Our family room couch is getting a bit worn, but it is not high on the place for our $$. Waiting for refrigerator to bite the dust. Our 22 year old AC/heat - waiting for one or both units to have a compressor or coil go bad. Keeping our fingers crossed with each maintenance visit… That seems to be it. Thankfully H is over 59.5 and we can tap retirement money for ‘emergencies’. We are at a point where we don’t need more than is built up there when we really have legitimate needs.
I really had an enjoyable day today (saw some people I knew for a function, and later did a little shopping) except for about 10 min when H got mad on the way to an evening social function. It turns out that someone he worked with over 20 years ago was there very unexpectedly (she lives in another state) and he morphed into being social.
I readily admit I have not taken pride in house keeping or de-cluttering. At some point I will do better.
Just learned a new phrase - hoarder by proxy. The relative that gives you old things that she no longer has room for, and expects you to keep and use them in your home for the rest of your natural life. Nope, not going to bite. We have one of those, and I always state my willingness to take whatever it is to Goodwill.
Re 1901–guess it depends on the “hoarder by proxy” (my mom was a “saver–not a hoarder”). I would NEVER had told my mom that I would take something to GW. She wouldn’t have parted with it if that were the case. She would happily give it to me and then I would donate the item if appropriate but I would never announce that the item was a straight GW item–it put up too many mental blocks. I’ve been quite happy to be the “go between”.
Have a friend who loves to shop “antiques” and give them as gifts expecting you to hang on to them. A cat-shaped cookie jar that looks like someone’s Goodwill donation is one example.
That’s my sister, when it comes to memorabilia. While my sister was going through some old papers of my father’s, she came across an announcement about a short story contest that I won in 7th grade. She told me of her intention to mail it to me, and I invited her to toss it instead. She was horrified. So, she spent postage on it, and then it got tossed.
We can’t take anything and then donate it because DH is at least a pack rat, if not an actual hoarder. So if it comes into the house it might never leave, but he will usually allow me to refuse “gifts” from his family.
My progress this week was in FIL’s office - a recycling roller bin full of stuff, plus I uncovered most of what I need for 2015 taxes. Now when the 1099s start rolling in there will be a place for them.
Well for the first times in a year, the stars aligned and I landed in my 17 yr old S’s bedroom while he was there after school. (He literally is only in his room to sleep and get dressed/change clothes.) I made him go through his dresser drawers and closet and now have two large garbage bags to donate. I also have 5 ready to go from the basement so tomorrow will be a nice drop off.
Today I organized all my giftwrap so that it takes less space in my walk in closet. (I know it doesn’t sound like much but it took some time.) I tightly rolled up each wrap, wrapped a empty cut up paper towel roll to hold each one in place and found the tall narrow rectangular box that I cut down so that I could see at the top of each roll. I had a few extra rolls that slid right into the bigger wrap rolls so that they all fit in one narrow cardboard box. I also have a bunch of daughters clothes that have been washed and folded to be donated. In cleaning up that area I also found some cards and ribbons that I organized so that I know where to find them when needed.
D1 left a bag to be discarded when she left after Christmas visit. She did this when she moved out over 5 years ago.
I have not done a lot to the room. So she helped with some of the stuff remaining.
D2, on the other hand, has not cleaned out her room at all.
I need to get back on getting rid of s…! Cleaned out a lot of stuff in garage last summer. Just had some work done on house and now more is in there. Ugh!!!
Rummage sale date here is 4/16. I am off today so I went through my dresser and closet and pulled out a few things.
We are in for a possible big snowstorm this Friday/Saturday. If it happens and we are stuck inside, I plan to do some cleaning out in the basement and garage.
The biggest problem I have in my basement is the dozens of photo albums I have, mainly of my children when they were young. Obviously I’m not going to get rid of those. I know I can get this stuff scanned, but how do I do that?
Also in the basement are many many framed photos of the kids when they were young. We don’t have room to display them all, and I don’t want our house to be a museum. So should I just hold onto them until I can offload them onto my kids?
DD starts her spring semester tomorrow. My goal is to do some spring cleaning one step at a time.
I am hoping by her spring break in March I will be all organized. We live in a condo so if we don’t constantly clean up the clutter can pile up fast.
Not sure if it’s been mentioned upstream, but I just read the Magic of Tidying Up book yesterday, and I’m permitting myself to be inspired. I like the one-category-at-a-time approach. And we need a massive purge as we anticipate D16 going away to college next year. Aiming to fill lots of bags!
VeryHappy–get some photo boxes. Save the photos by album, category, chronological in the boxes and discard the albums. Only keep photos in an album if it is special–baby pix, wedding album for example. You should do this anyways if your albums are not archival quality. You can put 1000 pix in a small box versus 3-4 albums.
