2015 Declutter and Get Organized Thread

[bobosensei]

I'm in a bad mood.  I just wrote a really long complainy post, and then deleted it because I recognize that whining doesn't help anything.

The house is relatively clean except the usual hotspots- the office that has my junk still sitting around and the spare bedroom that has DH's junk everywhere.  I've decided instead of being productive to drink a gin and tonic (actually this is my second and I might have a third...), listen to a podcast, and after this post I'm going to do an adult coloring sheet that I just printed myself.

[busymom]

That's o.k. bobosensei!  We all have those days when we want to throw up our hand & just be done with it. 

While I cleaned the house well enough for the trick-or-treaters, it's still not where I think it should be.  BUT, my paperwork is piling up, & the attorney working on Mom's estate needs me to pull up some papers to drop off Monday.  So, right now I'm stuck with too much paperwork to play with.  And, we're smack dab in the middle of the estate, so it all is driving me crazy, although I know some day we'll be through the worst of it.

I also need to run down to Mom's house to air out the "paint smell", & sweep up all of the sawdust that migrated EVERYWHERE after the floors were sanded.  But, DS is in a bad mood, so that may not happen today...

[debthaven]

Bobo we all complain sometimes, please feel free!

I just went through Shitepile and burned a bunch of papers. I'm up MUCH too late. 

The next 4 weeks are going to be hell ... teaching 4 or 5 days a week and LOTS of marking. 

I know I sound totally lame but I usually do a FT teaching schedule (18+ hours, more like 20-21) on 3 days a week, which leaves me 2 days during the week to mark / prep. This week I am teaching 4.5 days, and going to see my colleague with breast cancer on my day off marking day, which means I won't get any marking done during the week. 

Then I have 4 day weeks for the following weeks for ... parent-teacher conferences, FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS!!! Don't even get me started on that, it's BEYOND ridiculous! 

I do get paid for that, but I'd rather have those Friday afternoons/evenings off!!!

And of course my new tutoring student falls right in the middle of everything. I'm considering putting her off for a week but I don't feel right doing that. 

[Bonny]

Oct 31, 2015 12:24:21 GMT -5 Ombud said:

Oct 30, 2015 13:11:22 GMT -5 Ombud said:

Today:
Get Halloween candy!
Walk
Return library books
Try to figure out trusts
Clean house

Still not done. 1st thing when I get home is to clean house, might have to wait a week or two for the SSA budget dust to settle to figure out File & Restrict, getting more confused about trusts. Is the Totten same as TOD / POD or is that something different?

According to Wiki it is. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totten_trust

Be sure to note the exception of real estate. Since we don't have a beneficiary deed option in CA it wouldn't matter.

[Ombud]

Well then THAT won't work Home in revocable trust, investments / cash in Totten trust (PID / TOD), need one for GKs inheritance

[Bonny]

Last week I finally got going on preparing the quitclaim deeds for all of our property interests. I had problems with two of them; our atty got back to me with one but I'm still waiting to hear from the atty for the Trust company for one of the MOG interests. I need to reference a page and recorded document and I don't have a copy of the recorded deed, only the copy that went to MOG attorney.

I'm also going to send a check to our gardener at the Oceanside rental house who has gone out of his way to deal with an ongoing irrigation problem.

Need to send an e-mail to the tenant of that house confirming 11-30 apt since she never responded to my earlier e-mail.

Will need to send e-mail to HOA about tenant in La Jolla condo getting Tesla after DH reviews website reference. I am so out of my league on that stuff.

Wednesday we talk to the Fidelity rep about doing Roth conversions. I talked briefly to our CPA Friday evening, did some more calcs and think we can probably start aggressively converting starting this year.

DH will be in San Diego starting on Thursday for Beer Week. His birthday is Sat and I pushed him to go be with his college buddies. Drinking lots of beer is not my idea of fun (totally different story with wine. ). Looking forward to having some alone time in the evenings. Did ask a friend about going on a hike on Sunday.

I'm keeping up with my exercise routine; yesterday I was down another pound but might have reversed that last night. Had a lovely evening with friends last night which involved good food, lots of wine and candy!

[Bonny]

Nov 1, 2015 19:27:39 GMT -5 Ombud said:

Well then THAT won't work Home in revocable trust, investments / cash in Totten trust (PID / TOD), need one for GKs inheritance

Can you set up a separate account for the GKs?

[Ombud]

Bonny, it is a separate account but I'm having difficulty figuring how to title the separate trust. Met with an attorney (lunch seminar) and he spent the entire time talking about our elders aging in place and how we should maintain plenty of contact with our kids!! It's impossible for me to have MORE contact

[3catslady]

I did a basket of laundry and found summer clothes in it.  They are now clean and I have some spacebags that I am going to put them in.  I also found some winter clothes that I forgot I had.  I really need to get that other room in order so I know what I have but with watching the kids from 6 until 3:30 and working from 4 to 10, I don't have much time for me.  Right now I am fighting a cold.  The cold is okay but the cough is what hurts.

[bobosensei]

I stopped myself at 2 G&Ts last night, and played Oregon Trail for about an hour instead of coloring.  Oregon Trail made me feel like just as much of a kid.

On to today's plan.  I've decided the two biggest priorities are the grass and figuring out the grad school stuff.  So I'm heading over to the place where I can bower a lawn mower and hopefully they have something small enough to fit into my trunk.  I'm bringing some twine to close the trunk and a couple of bricks to help stabilize if necessary.  I won't have to drive far, just a couple of miles.  Then I'll worry about the grad school stuff in the afternoon.  And depending on how that shakes out I'll decide if I have the energy to pick up some things DH asked for which I'll have to go to the next town over to get.  All the stuff inside the house can wait another day.

[bobosensei]

It's been a busy day so far today.  I got a lawn mower back to the house.  It was easy, but super heavy.  Though it technically isn't a holiday today there were about 75 people in the cemetery right across from my house walking out in a procession behind the priest.  I am wearing my mowing pants which have a hole in the thigh and I'm pretty sure at least a few people got a good look as I struggled not to completely drop the mower.  The lawn hasn't thawed out completely yet, and I'm not sure if it's just because it is a little cloudy today or because the lawn gets later afternoon sun.  So I am waiting to see how it looks in a few hours, and if it doesn't look better tomorrow which is supposed to be sunny I'm just going to have to mow it anyway even if there are bits of frost.  But this gives me a chance to pick up any dog poop and sticks today which will make things quicker tomorrow.

I did a bunch of running around for DH and errands.  He's playing army out in the woods, so he's nearby just not able to come home at night.  Since his truck is still at the mechanic he needs me to ferry food and other things to him.  I had to go to three different stores in way different places so I just got back about 20 minutes ago.  And I wanted to wash the car but forgot until I was nearly home, so I'll do it when I take the mower back.

I got home just in time to try logging into the grad school admission system.  It's no longer down, but still not working for me.  So I definitely have to call.  The office is opening up in a few minutes, but I like to give people 15 or 20 minutes to get settled before calling first thing in the morning.  My hope is if they have a chance to take a breath before speaking to me they'll be a bit more helpful.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Sat am DH and I got our blood draws done (different times and facilities because really, who wants to plan and be organized?!) and I nagged him into carving pumpkins.  2 of the 4 pumpkins were rotten.  DH worked on the huge one with DD and DS and I did mine little white/ghost pumpkin.  I did a simple face on it and let DS pop out the bits.  Now I've got a tray of pumpkin seeds to finish drying and then toast.   

My washtubs are not draining properly.  We really need to just snake them out but neither of us wants to deal with that so we've been pouring bottles of draino and whatnot down the drain.  I managed to get 2 loads washed last night and still had about 5 inches of water in the tubs as of 6am.    But at least htey didn't overflow this time! 

DH pulled up the garden yesterday.  We still need to rake leaves out to the street and mow the lawn.  The City will come and collect garden stuff and leaves up to 11/15/15.  If there isn't snow, they'll keep on doing sweeps after that as the fewer leaves in the street in winter = easier to plow the snow.  I'd like DH to rototill the garden area before winter too but we'll see.  he's still got to pull up the fencing - it's that chicken wire type so it's not hard but he didn't want to do it yesterday.

[bobosensei]

*Sigh* I was finally able to log into the admission system right before I was going to call the IT help desk.  And there was no record of the transcript so I called.  A lady checked in a bunch of different places it might be before telling me that they never received it.  So I asked how long would I have to get it in, and she said they could probably stretch it to Wednesday though the earlier the better since technically it's after the deadline.  Well I call my last university and they tell me that they sent the transcript on the 23rd, and they put read receipts on it so they can tell it was opened at 9:40am.  They wanted me to get a person's email and not a general box to resend it to, and the guy also gave me his name and number and said they could also call him.  So I call back to the other school and tell the same lady I just talked to what I was told.  Ask if I can get her email to send it to, and she says have it sent back to the general box and she will make sure that the assistant director checks it today.  I also tried to give the name and phone number which she wouldn't take and I didn't push.  I'm walking a fine line, because I don't want to do anything right now to damage my reputation.  So I called the other school and he resent the transcript, and now I'm monitoring the website that does the automatic updates.  I'll be calling this afternoon if I don't see the update.  And after I get the admission decision I will be making a bigger deal about this.  I'm pretty pissed actually.  But right now is not the time...

[bobosensei]

Well, they finally got the transcript.  I called just now and the person who picked up started looking all around then said "does your transcript have a different last name on it?"  OMG YES, and that different last name is listed on the freaking application right where it says OTHER NAMES USED!!!  Honestly, is that what caused all this confusion?  My maiden name?  I mean this university is big, how can it be that uncommon that everyone is surprised and it caused this many issues?  And not just one idiot, but three different people that I talked to.  Every time I call they pull up my file and can see everything.  It never occurred to me that having my maiden name on the line below my current last name would stump so many people.

Now I promise to never write the word transcript or grad school in this thread again.

[Chocolate Lover]

Congrats on the transcript being found Bobo!

I went through my own shite piles on Saturday morning in preparation for DH's family coming for dinner. Put the pile of stuff to give away in the back of my van and that's as far as it got because some doofus just had to come early and it rained all day yesterday. 

[debthaven]

Glad it worked out Bobo!

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Hi everyone, 

I'm really quite out of it. I was feeling pretty behind on both work and school, and then DH had a trip to the ER last night. He wasn't discharged until this morning because, well who knows. Anyway, that set me back at least four hours of housework last night, plus I only got about four hours of sleep last night, and I had to take a sick day today to get DH out of the hospital. At least I have sick days to take. 

I am still at home. DH has gone to work for a few hours. It's almost 3:00pm here. The rest of my day looks like this: 

• take DD#2 to dance class
• go to the gym
• straighten up the master bedroom, tv room, and laundry room (three worst right now)
• mop the floors (was supposed to happen yesterday)
• dust
  
• about an hour's worth of grading
• make dinner, eat dinner
• clean up kitchen
• evening routine
  prepare ballots that are due tomorrow

These will be bonuses:

• rotate laundry once or twice
• put away laundry
• weed in the front yard
• dinner meal plans for the week (was supposed to happen yesterday)

[debthaven]

I'm glad DH is feeling better Chloe ... try to take it easy today, maybe take a nap too?

DD's probationary period ends at the end of this week ... last Friday they measured her and ordered her two suits (uniforms). 

Rehearsals started last night ... they are twice a week but neither of us has to go to every rehearsal (thank goodness).

The kitchen is a bit of a mess (DH made crab apple jelly on Sun) but I'll clean it up after work today.

[busymom]

Well, I was planning to go work on Mom's house this morning, but I just got a call that my relative is being sent back to the hospital. Unless his health stabilizes, I'm thinking he might be moving to a nursing home sooner rather than later.

Knee Deep in Water Chloe, I hope your DH is doing better!  And Debt, it sounds like your DD has a good job!

[Ombud]

7 hrs last week, no hours this week, filing for UIB if not called in by Friday. Maybe should have done it last week??

[bobosensei]

Thanks everybody!  I'm glad I don't have to worry with it, but now I am trying to brush up on my math skills because they will do a placement exam if I am accepted and I had to go all the way back to algebra as it's been 15 years since high school.  And in college I did a computer science class for my math requirement.  It's funny what comes back to me by just looking, and what I have had to review.  Most stuff is coming back easily, but a few things have been frustrating.

I got the yard mowed.  It didn't look much more thawed today despite it supposedly being sunny, but I put my hand on it and it wasn't actually frozen like it was this morning.  I felt a tad better that I could see someone else mowing in the distance.  I was also proud that I figured out how to raise the mower, and I put it on the tallest setting after I got it to the grass.  And the whole thing didn't need to be mowed so I just went over it quickly, but I do need to weed eat the edge and around the tree stump.  The other issue with our yard is that there are a lot of little depressions that weren't filled in so there are areas that I just can't get with the mower.  Not without totally skinning up the higher parts.  The little electric mower was better for that.  It would take me 30 minutes because I'd have to go over each section a few times, but I could raise it up and get the edges without needing a trimmer.  The bigger gas mower was just too heavy and frankly I was worried about doing damage.  So I just got the obviously tall areas.  I might even wait and make DH do the weed eating next week when he is home.  It's weird because it should be in the 50s the rest of the month, but we often have snow by now.  

[bobosensei]

sorry to hear about your DH chloe.  I hope he is feeling better and you get caught up.  It is amazing how much and how quickly you can be set back.

and ombud- go ahead and file for UIB.  In some places you can get it for reduced hours, and might be able to get back pay too.

[debthaven]

Today was a bad day ... DH got an email from his lawyer. The insurance company offered absolutely miserable compensation. I called her, very upset, and we spent over 90 min on the phone. 

I was rather angry when I called, but she pointed out a lot of hard truths about my DH. Including the fact that certain deadlines may have expired because DH couldn't be bothered to pick up some registered letters, let alone pass that info onto her. And then of course DH blamed me for not picking them up. You can't pick up registered mail for somebody else here unless you fill out a form. If he had asked me to, I would have. But it did not occur to me to offer, because his schedule is flexible enough for him to have picked them up if he had wanted to, and a lot more flexible than mine. 

She told me, you are making yourself sick, your DH is an adult, at some point he has to take responsibility for this process, you need to back off. 

So now DH tells me the two of us "are in cahoots against him".

Because things aren't going the way we hoped, she now has to sue the other party rather than hope to resolve things amicably. So, although we thought / hoped this would be over soon, it won't be. She told me it would be at least another year, but more likely 2-3 more years. She assured me that DH would get more compensation, but how much more depends only on him. Not on her, and not on me.

For now, he's not cooperating. It's SO much easier to blame the lawyer, or me. I told him, I found you a lawyer when you were practically on your deathbed. Now you don't like her, 4.5 years later. No sweat, go find a new one, but I'm done. 

I know him, he'll bitch but he won't find a new one. 

Sorry.

I also told her, we NEED this to be over. She said I understand, but you have no control over that so on some level, you're doing it wrong. What you NEED is to fill your life enough so that this process moves backstage, so that you stop thinking about it and waiting for it to be over, and live your lives, and this is just one more part of those lives. 

That's a bit trite but I can't disagree.

[Chocolate Lover]

Sorry Debt, that's got to be incredibly frustrating. 

[snapdragon]

Oh debthaven - I'm sorry that your husband is acting like a child. I completely understand your frustration. It's his fault but he doesn't want to admit that because that means that HE has been tardy/ambivalent/procrastinating on his health issues. It's sooo much easier to blame everyone else instead. I think I would have kicked him in the butt or whacked him with a 2x4 by now. 

You must be extremely patient. My hat goes off to you.

 

[debthaven]

I didn't get anything done last night.

Today after work I cleaned the kitchen, emptied the dishwasher and did 2 loads of laundry. 

[busymom]

Debt, I'm so sorry for the challenges you're facing with your husband's disability.   

I went to Mom's today, & bought one of those Swiffer's on the way there.  When the floors were sanded & refinished, very fine wood dust migrated ALL OVER the house.  And, it's so fine that it's hard to sweep up.  So, I thought maybe one of those Swiffer's might help, and it DID pick up a lot more of that wood dust.    I even had to "Swiffer" the walls along the upstairs staircase, as the wood dust was sticking to the walls.   

The next time I go there, I'm going to take my garden shears & prune off the baby trees that have begun to grow within Mom's flower garden.  I couldn't get at them when everything was full & leafy, but now that most of the leaves have dropped, I should have easy access. 

[kjto1]

Nov 4, 2015 19:40:08 GMT -5 busymom said:

Debt, I'm so sorry for the challenges you're facing with your husband's disability.   

I went to Mom's today, & bought one of those Swiffer's on the way there.  When the floors were sanded & refinished, very fine wood dust migrated ALL OVER the house.  And, it's so fine that it's hard to sweep up.  So, I thought maybe one of those Swiffer's might help, and it DID pick up a lot more of that wood dust.    I even had to "Swiffer" the walls along the upstairs staircase, as the wood dust was sticking to the walls.   

The next time I go there, I'm going to take my garden shears & prune off the baby trees that have begun to grow within Mom's flower garden.  I couldn't get at them when everything was full & leafy, but now that most of the leaves have dropped, I should have easy access. 

We use the swiffer sweeper sheets for regular dusting needs.  They work pretty good for trapping up the dust.  When DH was refinishing the wood floors, they worked great for him.

[debthaven]

I'm going to keep the Swiffer sheets in mind if we ever get any more painting done here!

[debthaven]

I sent a ton of work emails tonight so I can concentrate on my marking over the weekend. 

Today I agreed to keep a class I had said I would NOT keep second semester. But, I'm sharing it with a friend/colleague. It's only once a month but they scheduled those classes during both Feb and April vacations! Who wants to give up a week off for 2h of teaching?! The director of that program said we can double up those hours on the other weeks, so we said yes as long as we can share it.  

I'm meeting my friend/colleague who is sick for lunch tomorrow. I absolutely have to catch up on my marking before I get 60 exams on Tues.   I have two colleagues who do way more hours than me ... I honestly don't know how they do it, I'm definitely at the limit of what I can handle.  

I'm going to get up early and do some of the marking before I leave for lunch (45m each way). 

Fri:
- mark 6/8 reports (stretch goal)
- call lady about the rental
- call store about light fitting
- Shitepile

I'm not at all sure all that's going to happen.

The good news is, just 4 weeks left to the semester, and the 4th week is very light!