Three bags from the basement ready to drop off this week. Before putting away the Christmas decorations I purged the decor that no longer has a place out of the boxes. Also went through some other miscellaneous boxes full of things with no clear reason keep.
Yesterday I drove by a giant Good Will headquarters not far from my home (I donāt remember it being there - but it has been there a few years). I am going to take the bags from my basement there, instead of waiting for local church spring rummage sales.
Iām back from the wedding in Charleston followed by a few days in Atlanta with my brother and his wife before they returned to England. We opted for VRBOs in both locations. It was a wonderful way to go and the wedding was lovely (though freezing as it was outside and Charleston was unusually cold). Sad though when you enjoy someone elseās home so much more than your own. Iām determined to get moving on decluttering this house whatever resistance my Husband shows. Of course my busiest time of year is about to hit at work and Iām already behind because of being gone almost 2 weeks. Will try and get at least a bag done today though am a little tired after the long drive home.
@swimcatsmom do you think your H enjoyed the visiting in clutter free environment? Maybe this is a good time to at least express to him how it was so peaceful and relaxing to be in a less cluttered environment and how youād like to work to get some of that feeling in your home. Iām glad you had a good time!
My dysfunctional washing machine āwalkedā halfway through the mudroom this morning, so I took the opportunity to climb behind it and throw away some of the crud that has accumulated underneath it and between it and the wall. Yuck. I plan to buy a new washer and dryer but have been too busy this month to seal a deal. After the polar vortex comes and goesā¦
Iām now spending a cold and soon-to-be-snowy-again evening ācleaningā by erasing TV shows from the DVR (and watching a few of them while Iām at it).
Well, Iāve outsourced my decluttering. Took a bag of textiles to my motherās the other day ā curtains, doilies, runners. Iād have donated right away, but they were hers that she left when she moved out, so it felt rude not to run them by her first. I did tell her if she couldnāt use them they were headed for Goodwill. We had the āIām not a curatorā conversation a decade ago, and didnāt THAT feel good!
@abasket - the trip really was a bit of an eye-opener to how frail he is getting (heās 76 but has had a lot of health issues). I guess I kind of realized it before but being out of his normal environment really made it show. I donāt think he can physically help me. Just not hinder is what Iām hoping for.
^^^ Thatās a realistic goal then. Traveling is hard when a person is having health issues. I hope he enjoyed the wedding!
@swimcatsmom: Thatās a good realization for both of you. It sounds like youāve recognized that you need to take the lead, you need to do the bulk of the work, and you need to not expect much from him. Thatās kind of liberating, I would think.
Well - it might be more liberating if I wasnāt getting a little decrepit myself, lol. My accident and surgery have really taken it out of me and Iām still having lots of pain and foot/walking issues 6 months later (the foot with the lisfranc injury is now nicknamed frankenfoot cause it looks like someone elseās very large foot is sewn to my leg by the end of the day - and my feet werent exactly dainty to start with). Plus tax season is just starting and today I worked 11 1/2 hours. That will be about the norm for the next 3 months- 7 days a week.
Though weirdly last year I really got a lot done in the decluttering area during tax season. I thing being tired makes me more ruthless! So I should kill it this tax season 
I did get a bag done yesterday.
Still plugging along with photo decluttering but making good progress, after several weeks of sustained effort. Something I hadnāt anticipated: itās been tough emotionally at times. Not all memories are happy ones. But thatās been balanced out by some wonderful finds. An envelope in my grandmotherās handwriting contained photos of my 4th birthday party, which I didnāt remember at all. A cowgirl party!
Photos are heavy. Iām 75 percent done and have discarded about 60 pounds of duplicates, near-duplicates, double exposures, under exposures, and meaningless crowd scenes. No Annie Leibovitzes here.
Wow - thatās amazing progress @frazzled1. I just posted in the other thread (tidying) that Iām sorting photos now and feeling guilty at throwing away good photos of friends and family from many years that I donāt think my kids would ever want. Iām trying to view all my purging from their perspective so they arenāt burdened with so much stuff. It was easy to purge duplicates, but this is harder. Iām also coming across old photos from when I was a baby and toddler. Such fun!
Iām doing this for the same reason, @psychmomma. If I donāt get this organized, I think my kids might just decide the hell with this someday and dump all of it. If not that, they still wonāt be thrilled to have to wade through it.
I started on photos. I wanted to scan them, and,looked at Office Depot for equipment. Using my copierās scan would take forever. Not happy with what I saw. Does anyone have suggestions?
I sent mine to a company called scandigital.com maybe 10 years ago. It worked seamlessly. I just googled to see if they were still in business and it looks like reviews are all over the place. Maybe google photo scanning services and see which one has good reviews? I mailed my photos (you can include tracking for piece of mind), they do the scanning and then send them back your hard copies and (back then) on CDs. It was painless and, back then, very affordable.
Costco will do photo/slide to digital conversions ā $19.99 for the first 62 pics, then $.32 for each additional. I popped into the site mentioned above and it was $.69 each. Wish I could find something that lets me scan both sides of an image into a jpg ā both of my grandmothers were wise enough to label family pictures, which is a treasure since some of the relatives were born in the 1820s-30s. Guess I know from where my sense of history derives!
I could scan the front and back into a pdf, but then I would have compatibility problems with photo software/albums. I used to have a scanner which let me feed film and slides, but it died and I havenāt seen another one like it since.
Can you scan the picture side of the photo and then name it with the notes on the back?
Not doing that well with this. I gave D a jar of Manuka honey which the boys hated, but she wouldnāt take the bottle of agave syrup. She also took home her big box of jewelry making beads and supplies. I suggested that she have a party with her friends and make bracelets.
I looked into getting rid of our law school books, but they are pretty old (35 years+) and the only suggestions I could find to do with them is to see if a decorator wants them to make a nouveau riche home look better educated. I have to look through the boxes and see what condition they are in after being boxed in the attic for 20+ years. If they are moldy, to the trash, if not, to Craigās list.
OTOH, we thought we had a deal to sell our second home, so H and the boys (plus some hired laborers) emptied a lot of stuff out of there. H took 700 pounds of stuff to the town dump last week. This weekend, we are trying to sell/donate our pool table.
As for photos, H has scanned many of ours into various albums. He does a bunch at a time, tosses duplicates and bad copies. He uses the scanner feature on our home printer (an HP something or other) which is wirelessly connected to his laptop. I am not a picture person, so I would just throw out anything that has me in it. In fact, I have done that for pictures of me alone.
Another thing I am doing is feeding the fireplace with old papers and things I would ordinarily shred. I have started having H scan things like his motherās Medicare stuff and some bills and then I burn them. When itās no longer fireplace weather, I will return to shredding and keep the results for kindling.
I hope to be able to sell the house in 5 years or less and know I need to work harder on clearing it out.
Photosā¦oh my. Right up there with home VHS tapes.
Biggest thing to doā¦label the date and who is in the pictures. We have made a decision to toss anything NOT labeled and dated. For things like birthday partiesā¦one or two picsā¦not two or three full rolls of duplicate prints.
I have a (small) photo album for each of my kids with their birthday party pics. No extras. No one is going to want them.