<p>kmccrindle, sounds like you actually have some very cool stuff! You could definitely sell the manaquin with the monitor for a head!</p>
<p>We do still have the 1990 GIANT video camera…why?why?why? But hey, we have the box it came in, too!</p>
<p>We have my husband’s downhill skis and accessories from the '70’s. He hasn’t used them since about 1980. We went to Vail for a summer vacation a few years ago and saw almost his exact skis in a museum. So now they’re valuable and we’ll never be able to get rid of them. Did I mention we live in Texas now?</p>
<p>H has kept every box of every electronic purchase he has ever made. They are stacked up behind the couch in the den, in the garage, attic and basement.</p>
<p>WE have boxes of t-shirts from sailing regattas (back when H was oh, 100 pounds lighter); the giant video camera; boxes of the videos we recorded with said camera; boxes of albums; boxes of a turntable and old printers; just junk everywhere. Oh, boxes of college and law school books for me; clothes that the children are “going to sell at a yard sale” (when is that happening?); multitudes of decorations for holidays that I can’t find when it’s the holiday and stumble across weeks later; SAT and AP review books; literature from rejected colleges and college search guides; you name it, we probably have it. </p>
<p>Kmccrindle, I love it. Absolutely hilarious. I’d visit. Can you charge people for a historical tour? Perhaps McSon could be the guide for his summer job.</p>
<p>Up until a few years ago, Husband used the camera he bought in college - the 1978 version of a Cannon…everything manual…I hated it. However, he was always the one that other vacationing families asked to take their picture; people thought he must be a professional photographer if he was carrying this huge manual 35 mm around. (Since I switched to digital, he’s been demoralized and refuses to take pictures any more.)</p>
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<p>Love that. As if you’re ever going to look at whatever you’ve got up at the windows now and think, “let’s take that down and put up those roller shades instead.” </p>
<p>We replaced the ultra-cheap kitchen faucet with a very nice one. But yes, we still have the ultra cheap one. I guess some day we may be in the mood to use the ultra cheap one again?!</p>
<p>Ok–I need everyone’s collective good thoughts and energy. Actually, your “now where did I put that”? energy. I have suddenly lost so many important things! I am not that disorganized and while I do purge I would never have purged these items. I have misplaced a bag a jewlery that had some nice stuff in it. I took it to the store to get the pieces fixed and they told me to go to the fabric store and buy the what I needed and fix it myself. I know that I took the bag home but I cannot find it anywhere at all. I have hunted and hunted. I have also lost a receipt that I need. And my wedding band–had not worn it for 5 years and cannot find it anywhere. And a bag of broken jewlery that I had thought to take and see what it is worth. Can’t find a thing. Sadly DH bought a necklace that I really liked and wanted to take back to have the clasp fixed. He has has so much grief for not such great gifts in the past that there is no way that I can tell him about this. Any help you guys can give will be most appreciated. I feel terrible.</p>
<p>OH MY GOSH–you guys are amazing. The bag was not a bag it was a little tupperware that was not more than 3 feet from the computer. Wow. I feel better. Now where is the ring? the reciept? the other bag? But this was the most important so thanks:D</p>
<p>D is the odd duck in our family. Not only is she not a geek, she keeps her room quite orderly and dispassionately puts out for charity pickup every single thing that either no longer fits her body or her style. Three or four times a year. </p>
<p>As I drown in paper.</p>
<p>Funny that this direction came up in the thread – It has been raining here for most of two days, and rain happens to be something that brings out my latent cleaning/organizing urges. Unfortunately, we live in an arid part of the country, and don’t get nearly enough rain. Snow doesn’t do it. Hail is distracting. But today we have rain.</p>
<p>So yesterday I cleaned out under the kitchen sink – which took well over an hour, including finding the correct final homes (other cabinets, trash, household hazardous waste pile) for the things which just didn’t belong. Found I had three containers of white vinegar, each of which had successively become buried and hidden, and two spray bottles of Simple Green, each with less than 1/4" left. And bubbles. Six jars of bubble solution, apparently from that phase in elementary school where goodie bags came with full-size jars of bubble goo. </p>
<p>Next I spent several hours cleaning out two drawers of a filing cabinet containing financial data from the late '80s and early '90s. That was a hassle, because lots of things had to be looked at to determine if they needed to be shredded, that being the era when all sorts of personal info was placed on bank statements and checks. I eventually figured out (slow, I’m sure) that OfficeMax has a secure shred-it service, and I decided to just haul the rest there rather than looking at items individually.</p>
<p>My goal is to clear out everything that pre-dates 2000 except the actual tax returns, the documents on purchase of our home (and sale of our previous home) and the related home improvements, and a few other critical items. It is truly amazing how much space all those bank statements, canceled checks, auto & home insurance docs and the like take up.</p>
<p>So now that I’ve had my tea break – with CC instead of cookies – it is back to the salt mines.</p>
<p>Cheers!</p>
<p>Arabrab, it rains plenty here in Mi but that does not seem to get my organizational mojo in order.
And Oregon, look in the second-last purse you used. You may be surprised ; )
(I am headed to a fundraiser in a few hours where you bring gently used accessories for working women in exchange for tix to win gucci, so this a.m. before heading to the office I had a good handbag cleaning session and found several things I’d ‘lost’ – including a pair of earrings.)</p>
<p>And re:
</p>
<p>As you can guess, so does McHusband, who has repeatedly explained patiently to me that you HAVE to keep the boxes if you ever want to sell it on ebay. This from someone who has NEVER sold A THING on ebay (but buys plenty…like semi-clad fantasy hero mannequins from Germany.) </p>
<p>So Woody, my question is: Have you considered a well-timed basement flood?</p>
<p>oregon101, I can top your lost story. Yesterday, I was talking to H on my cell while sitting in the car in a parking lot. As I was talking, I noticed the empty cell phone case in the cupholder, thought that looked odd, and started casually checking around for my cell phone. I checked my purse, the passenger seat, between the seats, under the seat and then started to worry that maybe I had left my phone in the store. All the while of course I am talking on my cell phone. It never occured to me to check that thing in my hand glued to my ear!</p>
<p>Oh Analyst – I do that all the time with my glasses – where are they? Look everywhere but on top of my head. (And this despite my optician telling me that it is not good to do that with glasses anyway.) Maybe I need to get one of those cute beaded chains to hold my glasses, but I’d probably misplace it too.</p>
<p>In another, we’re all getting old story, I was giving a speech today to a state resident association for continuing care retirement communities. The average age of residents in CCRCs is 80+, so for one of my slides I had googled images for “group of elderly women.” I swear that all of the images were of women in their late forties or early fifties. Since when did that become elderly? Of course, my mother at the age of 89 doesn’t consider herself to be elderly either. I think elderly is defined as any age that is significantly older than yourself and to those young whipper snappers at Google, that now means me!</p>
<p>Truth be told re:basement flood. We’ve had our share, the only things that were soaked were the 40+ year-old files from his very very first tech job. Each was lovingly dried by H and remain in basement to this day!!</p>
<p>Woody – we still have decks of punched cards. (Outside of museums, are there readers out there?), papertape for a DEC-10, at least one nine-track tape, and several stacks of a hex stack dump, and code listings for a compiler written in, oh, 1978?</p>
<p>I did manage to convince him to let me dispose of the middle school (HIS middle school, not D’s) archery set, the photo enlarger from high school, various pieces of mechanical drawing equipment, and a weaving setup that also dated back to junior high. We’re still holding tight to various CS textbooks from the 70s. Real, real, tight.</p>
<p>Having cleaned out houses after my parents and f-i-l died, I really dread D having to go through some of this stuff when we’re gone. I know he’s never going to take up archery again (and if he did it would be with some snazzy new setup, I’m sure. Hobbies. Blech. Now novels, novels are different. It is really, really important to keep novels I like. You can’t really rely on the library, especially once a book is more than ten years old or was only a paperback. Better to keep them around…</p>
<p>oh, arabrab, can my H have the archery set? he collects old ones. Also old fishing reels, fly rods, scout paraphernalia including vintage uniforms and T shirts from camps he didnt attend and no one else wanted, camping gear, shirts with fish on them, bill caps, woodworking tools, chain saws, leather goods and folding knives.</p>
<p>Well, I guess everyone needs a hobby.</p>
<p>arabrab - H worked for DEC! We probably have the same crap!
Also MIL recently bestowed his cub and boy scout uniforms on us…</p>
<p>Anyone have the problem with skipping a memory? An example of my newest way I forget things…email string confirms our group will meet for bridge and one friend offers her home. The next day, friend says son will be home with study group and we agree to meet at a cafe instead. Fast forward 3 days to bridge day. I drive directly to friend’s home and arrive at an empty hourse. Stand on her porch puzzled until I realize I’m supposed to be at the cafe. This ‘skipped memory’ issue has happened to me three times in the last few weeks! Getting older s*cks!</p>
<p>On another note, D flies home for the summer in just 18 days. How can 1/4 of her time at college be over??</p>
<p>Oh Anaylyst–LOL at the imagery of your looking for your phone while talking!
Kmcc–have looked in all the purses and through all the boxes of jewelry…nothing.
even looked in the car under the seats and such. Think the ring is gone but the bag that is missing still puzzles me. I have really bad Karma with “things”. I will think “I like that bowl” and within a day will break it. I think it is my way of learning dispassion for worldly items 
not just that I move too fast…
collage 1 I like the “skipping a memory” way of putting it.</p>
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Amen to that! I’m constantly saying to D, “Don’t get old!” She laughs, says OK, and then gives me a somewhat cryptic look.</p>