February Challenge - Purge! Reuse and Repurpose your way to a Clean Slate

It’s cold outside, spring seems far away, and winter has begun to overstay its welcome. What to do? Take our challenge and spend the month of February cozied up inside assessing what you have in your house, what could be put to better use in someone else’s hands, and what items really want to be something else. By taking our challenge you will benefit others, find things more easily, have a cleaner house (and the sanity that comes with it), and you’ll help the environment.

Wait. Hold on. How does purging - the time honored tradition of getting rid of all that stuff that clogs the arteries of your house – benefit the environment? Aren’t you just sending all those unwanted goods off to a landfill somewhere? Not so fast. Our purge style focuses on reuse and repurposing. Over the course of the month you will learn of so many reuse and donation avenues here in Lake Country that it will make your head spin. We’ll go into more detail on the environmental benefits of purging in a future blog post, but simply put, when you choose to donate usable goods or decide to turn an unused item into something you would use (what I like to call ‘repurpose’, some people call it ‘reuse’) then you are helping by not buying a new item and by allowing someone else to buy used. Another side effect of purging? You will be able to find all the things that you do have in your house so much easier. So you won’t go out and buy another pair of scissors because you couldn’t find the other four that you already own. Funny, it seems that purging might also save you some money.

Ready to take the purge plunge? Here’s what to do. Decide how you want to tackle the challenge, whether you want to dive in and scour the whole house or if you want to focus just on the kitchen. Maybe you want to take the crafty route and choose to find a brilliant reuse for 29 things in your house for each day of the month (hmm, I think I’ll do that). Or maybe you simply want to use the challenge as motivation to finally bring that box of stuff that’s been sitting in your garage for months to a donation center (we’ll highlight lots of places in the area that will welcome your used goods). Whatever you decide to do, comment about it on our blog so we can cheer you on. Share your ideas, share what works for you, and share how your purging is helping others and the earth. Welcome to February! Let the purging begin!