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Post by wind on May 13, 2014 21:24:38 GMT -5
Your kitchen sounds...challenging, D. I ain't gonna lie. But if there is a bright side, I think it's well-articulated here: www.apartmenttherapy.com/one-minute-tip-open-shelving-keeps-you-honest-apartment-therapy-videos-jeni-aron-200195(watch the video) I used to have a kitchen like yours, in my old place, btw. And it sounds like you've adapted really well to "kitchen minimalism by necessity." It really does at least teach you HOW to think in terms of "ownership of items by necessity mostly exclusively," doesn't it? Can you share your thought process with the books? Is it just an emotional "irrational" attachment to them, or are you afraid you'll be unable to afford to buy them again if you want to re-read them? I went through my largest de-booking 10 years ago when I moved from a communal 3 story place where I HAD MY OWN LIBRARY ROOM (!!!) (with wall to wall books) to a 600 sf house after having a newborn. I *completely* had no choice but to just leave the books behind. It was a radical thing to do, and yes, I have bought some of those books all over again, but in terms of "if I'd stored the books in a storage unit instead", I'm, like 99% financially better off having just re-bought the ones I wanted to read again later. The ones I kept were: 1) ones I'd had since childhood and still remembered reading that SAME EXACT book the first time 2) ones that were very, very well thought-out gifts from people who mean a lot to me. 3) a very few books I knew for sure I would enjoy reading and "needed" to read ( a couple of those, like the Aleister Crowleys, are still the "maybe irrational keepers" on my bookshelf) ...maybe 30 or so books. But we're 4 people in a 600 sf house. Maybe you can keep...hundreds?...with some $20 shelves off craigslist?
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Post by OnTheMend on May 13, 2014 23:33:02 GMT -5
I'll join you, but I'd like to think in 3 month segments (not too long, not too short) and will have think through my goals. My main goal involves my thesis and other studies but I need some other goals too. I finally hope I can move in the very near future, so getting ready for that is one goal. (I'll be back commenting and cheering when I have abit more time!)
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Post by Ally on May 14, 2014 6:17:19 GMT -5
Hi Ally! Wow, you will have your hands full in the fall--will getting your degree help your current job, or are you studying something new? Anything you can get done during the summer will be really helpful if you'll be even busier in the fall. I have a small amount of fabric and craft stuff, well contained, so they're not on my list. I haven't used any of it for some years though, so I could argue that they should be. But I think I've got enough on my list for now. Diane Diane, When I was about 18 or 19 I had the attitude that I had been "going to school my whole life" and going for another 4 or 5 years just seemed too long, so after 1 year at a community college, I went through a 12 month program in respiratory therapy. This was 35 years ago. After completing that program, I decided to go to school part-time while I worked full time, but then I met my husband to be, and needless to say, his goals, and mine never matched up. We married and moved to another state. After a year or so, I enrolled in a local college on a part-time basis, but then he wanted to move again. We ended up building a house (yes, we did most of the labor, while both working full time.) I took a class here and there after that, enough that I could take the certification/registry exams required for my job. Now my daughter is in college.... and the hospital I work for has started requiring that staff get their degrees. RN's need to get their BSN's, Physical Therapists are required to get their doctorate degrees, all management staff are required to pursue master's level degrees, or higher. I see the hand writing on the wall. When I told my boss that I was going to start this, (I asked him to write a letter recommendation) he seemed very pleased... like it's about time you do this! So here I am. I need to get my butt in gear. Oh, and I wanted to add. When I was reading your first post about the books, I was thinking, there has to be room for more books somewhere! Then I realized that is the "sickness" we share. I hope to get some major decluttering done today. I'm cheering you on!
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Post by dtesposito on May 14, 2014 9:25:27 GMT -5
Ally, very smart of you to be proactive with the degree, you'll have a head start and there won't be so much pressure if they add the requirement to your job in the future. I assume a degree would get you a pay raise? Is there any kind of tuition assistance from the hospital? Are the classes you'll be taking actually related to what you do in your job, or will some be unrelated, just to fulfill the degree requirements?
there has to be room for more books somewhere!
And this is exactly my philosophy! At least, it has been up until now, which is why every nook and cranny in my apartment has books. I guess I'm still living by this philosophy, because I know that if I can get rid of some other things, there'll be more room for the books and I won't have to get rid of as many. The bins that will be empty because of the holiday item purge will probably end up with books in them. I can't get rid of the bins because they are the "table" that one of my bird cages rests on. If I got rid of the bins, I would have to get some other kind of table or something to hold the cage, so I might as well leave the bins there and use them for storage. If I can put books in them, that will make some open space somewhere else in the apartment. I do intend to keep plenty of books, but an amount I'm comfortable with, and right now I admit that I have too many.
Do you have a specific plan for today?
Today I hope to move the holiday stuff from the remaining bins into the drawer, and maybe I'll get to the cards too. The tree decision will probably wait, I'm not quite ready to get rid of it yet.
Diane
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Post by Ally on May 14, 2014 9:43:50 GMT -5
Diane, I hope you are successful at downsizing your holiday decor.
In answer to your above question, my employee will pay a certain amount per year toward the degree. For the first year or two my courses are not directly related to my job, but after that they should be. In fact they should (for many of them) be review of what I already know.
Update: I haven't planned where I will work around here yet today. I need to do some outdoor work and some indoor work as well. DD brought a car-load of stuff home from college and left it in the entry. Her room is tiny, and it's not fair for her to have to store it all there, so I think I'll work on making a place where we can at least stack boxes and bins. Some of it she'll need access to some of it she won't. Okay that does it. I will work in the entry, getting rid of my stuff. If I can clean out a closet, that I can hardly even get to, we can put her stuff in there.
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Post by lucie on May 14, 2014 11:50:05 GMT -5
Diane, I love your list of cathegories, I do not have any major plans for this summer, but I will look at my things according to similar cathegories and lets see, what happens.
I also have a lot of books but I try to keep only the amount that fits my storage. That means about 200 of books I keep rereading and about 150 childrens books (classics) I keep from my childhood, still hoping I will have children on day. Oh, well, at least I have a niece who can enjoy them when she visits. Not counting my ebooks - I have probably 2000 of those.
I am looking forward to reading your updates.
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Post by dtesposito on May 14, 2014 14:06:30 GMT -5
OnTheMend, I know that your studies are your summer project, and your continuing project! I also know you're very disciplined about attaining your goals, so whatever you plan will be successful.
My definition of "summer" is "whenever the weather is hot", which is at LEAST four months here, usually 5--but we're having a very comfortable spring so I can't complain YET!
Diane
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Post by dtesposito on May 14, 2014 14:08:55 GMT -5
Hi Lucie, it's a good thing that I don't really like e-readers, otherwise I'm sure I would have thousands of e-books as well. I think it's sort of like a DVR (which I don't have either) where people record hours and hours of shows that they don't have time to watch--I think I would collect thousands of e-books, and then never have time to read them! Especially since some books are offered for free.
Diane
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Post by dtesposito on May 14, 2014 14:21:22 GMT -5
Your kitchen sounds...challengingWind, that's a very good word for it! Even if all the appliances/plumbing worked it would still not be a good workspace. That's why I have to use my dining room table any time I need a place to do food prep. My books...I've talked about my books many times, so I won't go into great detail here, let's just say that they are my main hobby (if you don't count animals) so I would not want to live in a home that wasn't full of books. The problem is when it's TOO full, which is the case with me--and I've already purged some the last couple of years. It's taken me til now to START, just START to think in terms of limiting the number of books I have. I think what has helped me recently is that fact that I've started using the library more, and ordering books that my library doesn't have. It makes me feel like I don't have to permanently acquire every single book in the world, because there are ways to borrow them if I want to read them. So living where there's a good library system is helping. The problem, of course, is that there are always new books coming out. So if I only had a specific collection--from my parents, for example, so they would have sentimental value--that would be a finite number and I could dedicate that space to them and that would be that. But I know I will always want to get new books, which means that if I am serious about having a designated, acceptable amount of storage space for books, I will have to have a strict in/out rule. This is the part that will be very hard for me. Diane
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Post by dtesposito on May 14, 2014 15:06:07 GMT -5
I wanted to reprint my list along with the space taken. I tried to write the list in order of difficulty, from easy to hard--taking into account both the amount of stuff and how hard the decisions would be, but I don't know how successful that was. I will jump around between different categories, even though it seems like the holiday one is short enough to finish completely, soon.
1 Kitchen stuff Start: 5 shelves & 1 drawer in cupboard in DR, 1/3 of a pantry shelf, 3 shelves & free-standing unit in kitchen 2 Files of paperwork Start: 2 lateral file drawers & 2? regular file drawers, plus one basket in SP, 4? file drawers & maybe 3 3G bin size boxes of misc. paper in my 2nd bedroom 3 Holiday items Start: 3 - 18G bins, 1 - 3G bin, 4 medium size drawers and a few cubic feet in my storage area in basement 4 Pet supplies Start: 1 metal file with drawers & 1 cupboard in 2nd BR, 1 large bin under a table in the DR, 1 drawer in dresser in the LR, 1 shelf in rolling cart in pantry 5 Decorative items/gifts Start: Not sure about this one--things are scattered all over the place 6 Clothing Start: 1/2 of hallway closet, some dresser drawers in bedroom, otherwise hanging in bathroom, on doors, or in piles in DR 7 Hardware/household Start: 3 drawers & 1 cupboard in kitchen, 2 drawers, 2 cupboards & 1/2 shelf in bathroom, 2 file drawers, 2 tool boxes, 1 cupboard and about 2 cubic feet of open space in the DR 8 Stationery & office supplies Start: 2 file drawers and a cupboard in SP, 9 desk drawers in LR, 3 file drawers & 3 or 4 copy paper boxes in 2nd BR, 4 dresser drawers & 2 closet shelves in BR 9 Pantry-food 10 Books – Fiction Series 11 Books—Fiction Non-Series 12 Books—Non fiction
These start locations are preliminary and done mostly from memory, so I'm sure I'll find more....kind of sobering to type it all out like that.
Diane
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Post by gottaproblem on May 14, 2014 17:12:47 GMT -5
Great thread. Nothing to post yet.
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Post by Ally on May 14, 2014 18:06:34 GMT -5
Today I worked in the entry/closet for a while. I found lots of old shoes that have been buried for years. Many went into the trash, some will be donated. There might be a pair or two I keep. I'll continue to work in this area over the weekend. I also flattened out lots of boxes to be recycled.
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Post by dtesposito on May 14, 2014 18:49:11 GMT -5
Hi gottaproblem--come on, I'll bet there's something that you would like to work on this summer!?? Ally, did you make it into the closet or were you working on the stuff blocking it? My holiday item project morphed into something bigger. I did get all of the items in the bins into the drawers of the dresser--including a few things that weren't even holiday things, but that were in the bottom of one of the bins. I found another handful of things to get rid of while doing this. I also went through the small bin of Christmas cards--I think I must have straightened these up before putting them away in December because it was way more orderly than I thought it would be, but I did find about 20 cards to get rid of. Then, since the bird cage that belonged on those now empty bins (I had to move the birds in the fall because of how cold the winter was and with my heat not working properly, the birds couldn't be by the windows) should go back on there, I had to fill the bins up before moving the bird back. So I took the books in the boxes that the birds were temporarily sitting on and filled up the bins. It worked out really well, except that of course, I messed the whole room up again. So after I move the bird back onto the top of the bins I'll have a lot of straightening up to do. But this means both birds will be back where they belong, which will be big relief and another job finished. So my "after" holiday storage space, once I get rid of the tree in the basement, will be the small bin of cards, and the entire closet dresser. Very doable, and since I love both Halloween and Christmas, I think it's reasonable to keep the amount that I did. I still have the issue of getting rid of the donation items that are now sitting in my LR, but I'm still figuring that part out. I'm happy with these two days, I'll be busy with work for the next 4-5 days so will probably not get too much done on my goal, but maybe I'll find a small project to work on that doesn't involve tearing a room apart. Diane
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Post by OnTheMend on May 15, 2014 2:33:04 GMT -5
OnTheMend, I know that your studies are your summer project, and your continuing project! I also know you're very disciplined about attaining your goals, so whatever you plan will be successful. My definition of "summer" is "whenever the weather is hot", which is at LEAST four months here, usually 5--but we're having a very comfortable spring so I can't complain YET! Diane 4-5 months of warmth sound dreamy but like you I don't enjoy extreme heat. Our summer is more like June-August and depending on the year June often is quite cold and rainy and August often starts to be autumny. Usually the actual summer is about 2 months or so, July often is the hottest month. Occasionally May might be quite warm too but so far this year it has been cold, even though the snow melted earlier than normal this year. Yep studies are my main goal, but I think I need some other goals too, maybe ones I didn't get around to do last summer. Here is a small list - I haven't yet really planned anything and will edit the list and break it down more - I consider June 1st being when my goal starts (I am quite busy up until then anyway). - wash rugs and get rid of few - wash office room's walls - paint 3 nesting tables - wax floors - get rid of couch - get rid of easy chair - start packing for move - purge before move (ongoing) - clean floor drain in the shower - clean stove hood filter ( does anyone remember my catastrophe last summer, !)
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Post by lucie on May 15, 2014 7:18:12 GMT -5
Diane, have you ever heard about interlibrary loans? That way you could get books that are not in your library without having to buy them - of course there would be some fee, but lower that a price of the book and you won't have to find a space for it. Ask at your library about it.
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