2019: We Are Making a Difference!
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Helene - weirdly, it's good to know I'm not alone. LOL! Sometimes DH will look at me when he has something broken in his hands. You know he's thinking "do I really HAVE to trash this?"
One thing I stumbled on in my decluttering was an old Sunbeam mixer, complete with bowls, dough hooks, etc. I made the mistake of letting DH see me touch it. He said "what are you going to do with that". I said "add to the flea market pile". He said "maybe my brother can use it for his business" (his brother and his wife's sole source of income is selling baked goods). I said "seriously? no way, but email him if you want". Of course his brother said a polite "no, thanks". Meanwhile mixer continues to sit in basement.0 -
My DH also has a hard time letting go of things. He claims it’s because he hates to think of adding to all the non biodegradable junk filling up the landfills, which I can see, but how is it any better to let the non biodegradable junk fill up our home???0
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My DH also has a hard time letting go of things. He claims it’s because he hates to think of adding to all the non biodegradable junk filling up the landfills, which I can see, but how is it any better to let the non biodegradable junk fill up our home???
DH hasn't tried that line on me yet. LOL!0 -
“Just bought a new game for our cat Thomas, but I think he’s playing it wrong...”
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I finally finished CROM's accounting books through June 30 so I deserve to read/play for awhile!!0
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I refuse to watch the Horders show; I am a candidate for it. I make an effort but sometimes, I think I'll take care of that tomorrow...and tomorrow may be a week or two away...or more.0
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Isn’t it interesting that none of the network news reports covered the speech. If they didn’t cover it, it must not have happened. LOL.
Sneak the mixer over to the storage unit while DH is at work. After all, you’re not tossing it, you’re re-homing it, just like you do with the cats.0 -
Sneak the mixer over to the storage unit while DH is at work. After all, you’re not tossing it, you’re re-homing it, just like you do with the cats.
I'm re-homing a lot of things.
I'm pretty much done with two floors. Of course the second and last floor will be the biggest challenge - both because I can't work on it after DH goes to bed and because that's where the space we call "the rat hole" is located. Heaven only knows what's in there. I am pretty sure that there are boxes of DH that we moved in here in 1981 and have never been touched first.
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that should be "touched since" not "touched first".,,..0
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Your “rat hole” room reminded me of a friend who has a “put” room. Anything that doesn’t have a home gets “put” in one room in their house. Took me a long time to figure that one out, lol!0
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This house doesn't have an attic but the second floor has two bedrooms, multiple closets and an unheated, "attic-like" room. As soon as we moved in, we dubbed it the "rat hole".0
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When MIL died, we had a 2 family house with 5 rooms each floor, an attic, basement and garage. The family had owned the house 60 years. DH, his brother, me and a couple of BIL’s kids spent many weekends trying to empty the house. The rest of the family wanted a few items but we ended up putting stuff DH wanted to keep in a couple of storage units. At the end, we got a large dumpsters and tossed a lot of things nobody wanted. The whole project was a nightmare. We were still hauling out boxes the day of the closing. DH and I have no kids so unless we get serious about clearing stuff out, one of us will have a heck of a crappy job to do alone. I’d be tempted to call a company called Got Junk. For a fee, they’ll cart away whatever you want to be rid of.0
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Got Junk? I need something like that. I would like to go away for a week and tell them to go after it. When I got back, I doubt that I would miss anything. My problem is "out of sight out of mind." If I don't see something frequently, I forget I have it.0
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1-800-got-junk is very expensive and I believe (but can't prove) that they ripped CROM off big time. I got to one of the colonies one day - it's at a dead end - and someone had dumped a ton of just plain junk. I didn't know at the time that the county would clear it eventually. I called 1-800-got-junk. They came out, we talked, and they said I could go home and they'd call me when they were done. Sounded good to me. They charge by the truck load. When they told me how many truck loads they'd taken out I realized why they didn't want me watching. I believe they inflated it. I reimbursed CROM and wrote it off as an expensive lesson.
One of CROM's volunteers had her mother die. Lil and I offered to help her clear out the house. I never saw - or smelled - anything like it. If you've ever seen any clips from the show Hoarders, this was it. And the volunteer wanted to go through ever piece of paper. I immediately saw that it was a job that would take forever. We made one more offer to go in for a weekend and clean it out but she insisted on doing it her way. She and several retired friends spend ONE YEAR on the project. She paid a/c and heat and taxes, etc. for that whole year.
When DH's dad and mom died, his sister got the house (only fair, she moved home to take care of them). Rather than let her pitch, DH brought tons of stuff here. It's still in boxes. When his brother died, more stuff came here. More stuff still in boxes. So I can declutter my stuff. And I'm making great progress. But there will still be a TON.
I have plenty of stuff now for several flea markets.
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When we cleared out MIL’s house a few years ago, SIL and I first went through and set aside the things we wanted to keep for ourselves such as paintings, china dishes, crystal, etc. Then we hired a company that conducts estate sales to get rid of the rest. After a 2 day estate sale, they arranged for a charity to come and take away anything that didn’t sell. We got a little bit of money out of it, but mostly the big advantage was that we didn’t have to deal with trying to clear out everything. I would definitely recommend this approach. I spent about 5 days with SIL going through the house, room by room, selecting what to keep and packing that stuff up, then we called the estate sale people. We didn’t even have to be present during the sale.0
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Years ago, the neighbor across the street sold his house. It was a ranch house with a walk out basement. He was on the water and had a nice dock. The house was about 30 years old and not great construction. It had little or no insulation. It was sold as a tear down and he got more than 500,000 for it. I remember he packed what he wanted to take and left all the rest in the house. The bulldozer came and in a day, knocked the house down and carted everything away.The new neighbors built a McMansion and there went our water view. I was amazed that he walked away from tons of stuff inside. I sure get it now. I’ve had days when that looked like a very attractive option.
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I envision walking away from CROM's storage unit one of these days now that they've cut off all tenant access to the dumpsters. Having a dumpster was a primary criteria in my original choice so I'm not a happy camper but moving everything (I've got shelves all around the outside and everything).0
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Have you ever seen Storage Wars? Storage companies auction off the contents of abandoned units. Sometimes the bidders find treasures and sometimes it’s crap. The bidding is done site unseen.0
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I used to watch that a lot which is probably where I got the idea that walking away from a storage unit might not be the worst thing that ever happened to the company. Of course who knows if it's real.1
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My very first car was a used tan Volkswagon Beetle. I see they aren't going to make them any more. The end of an era.
I asked my dad what all a car owner needed to do and followed his instructions religiously. When my car died because the battery ran dry I said "Dad, why didn't you tell me I needed to add water to the battery?" His response was "oh, Ducky does that". (Ducky owned the local garage.)
My dad, not the do it yourselfer!
(DH is just the opposite. He does everything himself - even when he probably shouldn't have.)0 -
Somehow Sammy got his collar off last night. It's not unfastened - he must have stretched the elastic somehow, got out of it, and left it lying neatly on the stairs.0
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Sammy sounds like a wise guy. And neat to boot. I used to watch Storage Wars for awhile. I think it was real. It was kind of addictive.
We signed a new lease for a new truck yesterday. The old one runs out this month. We had planned to buy the 2016 Tacoma but the new lease made more sense. The 2019 model has a lot of safety features we didn’t have like anti collision breaking and auto dimming high beams. It’s a similar color so most folks won’t realize it’s not the same truck.
Speaking of car maintenance, I had a a friend who was widowed in her 30s. She bought a new car and a few years later, started to have problems with it. Her stepson took a look at it and asked when she last changed the oil. She said never. She had no idea you needed to change it. Paul had always taken care of the cars. The oil was a solid sludge and the engine was shot. I guess she had never seen those Jiffy Lube commercials.0 -
Ooh, a truck. I'd love to drive a truck. Closest I ever came was my Ford Explorer - a great vehicle. Only American vehicle I ever owned. Hated the dealer; of course I hate the Toyota dealer, too.
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Are they serious? Baltimore as a destination for South Asian weddings? Really?
https://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-south-asian-weddings-baltimore-20190710-thaqwsdg65cbdhevbrwglhzr7i-story.html0 -
I never thought of decluttering in terms of using calories but it must use at least a few. I thought I'd have gained last week as I wasn't good at all but I lost 1/2 a pound. Maybe I should go into the business of decluttering - charge an hourly rate, sell the stuff at flea markets, lose weight. Hee hee.....0
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We enjoy having a truck. The interior is well equipped and comfortable. DH has had a truck for about 15 years. The only problem is we drive it to FL and that’s our only vehicle there. It’s awkward if we want to take anyone with us like to dinner. We’ve talked about getting a used car and leaving it down there. Maybe we’ll do something about that next winter. DH is a big DIY guy so he brings a lot of tools back and forth. So we really need the caro space of a truck. 6 years ago, his truck bit the dust just as we arrived in FL. We ended up losing a RAV 4. You should have seen DH in Lowe’s parking lot, sawing lumber into shorter lengths so it would fit in the car. Plus we had to leave many items We brought down in the truck. The car had smaller cargo space and limited what we could bring.0
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Having a truck would be useful when the nearest good donation place is over an hour away. There is a place in this humble town but they don't have good hours. As a result, people dump their bags of goodies at its door after hours. At night, a person or persons have been seen going through the bags and taking what they want, and possibly selling it at a roadside sale.0
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