Not quite a horder - decluttering
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Blessings, I think you're fooling yourself if you think the oldest SIL will actually get rid of anything.
When my Mom (actually grandmother who raised me) was dying, she told me to go thru a trunk in the garage. It contained clothing worn by my mother who died in 1945. They gave me a necklace of coins that were in her purse when she went to the hospital. I haven't worn it. Mom not only had my wedding dress from 1959 but a big net heart filled with the bows from my wedding shower under her bed.
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Oh, Wren - you are absolutely right- I said that wrong!
What I meant to say was that we have now been relieved of the responsibility of cleaning out the house when FIL passes on.
We'll probably have an estate sale company come in and sort things out and organize crap into piles foe sale. Hopefully we will have gotten all the "treasures" located in that process. Pretty much every dime of any proceeds go into the Family Trust, which will be split four ways.
The house will be appraised at current comps, and sold to SIL depending on how much it is, and how much her share of the estate is. She is willing to kick in extra to make sure she gets the house. None of the rest of us want it.
My point - that I didn't make very well - was that we can just leave the piles of crap and filth in the house for SIL to deal with. She may not even notice how bad off the place is. That makes things much easier for DH and me. One less thing to worry about...
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Minus Two- You are amazing. Wow! I wish I would have lost weight on chemo but I gain 20lbs due to all the steroids and benadryl they had to pump in me to keep me doing chemo.
Wrenn-Good idea with the folder.
I was going to work on this today, but my lower back is killing me I guess so my 2 p.m. nap is schedule.
I don't know what has gotten in my lately but I"m all about cleaning and getting rid of stuff.
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I managed to get 8 boxes down from the attic today before my legs gave out. One of the boxes was towels saved - saved for a ranch I owned w/my ex-husband 20 years ago. Jeez. Anyway I washed all those & went through the old towels piled in the garage for spill emergencies & went through the linen closet. Just got back from taking 53 towels & wash cloths to a guy who works with the city animal shelter. He is so excited on behalf of the dogs & cats.
While I was in the linen closet I pulled out 21 pillow cases. They never wear out as soon as the sheets do they. But now there's only me, myself & I living here and using the linen - so the 10 pillow cases I kept should be adequate even if DS & DIL come to stay a week.
Also had boxes of extra sheets in the attic and culled the linen closet for those. And a box of saved baby clothes. My son & DIL have been together 13 years and have long said they will not be having children, so what am I saving this stuff for? The nurse at the oncology center is having another baby 8 years down the road from her last one. Since she gave everything away, I've washed a bunch of baby things to take her. And a box labeled "linen & lace" that I haven't dared to open yet. I know what's in there but can't let the emotions about my Mother's & Grandmother's hand made stuff get me side tracked.
Now need to tackle the blazers and get back to the socks.
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MinusTwo
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Great job Minus Two. I understand about the lovingly handcrafted linen and lace. I had literally three trash bags full that came from my parents house, all of which were crocheted by my mother and grandmother. There were doilies on every piece of furniture in that house, and spares for almost every one of them. Before we began cleaning out the house, my husband had said that he didn't want any doilies on the furniture.
I have taken examples of each of the patterns they used, framed them as the artwork they are, and hung them on the dining room wall. Everyone who sees them comments on them, I find out who among the friends and relatives really loves and values them, and I can then share with them from the bounty I still have tucked away.
A great bonus is that every time I see them hanging on the wall, I remember watching them work on those pieces when I was a little girl and it brings back wonderful memories of a very special time in my life.
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Minus Two, Good for you giving those towels to the animal shelter. I volunteer at a shelter and we use towels constantly. We have 2 washers going full time and a huge dryer.
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Pat - thanks for the framing idea. I'll sort things w/that in mind and save a few pieces.
Scheduled Salvation Army pick up for 5/20 to keep my momentum going.
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minustwo - Whoo hooo!!!I am staying at my cousins while they redo my plumbing in my house but when I get home I have several boxes of older towels for the animal shelter.
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Pat: Thank you for the great idea about what to do with the crochet that my grandmother did. It is the only thing I have left from her so I don't want to give it all way.
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Salvation Army picked up another bunch of stuff today - 15 boxes of china, linens, household items, etc. & huge bags of clothes along with several lamps. The socks became a horror and a major sticking point that tripped up my forward progress for almost a week. I'd put them all on the bed in the morning and move them to the top of the cedar chest at night. But i was determined. Finally gave away 29 pair and put another 20 in zip lock bags out of my drawer. If I don't need them in a year, it will be easy to tell. Now I'm working on the purses & the coats. Taking a break for Herceptin infusion tomorrow and lunch out with my SIL Thursday so I hope I don't lose momentum.
Must start on paperwork blizzard before my son comes the middle of June since that's spread all over the kitchen cupboard & table & my desk. Unfortunately mostly medical stuff so hard to throw away. But son has promised to participate in a slide show extravaganza and help me weed through 20 boxes of carousels. Also he will get lots more stuff down from the attic for me that I can't lift or move. And at age 44 he will laugh at his old cub scout uniform that I found last week. Happy sorting ladies.
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Minus Two that is fantastic!
Much smaller but I cleaned out a pantry--it had all sorts of old things in it--not so much old food but old batteries, too many flashlights (kept the four that worked best), old baskets etc;. I was so lucky as a friend came over and helped me with the task. It is a pleasure to look into my neat pantry which still is well stocked, even having thrown out four trash bags of stuff from it.
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Right now, I'm feeling like barring the door if anyone comes. I've spent hours and hours getting the garden in shape, while everything in the house lies where it falls. This time between winter and summer is the absolute pits--so much to put away, so much to take out, no way to keep up with it all, and most of it in the front entry One good thing--there are five Fridays in May, so I'll get paid five times. Now if only there were more of that kind of clutter!
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I have winter blankets piled on the spare bed and am trying to find places for all the winter clothes which take up so much more room. Who wants to stay inside and clean when it's nice outside? Not me. It's supposed to be cloudy, cool and rainy this weekend, so perhaps I'll get more done then.
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Clearing out the linen closet was on my agenda this weekend, including dealing with those old, sad, towels with thin spots and shredding edges (really, how many cleaning cloths can I use in a lifetime?!). Thanks for the idea to give them to an animal shelter or rescue organization, and the inspiration from members here who are getting so much decluttering done!
Up next, there's a charity pickup scheduled in a couple of weeks, and they're glad to take clothes, linens, kitchen stuff, even books and magazines.
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Teka - you made my day!! Thanks
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Oh I got so sidetracked after the socks. Purses are still sitting on the cedar chest waiting for sorting. Lots of stuff is stacked in the TV room for packing & donating. Now my son is coming in 10 days. Ooops, his bed is still sort of covered with things I've been sorting. My goal - to get all the 'loose' things processed and moved out before he comes instead of just shoving the stuff back in closets & drawers.
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Took my son to the airport at 5am yesterday for his trip home. We had an intensive 3 days interviewing roofing & gutter contractors AND he helped me pull more boxes out of the attic that I couldn't move before. I now have 12 boxes stacked in the garage to sort through. Also got rid of tons of old metal, wood, plastic, construction materials, etc. One of the gutter guys took it away. He'll recycle the aluminum and the rest goes to a friend who ships it to China for recycle. I'm just glad it's gone. Son tossed all of his old science fair projects that were in the attic. Some were quite large & extensive. Got rid of 10 pillows. Some were old, but several were new that neither of us liked & those went to a neighbor. We went through 20 carousels of slides (80 per box). I kept about 30 slides and bought a small, inexpensive scanner to put slide & negative pictures into my computer. My 'ex' wanted all the rest, since he was the primary slide taker. He also took the slide projector, screen & old movie projector. I need to start working w/paper piles but I hate to stop on the other stuff while I'm on a roll. Going to go through boxes & stacks of framed pictures next. Then the 8 Christmas boxes - most of which haven't seen the light of day in 20 years.
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Minus Two: you are amazing. But I have a question--what kind of scanner did you get? I have long wanted to put my slides onto my computer (and maybe onto a CD after that).
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Mandy, I've read that CD's are not good storage for photos because they deteriorate over time. Flashdrives are supposed to be more secure. I would check with an expert before using a CD.
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Mandy - I had a VuPointSolutions that my son gave me several years ago, but I dithered too long before trying it. It only works with Windows XP and I've moved to Windows 7. (big sigh from son - "you're never going to do it"). We went to Best Buy and picked up an ION - Film 2 SD Plus, Ultra High Resolution Slide & Negative Scanner on sale for approx $85. It is a small "stand alone" unit about the size of the old hand held single slide viewers. You can sit anywhere there's a plug and look at slides or negatives, then push a button for those you want copied to the SD card. After that you just plug a USB cord into the scanner & your CPU and copy over.
Wren - you're probably right, but I'll be using CDs to send pictures to other people. The files are way to big to email. They can transfer to their hard drives or flash drives. I know I should post on a cloud album, but I'm not ready to tackle that technology yet.
My goal is to take 50 years of pictures and come up with a small "best" sample that someone in the future might actually look at - rather than 30 albums with hundreds of pictures saved, many of which should have been tossed in the first place. Yes, I even put snapshots in the albums that were crooked or had a partial thumb in front of the lens with the first baby. Duh!!! This will be labor intensive but why pay someone to put them all on discs that I'll still have to sort.
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Minus Two: Thanks for the info about the scanner. I have long wanted to be able to email some of my old slides to people and that surely will do it.
Wren: Thanks for the warning about DVDs.
Have a wonderful day all!
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One year for Christmas, DS gave us one of those photo frames that shows photos from an SD drive. Then he took a ton of family photos and put them on the SD drive. Great gift!
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Wow you ladies have been busy. I had to have a complete plumbing job for my main bath and a few other issues from this past winter storms fixed. What a mess and the plumbing is still not complete.
I just started to tackle that photo album thing. OMG who keeps photos of a tree on vacation from 1990. Me apparently. So I have been going through trying to dump all that stuff. I am way behind on the newest way to keep stuff. Maybe I can find a shop to do it. I went through all my clothes again and all my size 14s that are not fitting are going to a friend who just lost weight over the winter. She is so excited and me too. I want to be down to 1 closet. For all seasons. I wear the same stuff over and over it seems. Towels and sheets are good. I am going to get a small storage unit and clear out the rest of the basement stuff in plastic bins after I go through them again. That way any work that has to be done down there will not get in the way of my stuff. I have about 3 more projects and then in the later winter it can finally go on the market. I may have to look at an as is sale but I have addressed all the stuff I know about. Seems dumb to sell a home and get an apt in the same city but it will have to do till I decide where I am going. I can not wait to make the decision to put it up for sale so .....
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So glad you're getting so close to listing! Moving all your keepable treasures to a storage unit will help "stage" the house. They say buyers think if they see stuff, that the house therefore does not have enough storage.
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