how crazy is it that it’s hard to share! My biggest difficulty is what to do with arts and crafts….every little drawing. Of course I save many, but not all can be saved, and it’s quite traumatic for a young artist to find their work in the garbage or recycling bin.

I will definitely work on that! someone also reminded me of amazon and ebay also if I am willing to put in the work to sell them, but I don’t know if the work would really amount to what we would get back from it.

No, they don’t take English books and even refuse to do inter library loans to get english books. I have tried… This is the main reason that we have so many books. If we want to read something ourselves or read something to the kids we had to buy it.

As for Freecycle, Maybe it is an excuse… the south shore group has activity about 3-4 times a month and I am about 70km away… I have offered things before but no one would come get it here… As I said, I do give many things to the local organization though I have trouble giving them clothes because of some sketchy things that happened recently. The books that I have given them in the past are still on the shelves. Not my problem anymore but at one point they just throw the books out.

And yes, I could definitely bring things to Montreal but in all honesty since gas became what it is now, I don’t go often and when I do I already have little time to do what I already need and want to do. Another excuse maybe but it is what it is… and I have to qualms about it!

I think the conversation got stuck on donating clothes and books… finding a place to give things that I am already detached from. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough about me true questions…

What about toys? Not just about giving away toys that no one plays with but toys that the kids do play with once in a while and do miss when they are gone… but that we just have too much of…

What about all of the things, books, clothes, trinkets etc that you don’t use, don’t wear and don’t want to see every day but that you can’t seem to let go of but do take space. You know, the memory stuff… Things that I have in mind are old school books and papers, my dad’s books that he wanted my kids to have along with a collection of cars and motorcycle replicas. Clothes that have sentimental value like my step-dad’s army shirt and my old class shirt…

How to detach from things that you are attached to and that could never be replaced? How to detach from the dream of what things could be. Like the fact that I would LOVE my kids to be devouring all of the Nature Magazines we have, but they just don’t seem interested. They will look through them for a day or two and then they just become clutter. How do you let go of the dream of what things could be?

I wish there were organizations around here like a women’s shelter but the closest ones are actually quite far away. Also, books are hard to even give away because I only have english books… nowhere will take them.

The problem for me at the moment is that I have tons of clothes that I no longer have an emotional attachment to but don’t have a good way to get rid of. There is one place that I used to use and would still use for some things, but for clothes, I just have trouble with their employee practices and the fact that they are supposed to be for the community, but what good clothes make it into the store are priced higher then can afford in many cases.

Freecycle is not around here either and the south shore group has very little activity from what I have seen… French people don’t seem to know about it much..

Kijiji is great but living nearly 100km out of Montreal makes it hard to use.. I put things on there all of the time and 95% of the responses are asking me if I can bring it to them or meet in Montreal. Around here people use LesPac but you have to pay for each ad and I don’t want to start doing that… There is also a great Facebook page and I have sold through that but there are things that just won’t sell, which is what I am stuck with.

items are so attached to our memories of a time (when the kids were young etc) and so it’s hard to let them go. I struggle with toys the kids played with for years (wooden items and felted animals )

We use freecycle, kijjiji and Value village and thrift stores to drop off items. And we stick things at the end of the laneway with a free sign. Perhaps you could send clothes to a woman’s shelter. They will take books and clothes. The women are very grateful receivers as they are starting fresh.
Erin

all the best for your efforts
take care
joanna