be withheld for privacy, said that preparing to coparent with her ex-boyfriend illuminated a labor divide that already existed in their relationship. "I was like, I know you know how to clean a bathroom. I know you know how to flush a toilet. I know you know where the laundry goes, or what the bed looks like in the morning," Jordan said. "It was like I was already hanging out with an infant." Colette Nataf, a 35-year-old marketing executive, said she filed for divorce three years ago because she was fed up with "managing another adult" on top of her own life, job, and kids. Her ex-husband declined a request for comment from Business Insider. Nataf said she was married for years before she came to grips with the dirty plates stacked next to the empty dishwasher, or the fruitless pleas to share chores because, paraphrasing her ex-husband, "it's too hard to remember everything." Some men have been coming to terms with the ubiquity of this dynamic. In a 2023 essay for GQ, Sammi Gale described his slow, somewhat agonized epiphany after seeing the hashtag #weaponizedincompetence take off online: "For all my feminist talk, pub probity and pussy hat marches, I realize now I'm not so different to the men getting called out on TikTok." Women are tired of working two jobs without help In her current work as a divorce coach, Nataf said she hears the same from female clients all the time: They aren't reeling from betrayal, falling out of love, or yearning to pursue someone new. They're just tired. "You don't need your husband to financially support you anymore. You're still doing all of the household labor. So now you just have basically an additional child you're taking care of, and that is exhausting," she said. Data shows the average woman is outpacing the average man. As single women continue to gain power and prominence in society — earning more bachelor's degrees, buying more homes, dominating healthy sectors of the workforce, and even living longer than their married counterparts — pushback has manifested in the form of "trad wives" and "manosphere" influencers, most of whom label themselves as anti-feminists and boast about their return to "traditional" gender roles. This kind of content romanticizes and fortifies the conservative ideals that a woman's domain is the home, while men are responsible for bringing home the bacon. Poll after poll shows that Gen Z men are particularly receptive to these ideals, while women of the same age are increasingly resistant, overwhelmingly expressing support for female leaders in politics, preference for female bosses in the workplace, and interest in advancing social causes. As the ideological gap widens between men and women, expectations for the division of relationship admin fall further out of alignment. "Feminism brought women into the workforce, but men haven't had the same social movement into the home," Audrey Schoen, a licensed marriage and family therapist, told Business Insider. Vetrano has seen this mismatch bring couples into his office. "My dad was the primary wage earner. My mom took care of everything in the household. Now, what you're finding is women are more often doctors, lawyers, CEOs running their own companies — high-powered professions that take 40, 50, 60 hours a week, and in addition, they're doing everything else just like my mom did when I grew up," he said. "They're paying the bills, or even the bulk of the bills, and they're doing everything else," Vetrano added of his female clients. "They're getting frustrated and they're getting burned out." This frustration has trickled into the herd mentality of social media. Earlier this summer, a TikTok went viral when a woman showed the disastrous results of asking her boyfriend to help paint a room in their home: visible streaks, stained baseboards, and splatters on the floor. The video has over 10 million views, and a quick scroll through the comments reveals a chorus of disgust: "This is weaponized incompetence omg," "Dump him," "That's not a boyfriend, that's a sworn enemy." The original creator shared a follow-up video with the caption, "We broke up." The top comment? "A HAPPY END FINALLY." So, what can straight couples do? Therapists I spoke with said it's important to remember that it's not always helpful to accuse your partner of "weaponized incompetence." The term implies malicious intent. Yes, there may be a premeditated or even vindictive element to this — if your partner performs a task poorly on purpose, for example, because he's angry you asked him to do it — but that's a tough place to start a conversation. "Most people who are accused of weaponized incompetence often feel criticized because that's not their intention," Schoen explained. "Their thought process stops at, 'I don't want to have to do that.' They don't see the next part." It's more important, Schoen said, to focus on the "practical impact," which is real and tangible regardless of intent. "Often," she continued, "I find that when I'm able to bring the partners into view of the totality and the gravity of the impact, it shifts their position." Approach the topic with generosity, Lundquist advised: "If somebody's trying to raise this issue with a partner or a coworker, I think to come in too hot — unfortunately, as much as I think the frustration is justifiable — is a sort of missed opportunity for development and for reorganizing how things work in a culture." For men, that opportunity starts with getting proactive instead of defensive. Take the time to understand where the discrepancy is coming from, then make an effort to bridge the gap, without waiting for your partner to give you a blueprint. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Allow for a learning curve or suggest redistributing tasks — evenly! — to suit different strengths. However, Lundquist said, if your generosity isn't reciprocated and no changes are made over time, it's OK to decide when you've had enough — especially if you have the economic means to go it alone. "Increasingly in relationships, women's expectations are matched by women's earning capacity," Lundquist said. "I think men are going to have to figure out how to catch up with that." Read the original article on Business Insider
Fox News
3 hours ago
- Fox News
Sunday dinner serves up drama as woman says she 'can't stand' mother-in-law's cooking
A woman sparked a heated debate online after asking if it would be wrong to skip a monthly dinner with her husband's family because she "can't stand" her mother-in-law's cooking. "My MIL refuses to cook anything that isn't Chinese food," the woman wrote in the subreddit "Am I the A--hole." "I genuinely can't stand Chinese food." The woman, who said she is 23, said that she has a rocky relationship with her mother-in-law, who has been "sort of passive aggressive" toward her for years. She noted that when she expressed her dislike for Chinese cuisine in the past, her mother-in-law made snide remarks about her to the other family members. Faced with an upcoming Sunday dinner, in which it's the mother-in-law's turn to cook once again, the woman wondered if it would be better to simply not attend, rather than cause conflict by voicing her preferences. "It seems that I can never get on her good side, so I have a gut feeling that it'd just be better to not go altogether so I can avoid altercations," the daughter-in-law said. Her husband, she added, told her she can do "whatever makes [her] most comfortable." So she turned to Reddit to ask if she would be wrong for skipping the dinner. Many Redditors came down firmly on the side of YTA [You're the A--hole]. "Oh, come on," one person exclaimed in a comment on the thread. "You do not have to tell her to cook something else or blatantly tell her you dislike her food or not show up at all." "Show up, eat just a little, shut up about your tastes and making demands," the person added. "Eat a burger beforehand or whatever if you need to." Others had beef with the woman's claim that she couldn't tolerate any Chinese food at all, and some even accused her of being xenophobic. "You could always just eat some stir-fry vegetables with rice," one person said, adding, "Sounds to me like you just don't like your MIL." Others emphasized that the dinner could be a chance to salvage their fraught relationship. "Consider the radical idea that a monthly family dinner is not actually about the food," one person said. Several argued that refusing to attend was only stirring the pot, and slammed her for being immature and entitled. Other people, however, took the side of the original poster. "I don't think you're wrong for not wanting to be around someone who treats you poorly," one person said. "NTA as long as your husband is OK with it," said someone else, using shorthand for "Not the A--hole." "One night a month when he enjoys family and you do something you like is fine." Jackie Pilossoph, a former dating and advice columnist and founder of Divorced Girl Smiling in Chicago, said the woman should feel free to skip the dinner occasionally — but she advised making an appearance every few months. "Spending time with your husband's family is something you commit to when you get married," Pilossoph told Fox News Digital. "A good balance between 'powering through' and setting boundaries – but with little harmless white lies every now and again – is the best solution," she added. Fox News Digital has reached out to the original poster for comment.
