|
Post by dtesposito on Jul 7, 2014 14:58:40 GMT -5
Daye, most of my pet supplies are not things I use every day, but items that might be used occasionally in a medical situation. So they're more the kind of things that I'm storing away in case I need them. That sounds so typical of hoarder mentality, but the truth is that having an unopened (expired, but unopened) bag of LRS last December saved me a ton of money. I was able to give it to my cat who got sick on a day when only an emergency vet was open. I still had a vet bill the next day when my regular vet was open, but I figure the "walk in the door fee" at the emergency clinic, the extra percentage charge that I would have paid for the same treatment because it was done as ER, plus the taxi cost to and back, would have been close to $300.00. Some of the items I have are for feeding orphaned animals too, plus I have spare toys including some for parrots--I would love to some day be able to adopt an unwanted, problem parrot. So, they aren't things I need to keep handy. If I needed to carry things around I would need some kind of container. When I worked at the shelter, we would have large tool boxes adapted to carry medications and supplies around the building. The few medicines and LRS that I use for my cats now fit okay in the kitchen and bathroom. When I got home from my noon job, I sat down with a huge stack of paper from my file cabinet, this was about half the medical stuff from the vet conferences/databases. It took me one hour to finish that stack, I saved about half a dozen articles that I would still like to read even though they're about 10 years old now. The rest will be recycled or put in my "one clean side" copy paper stack. There is another same size stack of the same stuff still to go, but my eyes were crossing so I thought an hour was enough for today! Diane
|
|
|
Post by ohblondie on Jul 8, 2014 11:23:40 GMT -5
OK. Door is set to be installed next monday......less than a week. I already took out the old wooden ironing board that I was using as a plant stand (and in reality - a K-Cup storage place) I will focus this week on clearing out the rest of the clutter - I have been making slow but steady progress. My goal is to find working solutions for everything that is kept in the kitchen - not just move it from place to place.
IE: I but bottles of Vitamin Water and other things for the kids to drink. I was stacking them, now I put the individual bottles in a crate. I need to find a home for the crate or a different place to store the beverages. Same with the K-cups.
I have a bakers rack in the corner where I store some items including my cans of dog food.
Maybe once I get the kitchen emptied and the island moved and positioned to allow people to walk around it and out the door - then I can visualize some solutions. Now we are tripping over some things that just don't belong there.
I do have a pic of the window as it is now. I will take a pic when the door goes in.
|
|
|
Post by dtesposito on Jul 8, 2014 15:04:57 GMT -5
OK. Door is set to be installed next monday......less than a week.
Hallelujah!
Diane
|
|
|
Post by ohblondie on Jul 9, 2014 11:17:37 GMT -5
OK....long range weather forcast has rain for monday....ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Back up date is friday........ For once I am going to pray for rain on the weekend and pray for a sunny monday...........
|
|
|
Post by dtesposito on Jul 9, 2014 16:48:01 GMT -5
Blondie, they usually can't predict accurately more than a couple of days in advance, so the forecast could completely change by then! Hopefully!
Yesterday I finished going through all the medical stuff, the second half didn't take quite as long as the first because there were some duplicates. I have now emptied out one whole file cabinet drawer, and have moved pet supplies into it, from the cabinet in the same room. I just kind of packed stuff into the drawer, I didn't organize it well, but I don't really care about that now. I'm trying to get a feeling for how much more room I need, and I think the second drawer will be enough. I now need to consolidate the remaining three full drawers into two, and that will take longer because some of the stuff that's left will have to spread out all over the room so I can tell what I have and what I want to keep--but I'm going to wait a bit to start on that.
I've messed up the room doing what I've done so far, and I've also messed up another room with a little book project. So I'm going to nip it in the bud--I'm going to stop and get all my rooms neatened back up before I allow myself to work on anything else. At some point I have to figure out how to keep my place neat every day, instead of always having some excuse or other about why it's always messy. So tonight is once again going to be devoted to getting the place cleaned up.
Diane
|
|
|
Post by dtesposito on Jul 10, 2014 21:46:04 GMT -5
I did clean up my apartment, so hopefully tomorrow I can resume summer goal work. I have been getting rid of a few pantry things lately, and today I took 10 minutes to put some shoes in a better storage space and to purge some t-shirts, so I'm sneaking in a few things here and there.
Diane
|
|
|
Post by ohblondie on Jul 11, 2014 7:51:02 GMT -5
DIANE. .. you are right. I won't know the weather Monday til I get out of bed! !! We have had the worst luck with getting this door done.
Congrats on all of your hard work and all that you have accomplished. I read your posts and get motivated to do more.
|
|
|
Post by dtesposito on Jul 14, 2014 17:12:07 GMT -5
So, Blondie, did the door project happen?
I have done 15 minutes of work purging the paper files, now that the plumber has come and gone and I can think about other things.
Diane
|
|
|
Post by dtesposito on Jul 17, 2014 9:44:45 GMT -5
I've worked about another half hour on paper from the file cabinet, I think I'm now at the point where I'm going to have to take everything out and spread it all over the room to see what I have and what I can get rid of. This will take a big chunk of time and can't be done in little steps since my work room will be covered in paper, so maybe I should schedule this for this afternoon and get it over with all at once. That will be the turning point in getting one more drawer emptied so the rest of the pet supplies can go into the cabinet.
It's amazing, once I made the mental shift to: this stuff is out of date so I'd have to update everything anyway if I needed to get back into this work, I'm letting a really big percentage of it go.
Diane
|
|
|
Post by ohblondie on Jul 17, 2014 11:26:10 GMT -5
Tomorrow! Tomorrow! THe door goes in Tomorrow! It is supposed to be the nicest day of the summer tomorrow! I cannot wait.
I took a before picture outsode. I will finish clearing out the clutter and take a before picture inside. Then tomorrow will be all AFTER pictures! Just in time because I really need to have a going away party for the daughter...........
THis week has been vacation bible school so I have not been able to do much inside as I have been at church every night. I am so motivated to get this done - now that I have a date!
Then on to the rest of the items on the list. Still working on the pool - still a pretty green color. Ugh.
|
|
|
Post by ohblondie on Jul 18, 2014 12:53:08 GMT -5
BAD WORD*******BAD WORD*********BAD WORD*********BAD WORD************BAD WORD
OK - so the guys show up bright and early, well, at 9am - to put in teh door. THey cut the hole in the side of the house, the electrical outlet under the window gets moved, etc etc etc.....
The guy goes to get the door (that was ordered months ago and sitting in sotrage for weeks)and opens the box to check on the door AND THE SLIDER IS DAMAGED!!!!!!!!!!!
No idea what they are going to do - I am so glad I came to work...........I should have them vacuum the pool while they are standing there.
|
|
|
Post by dtesposito on Jul 18, 2014 13:16:11 GMT -5
THE SLIDER IS DAMAGED!!!!!!!!!!!
OH NO!!! Does that mean they'll have to board up the hole in your house while they wait for another one?
I guess the lesson for them next time is to open and check the door before they actually cut your house open.
Wow, how frustrating.
Diane
|
|
|
Post by dtesposito on Jul 18, 2014 18:29:38 GMT -5
I am relieved to report that my work paper purge project/pet supply purge is almost done. All paper from the cabinet is sorted. I had a goal of condensing 4 drawers of stuff into 2 so that I'd have 2 free for my pet supplies. I was actually able to keep only 1 and 1/2 drawers of old work stuff. This gave me 1/2 drawer extra, and I've already moved some files from my regular filing cabinet into the 1/2 drawer extra. This will give me more room in my other cabinet--the stuff I moved is not used very much but I'm not ready to get rid of it, so it's better off in the other room rather than in the cabinet I use almost every day. I decided to leave the small bin under the corner table in the DR, you can't even see it, and if I moved it I'd have to find something else to store under there. It also is the stuff I rarely use, so I left it there. There is still a little bit of space in the 2 pet supply drawers, so if I find other things here and there I'll have a place to put them. I'm not 100 percent done yet, I have to look around everywhere to see if there's anything I've missed, and I left some items out that I didn't throw away yet from my medicine drawers.
I ended up estimating some of the paper count of what went out--I was going to just forget about counting it, but it felt somehow therapeutic to count it--and since this was emotionally charged stuff, I kept counting. And there's a little stack of shredding but that will get done a little at a time over the next few days. The recycling is in bags in my kitchen waiting for the alley bin to be emptied next Tuesday.
I think this was good project to tackle, and it wasn't even on my original goal list--I'm really glad I did it, though.
Diane
|
|
|
Post by dtesposito on Jul 20, 2014 8:20:05 GMT -5
1 Kitchen stuff2 Files of paperwork 3 Holiday items4 Pet supplies5 Decorative items/gifts 6 Clothing 7 Hardware/household8 Stationery & office supplies 9 Pantry-food 10 Books – Fiction Series11 Books—Fiction Non-Series12 Books—Non fictionPet supplies are finished. I may find a few around in various places, but I still have a little bit of space in the file cabinet so I'm considering this category officially done. I wanted to do office supplies next, since that's the next hardest, but I just found out I have pantry moths so I guess pantry food is going to be next. Here's another instance where, if I believed in a force in the universe, I would believe that the moths were sent to force me to deal with my pantry food, which I've been trying to use up for about 2 years now. Perfect timing, I think I'll just end up throwing everything away and starting fresh. I don't seem to be able to deal with it any other way. So my next project is the pantry. I will try to work on that concurrently with my book job goal. Diane
|
|
|
Post by lucie on Jul 20, 2014 9:24:27 GMT -5
Wow, a half of your list done and it is not even the half of the summer yet. Great job, Diane! I also agree that an occurence of a food moth is a way the universe is sending you on the next goal. It may turn out to be quite an easy job - you have had to make much harder decisions on books, so dealing with food, probably some expired, should not be that bad.
|
|