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Post by ohblondie on Jun 28, 2014 12:02:09 GMT -5
Plugging away at the yard. another bag of weeds and such to go curbside.
piled more scraps of wood in the woodpile. There are scraps ALL over the yard.
Moved rocks to finish the border.
Deck is completed stained with the first coat. will put on second coat tomorrow.
Still no date for the door.
Finished washing the last of the party stuff. Will not put it away as my friend will use it for her daughters graduation.
Another bag of clothes to go to my friend. Barely makes a dent in my room though. I need to forge a path to the dresser so I can get my clothes put away.
I think I just had an anxiety attack and I do not know why.......But I am calmer now.
OK back at it.
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Post by ellen on Jun 28, 2014 15:21:58 GMT -5
My friend that I was supposed to go riding with July 3 - 6th, called this morning and very apologetically said she was going to have to cancel because she has to babysit. Her daughter is a commercial pilot and moving up to a bigger plane and needed to train. Me? I was ecstatic...although I tried to hide how much so that I was. I told her, "You probably saved my life." I have only ridden that horse twice, and I was not looking forward to hauling her 100 miles and riding in the wide open spaces. We have tentatively rescheduled for this fall, which will be better all the way around. I won't have so many animals to take care of...I rehab wildlife and this is "baby season". It will be cooler and it will give me time to work with my horse at home.
I have been so stressed, worrying how my husband was going to be able to handle taking care of all my animals, getting the house in order so I could go, making lists of things I need to remember to do or to take...and just the whole general thing. I decided last winter I was going to buy a horse and start riding again. I signed up to several Facebook pages for women who camp and ride. These are all for riding on big ranches...not down the side of the road. I think by October I should have my horse ready. I feel better not having to rush her, and at my age, it is best to err on the side of caution.
So, I can relax and get back to my summer goals. I should add to them....riding my horse. I had big plans for her when I bought her last December and I haven't done much with her...mainly due to having a total knee replacement in February.
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Post by dtesposito on Jun 28, 2014 17:51:32 GMT -5
Thank you Lucie, yes, I've peeled several layers off of that particular onion, and cried while doing it! It definitely is a process, this is why it's so important for people to be working hard on this all along, instead of waiting until there's some kind of emergency and trying to do it all at once. Onblondie--how did you get so many clothes? Are they various sizes that you wore at different times? Or did you just love clothing the way I love books? Ellen, fantastic about the trip being cancelled--that's happened to me too, such a relief, while you're trying to pretend to be disappointed on the phone! Think of all the extra work time you have now! I did more of the remaining book researching this afternoon, I still have one big stack to go and I'll be done. This last batch that I did all seemed to be good to sell, whereas the batch last night were more in the donation category. I should be able to finish the last of them tonight and NF books will be completely done, except for getting the last donations out. I want to slow down on the summer goal so I can spend more time on my "book job", although I seem to get excited about the purging and don't want to stop. I guess next in line is the pet supplies. Diane
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Post by ohblondie on Jul 1, 2014 7:15:10 GMT -5
Clothing....oh my clothing.........
I have been a variety of sizes. I made it down to a size 12, almost a size 10. I have ballooned up since then and I am in a 16 or XL. I was also pregnant 4 times.
Growing up I had limited clothing. So the first thing I did when I got a job was to start buying clothes. For the first 10-15 years I hated to get rid of stuff. I spent too much money, I will lose weight,etc......I am scared to go to the attic.
When the kids were little and money was tight, and I was putting weight back on, I was addicted to thrift shops and consignment shops and rummage sales. I would grab an armful and pay a few dollars and bring it home. I would justify this as I needed clothes and the money was going for a good cause.
THen my room got out of control and I could never find anything. So I would buy more clothes to replace what was missing in the piles.
I have bins and boxes all over my room. I also have random pieces of clothing. orphan pieces that are looking for the rest of the set that they belong to. Last night I went through about 2-4 bins. I consolidated the keeepers into one bin. THese are new clothes that will fit if I lose about 10 pounds. Anything that required more than that got donated. Anything that looked really dated went. Anything that was not my color or did not make me feel just right went. I filled a bag for my friend and have a pile yet to go through. And several bins to go through. I could probably have a yard sale but I don;t want the hassle.
I do love clothing like I love books. And I have been slowly whittling away at that pile. I pass them along to people I ride the bus with.
I have goten better about passing along books and clothing. Wish it was as easy to do with teh other stuff.
My bedroom became the dumping ground. Whenever company came over, I would grab the tablecloth and lift it off the table and toss it in my room with whatever random box or things were in the way.
NEED TO TAKE PICTURES. I want to document my shame......and how good it will look.
Last night I also worked at clearing out the kitchen to make way for the door. I got the wooden ironing board down. THis was in front of the window holding my plants. I started a donate box for random kitchen items. I got some things put away. More stuff to deal with. Ick.....
Back at it tonight. I am running out of shopping bags for the donate clothes. Need to find boxes.
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Post by ohblondie on Jul 2, 2014 20:17:29 GMT -5
still no door!! I spoke to the guy today and he said next week sometime. They were finishing up a job this week that was an emergency, supposedly emergency. They are not working over the weekend which I understand.
But what is frustrating me, or should I say what is angering my husband, is that the guy said he would be available to help open the pool tomorrow.I really want my pool open,but I really want my door I put in more. And wouldt he screw up opening my pool?
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Post by flotsam on Jul 5, 2014 8:26:07 GMT -5
Hi all So nice to see what you've got done. I just came back here a few days ago and would like to join you. I'm having some health issues and will therefore start small: I want to paint my tiny bathroom. I'll only have to take off a small open shelving unit. Knowing me, the biggest problem will be to decide which color to choose . It would be nice if I'd be able to paint the kitchen or the equally tiny entryway, but I'll think about that later.
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Post by dtesposito on Jul 5, 2014 16:26:04 GMT -5
Ohblondie, sorry this door things is still dragging out. Can you call the guy and pin him down to a day and time? If he tries to tell you "some time next week" tell him you're planning other things around it and you need to schedule the time, so he needs to commit to something? I know it's tough when it's a friend.
For loving clothes so much, you sound like you're doing great with getting rid of them. You just have so many that it'll take a while.
This made me laugh--I've done the stash and dash thing but this takes it to an art form:
I would grab the tablecloth and lift it off the table and toss it in my room
Diane
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Post by dtesposito on Jul 5, 2014 16:31:16 GMT -5
Hello flotsam, so nice to see you here! Painting is a wonderful project, one that intimidates me, so I admire anyone who can do it. It can make the room look like an entirely different place.
I've had a busy week and a rest after my last big book purge, but tomorrow I'll resume my summer goal. I'm planning to do the pet supplies next, which will involve pulling stuff out from a few different places, so tonight I will concentrate on getting my place as neat as I can, so that I'm not starting with a mess.
I keep thinking I have to add my "sale" books onto this project because they are what is now making the place look messy, but that's an ongoing issue so it's not going to go away this summer, or even this year. I'm still finding some of my own books here and there, and I'm doing my best to get rid of more. The donation books are still sitting in the entryway and the first part of the LR. Oh well, I still have half of the summer to work on this.
How is everyone else doing?
Diane
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Post by dtesposito on Jul 6, 2014 9:52:47 GMT -5
So last night, right before bedtime, I decided to look around and see if I was missing any areas that had pet supplies. I have the small metal cabinet with the medical supplies, part of a cabinet in my 2nd bedroom, a small-ish bin in the DR and most of a drawer in a dresser that is near my front door. The other drawers in that dresser hold things like reuseable shopping bags, things I want to hold to give to people, some miscellaneous items, and electronics like cords, my old portable CD player which I'm hanging on to even though I have an MP3 player, my spare phone, etc. It would really be nice to have that drawer freed up for other things. I also have pet items elsewhere, like some meds in my bathroom cabinet, the extra linens in the DR, etc., and I might have something in a top cabinet in the 2nd bedroom too. In looking through the stuff, I'm thinking that I should keep a lot of it, because I do use it occasionally. I'm trying to get out of the superhero mentality of having things that I can give to people when they need them, but when I think of future stray animal situations, there are items I don't want to be without--I guess I still need to be superhero to a stray animal, whereas I'm okay with not being able to help someone who just needs some random piece of junk that I have now thrown away. Anyway, the point of this is that I also looked around my apartment to see if there was something else I could get rid of to make room for the pet supplies to be mostly in one place. The only logical place is a file cabinet in my 2nd bedroom. This cabinet is tall, 4 deep drawers, and it is FULL of stuff from my animal shelter job. I worked there for over 25 years, and did a lot of work at home, so I would keep files at home for confidential things like management meeting reports, salary reports, staff reviews, etc. I also kept a copy of every mailing the organization did. And, since I worked for many of those years in the medical area, tons of medical stuff on animal health. Veterinary databases usually require you to be a vet to access them, and since our vets would let us access stuff pertinent to the animals we were treating, I made copies of stuff to keep. It has been almost 7 years since that job ended. Last night I realized several things: I'm not currently working with a shelter and still feel enough pain from losing that job to make me not want to work with any shelter for a while yet. The medical information that I have is now out of date, and although I'm sure some of it would still be useful, if I ever were to work with a shelter again I would be working alongside a vet who could once again let me have access to databases. Although I still would like to keep information from that job that reminded me of the good I did, and the wonderful people I knew, I don't need any of the confidential information. I don't need the records of day to day things that happened, they serve no purpose and just make me feel sad. I can probably clear out 2 of those 4 file drawers, and that should be plenty of room for my pet supplies. AND, unfortunately, I also realized that clearing that stuff out will be very emotional and upsetting. This morning I spent about 45 minutes going through some files and pulling out things to be shredded and things to be recycled. When I came out of the room and started getting ready to go out to my first job today, I realized I was kind of "mouth-breathing", you know, blowing air out kind of hard, like when you're trying to be calm. So this is going to be hard, but I think it'll be good for me. Enough time has passed that I have a better perspective on what I want to keep, and what I can let go. If I can free up the 2 drawers, I can have the drawer in the LR free, the shelf on the 2nd BR cabinet free, and probably can get rid of the DR bin and use that spot (underneath a corner table) for something else. It would be in keeping with the idea of using only my available space, and would also be in keeping with releasing things that are not good to hang on to. So, that's my next project. Diane
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Post by flotsam on Jul 6, 2014 12:31:34 GMT -5
Hello Diane, painting isn't really difficult—making space for it is . But my bathroom is tiny enough to make it do-able. I can imagine it's not easy to gather the pet supplies to one point. I've also some scattered belongings—e.g. painting supplies —that I'll have to gather together, but that's not a top priority right now. Good job working on the files so hard .
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Post by dtesposito on Jul 6, 2014 21:11:14 GMT -5
Flotsam--for some reason painting is difficult for me--I'm not good at it--I'm very sloppy so paint drips everywhere, I can never get a nice smooth look on the wall, and I get discouraged very quickly so I never want to do it for very long. It's sort of like if you asked an 8-year old to paint a room. Since I moved in here 17 years ago only my LR has been painted once, a long time ago, and that was because a friend basically did it for me!! So I admire people who can paint nicely. Today I worked for over an hour on my work paper purge. The beginning part was really hard, but the last half hour I felt sort of numb to the emotional aspect of it. I think that's good, and I hope that continues. I'm just getting rid of about 90% of what I'm handling so far. I'm ending up with a big shred pile, which will have to be done slowly to not burn out the machine. I should have done this project in Purge-a-thon June, I've gotten rid of hundreds of papers already! Diane
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Post by ohblondie on Jul 7, 2014 7:29:46 GMT -5
Diane - that bit about the table cloth is so me! That is how I clear my table. But then I run out of tableclothes cause they are al in my room holding stuff.
Pool opening went OK. THey redid the plumbing to and from the pump. Pool went from dark icky brown to light green by saturday. By sunday you could see it needed to be vacuumed. So I started to do it. THis casued the return line to put dirty brown water into teh pool. It was supposed to go thru the filter. I would think the filter would have made the water clear.
I did get a lot of leaves and crap off the bottom. but the water is now brown again.
ARGHHHH.
I will call him in awhile and talk to him. I will also try to pin him down to a date for the door. He is always responding to an emergency. I want to be an emergency!!!! I told door guy that we are trying to plan a going away party for my daughter.....and that we need the door done!!
I got tired of waiting for the door so I started putting the tables and chairs back on the deck. Trying to get a combination that is pleasing to the eye yet still able to move freely about the deck.
Back at work today....I am exhausted from the weekend.
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Post by ellen on Jul 7, 2014 9:34:24 GMT -5
I sort of jumped ship there for a little bit. I can't remember exactly what my excuse is. Well, it has been hot! The humidity is sky high and I have felt sort of washed out from being outside and sweating so much. I did work on my goal yesterday...not a lot, but a bag....so at least that is something. The mosquitoes are horrific. And if I spray with Off, it makes me sweat more, but there is no getting around that. Anyway, I am going to give it another lick today, but also I need to clean out and re-arrange my linen closet. I did laundry and I still haven't put all the towels and sheets away. I also need to clean out my closet. I can't close the door. That is pretty bad! And my dog (and the raccoon!!) is sleeping on top of the stuff that is on the floor. (I tell this to sort of shame myself in getting this done.) I need to throw away everything in there except the few things that I actually wear. Okay....I'm going out to finish taking care of the horses...then will come back in here and work where it is cool and later, will go work on the pile of junk.
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Post by dtesposito on Jul 7, 2014 10:39:06 GMT -5
Hi Ellen, heat and humidity is an acceptable excuse for avoiding outside work any time! No sense getting heat stroke, the stuff will still be there when it gets a little cooler. I've been so lucky so far this summer, relatively few really hot days compared to the last few years. Today is another hot one, but mid-week it will get cooler again. Ohblondie, you might be right in having reservations about that guy. Maybe cut your losses and find someone else to do the door? How frustrating to finally get yourself to get repairs done and then they're still not done! I did a half hour on my work stuff this morning, including putting some pet supplies into the half a file drawer that is emptied out so far. I figured I needed to remind myself why I was working on that file cabinet! I've hit a recycling snag though--over the holiday weekend, someone burned up our building's recycling bin. This is the second time within a year or two that this has happened--the entire plastic bin melted down to the ground, there is just the bottom few inches and the wheels left. I don't know how long it will be until we get another bin, and then everyone will have saved stuff to put in it. I might bring some of the recycling over to my senior client's house and use her bin, we rarely fill it up these days. Or of course, there's always amnesty to throw it away. I'll see how it goes. Diane
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Post by dayeanu on Jul 7, 2014 11:28:03 GMT -5
Dtesposito, for my pet/animal supplies, I bought a clear plastic tub w lid. I organized the supplies by type into smaller containers, boxes, pails, and bags, clearly labeled, and placed them all in the large clear storage tub. (I know - I can't walk through my house, but I can find any bit of animal medicine at a moment's notice. -- I have my priorities.) the good thing about the tub is that it keeps the supplies in, and non-animal supplies out, and it's big enough that it's easy to find. I can pick it up and take it out to the barn with me, if needed.
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