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Post by Meme on Mar 27, 2009 20:32:24 GMT -5
welcome to the board= I am sorry for your loss of your gal pal you are in grief -and grief changes who we are for a long time I am glad you came here = hugs from Meme
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Post by marigold on Mar 28, 2009 4:20:03 GMT -5
www.freecycle.org - is a place where you post the stuff you're giving for free, then the interested folks contact you and arrange to come to YOUR place to pick the stuff up themselves. So, you don't even have to invite them in, you can have it ready near the door and just pass it to them. You don't earn any money, but somebody comes to your place and takes the stuff you don't want and they find precious e-bay is better if you want to sell, but as you mentioned, the deal includes wrapping and going to the post office... You know what my hubby did once when he was culling his humongous collection of SF magazines? He decided to keep just the very first issues, because they meant something historically. He gave the rest to his friend who is also a huge SF fan. He did the same with his SF books. He only kept those that he liked to read repeatedly from time to time, and those that he liked to lend to friends. The rest, he concluded, he would easily find in a library or elsewhere, and those weren't worthy enough of taking up his space. So that gave me another idea for you - you could keep several most special/precious items for yourself (diplay them nicely) and offer the rest of your collection to your collector friends (either for free or for some money). In that way, you're sure your stuff is appreciated, you get rid of it, you can still see it at your friend's place (as a part of an even bigger collection!), you might make it easier for your friend to complete their collection, and it would be easy to arrange the pick-up. All this, ofcourse, if they are interested in any of your stuff. It is a good feeling, organizing and cleaning, isn't it? (...) it's like a natural high once you can see the results whenever I was going through a difficult phase in life, I remember that the best therapy for me was uncluttering, tossing, organizing, cleaning. Cleaning has a deeper meaning. Not only do you keep your mind busy, but think what cleaning really is: getting rid of dirt, getting rid of superfluous, getting rid of burdens, leting the shine through. Very enlighting and energizing.
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Post by Lucky Laura Loving Life on Mar 28, 2009 9:45:32 GMT -5
Hi Zilla and welcome! You sound like you have a good idea of what you want too! So very sorry for your loss,that takes time to heal and my heart goes out to you.
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Post by crazycatlady on Mar 28, 2009 20:29:04 GMT -5
Welcome, Slothzilla. I love your name! Very creative.
Deepest condolences on the loss of your girlfriend. And kudos for continuing to clean in her honor...that is fabulous.
I find it helpful to set limits. When I was sorting books and videos, I kept one small container (about shoebox sized) of books and videos for my "someday in the future" grandchild. Little did I know at the time, that that baby would be arriving in 2009! I only allow myself enough clothes to comfortably fit in my closet and one dresser. Simple limit setting seems to work for me.
I wonder if your spare room would be a good limit for the collections. You could either cram as much as will fit in there, or make it a display room, with plenty of space to showcase the items. Either way, there is a limit to help you decide which items would stay or need to go.
I'm glad that you are here. Keep up the good work!
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Post by creativechaos on Mar 30, 2009 15:19:46 GMT -5
hello slothzilla, and welcome! i'd have to rename you slothnilla! you have been working so hard.
i'm so sorry for your loss of your beloved girlfriend. thank you for sharing your progress and insights. they help so much.
if you need the money, one alternative for thinning your valuable collections if you want to ebay some of them: we have someone here who does ebay for others and takes 25%. it's a good deal because you still make some money and don't have to do the listing, packing, and shipping. perhaps there is someone like that in your area. none of my junk is worth much, but your things sound as though they could fetch a good price!
welcome from another sister under the skin!
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Post by slothzilla on Mar 30, 2009 18:07:37 GMT -5
Thanks everyone for the hugs, condolences, encouragement, and support. Y'know, I really like it here, everyone really seems to really care about each other, and that gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling. I didn't get as much done this weekend as I'd hoped, but I did make some more progress. I mostly focused on one wall of my living room. Bought & built some new shelves to replace some old ones that were getting fairly grungy. I keep vhs tapes on those shelves...boxed up all the tapes which I've since gotten on dvd, and organized the remaining tapes better (maybe one of these days I'll actually be able to part with ALL of my old VHS tapes... .) Marigold, it's funny that you should mention your husband getting rid of a bunch of his SF mags. I've got a couple of small bookcases of mostly SF paperbacks, many of which I've had since the 70s & 80s, and just the other day I decided to finally get rid of them. What the heck do I need them for, taking up space and gathering dust? If I haven't got around to re-reading them by now, I doubt if I ever will! I'd love to get rid of at least half my comic collection one of these days, but that's going to be a lot of work just to decide which ones to sell and which ones to keep...at least they're all boxed up & stacked up in a huge closet, out of the way and out of sight. (they do take up a lot of room though, and are no fun to move!) Crazycatlady, I like your idea about setting limits. When I first started buying dvds, I heard that a friend of a friend limited himself to only having 50 dvds at a time. At the time I thought that was kooky, but now I can definitely see the advantage in that . Now that I've joined Netflix, having several hundred dvds does seem a little silly, so I'm definitely going to be selling a bunch soon. And its like you read my mind about limiting my collection to my spare bedroom. I use that as a workroom too (I keep my computers and a drawing board up there), but its where I keep all my comics and toys, and most of my guitars and other musical equipment. I try to keep all my really "nerdy" stuff up there, and I'm trying to make the downstairs less cluttered. (still working on that...) CreativeChaos, thanks for the tip about ebay dealers. I have seen some of them on ebay, not sure if any are around here, but there probably are (I'm in Atlanta). I really hate dealing with mailing packages, so that might be a good route for me to pursue. Thanks again to everyone for all the good vibes.
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Post by gettingsomewhere on Mar 30, 2009 21:48:14 GMT -5
welcome slothzilla, you're among friends here. it's great to see you've kept up your momentum too!
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Post by AnnieOkie on Apr 1, 2009 11:42:45 GMT -5
Hey Zilla-On whittling down your DVD collection.....there is a store here in the Midwest (I checked and there are currently no locations near you, sorry) called Vintage Stock. They buy/sell used DVDs (as well as comics, action figures, etc). If you could find a place similar near you, then you might be able to get rid of some of the DVDs, etc. But BEWARE, these places could incite you to collect more stuff! www.vintagestock.com/index.html
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Post by slothzilla on Apr 1, 2009 15:08:20 GMT -5
Thanks for the info Annie. There are a few places like that close to where I live, and soon I am going to take a couple of boxes of dvds in...it will be a challenge to opt for cash instead of store credit!
I have maybe 700 or so record albums that have been sitting in the same place for the past 7 and a half years (I don't think I've listened to any records since I last moved). Lately I've had an urge to really clean out all the corners of the room they're in...I plan to keep maybe 50 of them and give the rest to a record-collecting buddy of mine (who has an insane amount of records and cds!) Hopefullly soon I'll tackle that - it would feel really good to clear out the space they're taking up.
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Post by gettingsomewhere on Apr 1, 2009 19:00:06 GMT -5
Hey Sothzilla, why not become a collector of space..?!?
Thats what i'm gonna try.
Good luck.
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