There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world right now and it’s very easy to think there’s nothing we can do to improve matters. Today, I’m saying Never Give Up Hope. If the big stuff is too much for you to tackle right now, try starting small…

1. Curb the junk mail. If it’s been posted to you, send it back marked Gone Away, Return to Sender, or Please Remove me From Your Mailing List. To stop the endless stream of pizza menus and cab cards, simply stick a message on your letterbox. It works!

2. Never, ever, ever use a plastic bag! Seriously, these things are bad news for our planet and the sooner they are banned the better. There are so many reusable alternatives available these days (NO, not those plastic Bags For Life!) Always take one (or three) with you when you go out, and you’ll never need a nasty, polluting, wildlife-killing plastic bag again.

3. Perform an audit on one small corner of your life… look under the kitchen sink, tackle the bottles on your bathroom shelf, review the food you choose for lunch, consider the stuff you use on your body/at work/in your car… you don’t need me to point out the pointless plastic gathering all around you. Just have a think & make some changes. My small start was swapping plastic toothbrushes for bamboo ones. Check out Save Some Green for products which don’t cost the earth (Drowning in Stuff isn’t connected to this site in any way… we’re just happy customers.)

4. Switch search engines. It’s time to wave bye bye to Google, Bing, Yahoo & friends in favour of Ecosia, the search engine which uses its profits to plant trees.

5. Grow lots & lots of flowers. Insects need our help now more than ever… if you have a garden, fill it with flowering plants. Let dandelions bloom this spring, don’t mow over the clover in your grass this summer, leave a spot to go wild, plant meadow seeds… and enjoy the abundance of insects and birds which will visit your garden throughout the year. 

Not sure what to plant? Here’s some advice from the Sunday Gardener.

6. Pick up litter. Doesn’t matter if you didn’t drop it… litter is everyone’s problem & we can all be part of the solution. Every piece you pick up makes a difference to the world.

For a little inspiration, check out #2MinuteStreetClean and #2MinuteBeachClean

…and good luck with all your Small Things.

Now you’re used to it maybe not being immediately obvious where a post is going but today is even more challenging as I’m not sure where it is going either. Never mind as with life there is hope by the end (or ideally before then ) it will make sense. Well,  I am not going to write about the visit to the Victor Wynd Museum of Curiosities not turning out as planned ( potentially it seemed a good fit for our cluttered psych but closer examination proved quite the contrary) nor any other museum for that matter. No, when last week the muse deserted fellow stuffoholic the title of today’s post  was autothingy’s determined attempt to make sense or nonsense of our words. The muse isn’t with me either today but the title has at least got me this far into writing a blog as I found a  site I would otherwise never have seen and a musuem  I don’t think I will ever visit. So far at least  in keeping with the message this year of  ‘get on with it’ rather than always worry about the final destination or what’s waiting for you if you ever get out of the tunnel. I also discovered there is no need for me to keep and curate collections of stuff when here in London I will never run out of collections I can go and view. While offering  no recommendation I sense  18 Folgate Street in Spitafields found while google wandering ‘museums of things’ may be worth a visit some day.

??stuff ????????????

more stuff ??????????????

overflowing stuff?????????????????????

Enough of what this is not about , I realised by this point that today’s blog would focus on one of the discoveries in that study of mine. This year we are being fearless in the face of paper paralysis –  a not uncommon condition when one keeps old papers in case they come in useful when truly their only use is for hamster bedding or compost heap.

Sharing here the treasure of the day – Old Calendars. Touching them, recollecting happy days when the house was full and all four columns in use . momentarily tempted to file them back down the side of the filing cabinet. But, keeping the calendars will not bring back those days and even if it could life is about making new memories not staying frozen in the past.  If today, we only throw away one old thing no longer needed and create and make one new memory it will have been a good day.