2015 Declutter and Get Organized Thread

[wvugurl26]

Hugs and good juju for you debtheaven. I can't even imagine.

[busymom]

Speaking of deer, one was standing along the highway I was on when driving DD home from college today. Glad it was eating, & not running...

Debt, I take it citizens aren't allowed to carry a weapon for protection where you live? That's gotta be SO scary!

Tomorrow is going to be a full day.  I need to run down to the rehab center to sign some more paperwork for my relative.  I've also found I need to pick up a few more ingredients for Thanksgiving.  I need to make a bunch of phone calls for my relative, too.  In the evening I will be making pies.

[startsmart]

debthaven - the aftermath of a terrorist attack is often just as scary with the 'what ifs' and debates. stay safe and know it's okay to turn off the news (I did that a lot after 9/11). 

chloe - it's my second car so I'm not stranded if it stays in the shop. Haven't heard from the mechanic yet so I'm going to NOT call them today and touch base on Monday. 

I did order the washer & dryer set and they're scheduled for delivery + install on Tuesday. So here's the rough plan:

Wed:
clean the house
move china cabinet in garage
move chest freezer
degrease spots on east side of garage floor

Thurs:
unhook and move old washer and dryer
power wash east side of garage floor and dry
finish painting garage walls (east side) 
take down tree outside
put up Christmas decor if I have the energy

Fri: 
paint east side of garage floor and allow dry

Sat: 
move stuff to the east side of the garage
degrease spots on west side of garage floor
power wash west side of garage floor and dry

Sun: 
paint west side of garage floor and allow dry

Mon: 
move stuff back to west side of garage 
call and check in on the car repairs 

Tues: 
get new washer dryer delivered and installed
do the 8 loads of laundry that have been backed up

Wed: 
fold and put away all the laundry

[busymom]

Hiya Kids!  I'll wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving a little early, in case I get bogged down with the food prep. 

DD & I picked up the rest of the groceries we needed for tomorrow.  I did get to the rehab center to sign some paperwork, & also spent a chunk of time on the telephone dealing with stuff for my relative.  I found some paperwork I've got to drop off next week (most places are closed around here after today for the holiday weekend).  On Black Friday I'm planning to stay home, but I can order gifts online, & get a bunch of mail ready to go out.

The stuff in the garage is on "ignore" for the short time being... 

[Chocolate Lover]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Have a great day!

[debthaven]

Happy Thanksgiving friends! Be happy and safe! 

Today is a normal workday here of course but we're going to a Thanksgiving dinner at our friends' house soon (we take turns hosting). It's at dinner time since everybody works.

[debthaven]

I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a lovely time at our friends' house with DS3 and his friend. It's nice to have people to share Thanksgiving with. 

My colleague / friend who has been ill is coming into school today, as is my boss, so we are all having lunch together. This afternoon and evening there are more parent-teacher conferences. After that I'll be on a reduced schedule! I'll have 127 finals to mark but they're pretty well distributed over the finals period this year.

We are also spending quite a bit of time helping DS1 polish / translate his grad school application essays.

Friday  
- work out Bachelor oral marks
- Bachelor spreadsheets
- give file to B for J
- scan and send MSc sheet
- edit DS1's latest essays
- work out Masters oral marks
- Masters spreadsheets
- mark 4 reports

Not everything will get done on Fri, it will depend on how many parents come

[bobosensei]

DH got the news from the Army last week that he isn't going to be promoted.  So the longest he can stay in is the end of May.  I still haven't heard from grad school on whether I am in or not, I was really counting out knowing before thanksgiving.  We decided to plan as if I am getting in, and knowing that classes start January 11th, I'll need to be back in the States no later than the 6th or 7th to give time to get books, parking passes, and to be situated a bit.  And from what DH is being told there is really no way for him to be finished with all the things he has to do by that time.  His boss is going to let him focus on moving after he is finished with a big project on December 4th.  That will help, and he's certainly going to give it a try, but it looks like the dogs and I will leave before him.

So I have to try to do as much as possible before leaving to help him out.  I had a list and timeline of things to do, but that was assuming that we were both going to be here.  I'll have to give it another look to see what will change if I am leaving early.  We can't even assume that I will be around when our house is packed up.  I've been doing a pretty good job decluttering, but we have a pile of things that need to be donated.  And there is also stuff like our grill that would likely never pass inspection no matter how much we cleaned it, so we are going to give it away.  Probably sooner rather than later since it's been months since we last grilled anyway.  And DH completely WRECKED the garage after I cleaned it out a few months ago.  I don't know where and how he accumulates so much stuff, I guess he is slowly bringing it home from work.  A lot of it is equipment he'll have to turn into the army, but nearly everything else is just junk.  I already threw out so much stuff it took me 3 days, but more is going to have to go.  It looks worse now than it did before I cleaned it up last time.  I honestly don't know how.  There are boxes and bags of things all over the place, and I don't know what belongs to the army or to him.  I will have to make DH go through his stuff because otherwise he wont and as long as there is attic space or garage space he will fill, fill, fill.  If we knew we were going to a big place I might not mind or at least would agree to wait until after the move, but we might have to go into some tiny rental and it will make me feel so much better to know there isn't a bunch of junk coming.  Plus even if we aren't paying to move our stuff, it is the right thing to do to move as little as possible because the government is paying.  Right now we have access to a free and recycle center.  That won't be the case after we move, so waiting means we might be paying to dispose of stuff too.  I know I don't have to convince y'all of these things  I guess I am prepping for the argument DH might give me.  Anyway off to redo the task list.

[Bonny]

Nov 27, 2015 7:15:14 GMT -5 bobosensei said:

DH got the news from the Army last week that he isn't going to be promoted.  So the longest he can stay in is the end of May.  I still haven't heard from grad school on whether I am in or not, I was really counting out knowing before thanksgiving.  We decided to plan as if I am getting in, and knowing that classes start January 11th, I'll need to be back in the States no later than the 6th or 7th to give time to get books, parking passes, and to be situated a bit.  And from what DH is being told there is really no way for him to be finished with all the things he has to do by that time.  His boss is going to let him focus on moving after he is finished with a big project on December 4th.  That will help, and he's certainly going to give it a try, but it looks like the dogs and I will leave before him.

So I have to try to do as much as possible before leaving to help him out.  I had a list and timeline of things to do, but that was assuming that we were both going to be here.  I'll have to give it another look to see what will change if I am leaving early.  We can't even assume that I will be around when our house is packed up.  I've been doing a pretty good job decluttering, but we have a pile of things that need to be donated.  And there is also stuff like our grill that would likely never pass inspection no matter how much we cleaned it, so we are going to give it away.  Probably sooner rather than later since it's been months since we last grilled anyway.  And DH completely WRECKED the garage after I cleaned it out a few months ago.  I don't know where and how he accumulates so much stuff, I guess he is slowly bringing it home from work.  A lot of it is equipment he'll have to turn into the army, but nearly everything else is just junk.  I already threw out so much stuff it took me 3 days, but more is going to have to go.  It looks worse now than it did before I cleaned it up last time.  I honestly don't know how.  There are boxes and bags of things all over the place, and I don't know what belongs to the army or to him.  I will have to make DH go through his stuff because otherwise he wont and as long as there is attic space or garage space he will fill, fill, fill.  If we knew we were going to a big place I might not mind or at least would agree to wait until after the move, but we might have to go into some tiny rental and it will make me feel so much better to know there isn't a bunch of junk coming.  Plus even if we aren't paying to move our stuff, it is the right thing to do to move as little as possible because the government is paying.  Right now we have access to a free and recycle center.  That won't be the case after we move, so waiting means we might be paying to dispose of stuff too.  I know I don't have to convince y'all of these things  I guess I am prepping for the argument DH might give me.  Anyway off to redo the task list.

I don't know if it will work out for you but we left about 1 month apart too.

We were able to finagle a home trip (for DH) and a move trip (for me). We packed up the house and moved about 1 month before DH's contract ended. DH did a home trip so we could each take a cat inside the cabin of the airplane.

Then the plan was to stay at our (furnished) cabin for a month while waiting for the sea container to arrive and the lease on our home up on the SF Bay Area house to finish. And DH rented an apartment for 3 weeks until his contract was finished.

On the German side things went pretty well (except for our jerk LL tried to keep $500Eu even after signing off on the Protokol ). Things weren't so smooth on the US side because we had to evict the folks who were living in the SF Bay Area house. Oh and the military tenant in the San Diego Condo ruined most of the beautiful wool carpet.  Anyway it was good that I was there during both transitions. I don't think you own any properties so you won't have those issues.

BTW we did transport the Weber. My biggest challenges were selling the washer, dryer and little chest freezer. We sold the little appliances to incoming Fed Ex pilot neighbors. Being in a heavy Ex-Pat community has its benefits. We also gave away most of our food stuffs because the moving company didn't want to deal with US customs. But I did pre-pack a lot and snuck in the expensive cat food, spices and teas.

[debthaven]

Bobo I'm sorry, I hope you're not disappointed. I don't know if you are in touch with Rachets but the same thing happened to him when he was in Europe recently. Maybe he can give you some advice on the logistics?

Friday
- work out Bachelor oral marks
- Bachelor spreadsheets
- work out Masters oral marks
- Masters spreadsheets
- give file to B for J
- edit DS1's essays (Part 2)
- scan and send MSc sheet
- mark 4 reports

I managed to get a lot done today! And we found out this is the last year we will have to do two parent-teacher evenings a year, from now on there will be only one.

Sat
- edit DS1's essays (Part 3)
- send MSc sheet

Tues
- mark 4 reports
- translate W exam

One more week left to the semester! I am now on a reduced schedule till 21 Dec ! I will finally have time to do some organizing in the house / closets.

[startsmart]

Moving along on the list!


Wed:
clean the house
move china cabinet in garage
move chest freezer
degrease spots on east side of garage floor

Thurs:
unhook and move old washer and dryer
power wash east side of garage floor and dry
finish painting garage walls (east side)
take down tree outside
put up Christmas decor if I have the energy

Fri:
paint east side of garage floor and allow dry

We couldn't unhook and move the dryer without leaving me without hot water for 5 days = no bueno. So I'll have to work around that. I got a little behind because the tree took most of Thursday so I'm going to focus on painting the walls this afternoon/evening once the floors dry a little more. I was really surprised how quickly the power washing went! Used a squeegee and was able to get the majority of the water out in just a few minutes. I turned on the dryer with the vent unattached so it should warm up in there pronto! 

Super conflicted about whether or not to start painting in the morning. The paint cures best at a temp a good 10 degrees above what we have now and so there's a chance it won't cure perfectly. So I can give it a shot and probably set up a space heaters overnight OR I can wait and do it in the spring, probably April or May, when life is a LOT crazier, the car is here and I have to move everything, again. It might depend on how I feel about risk taking tomorrow   It wouldn't be too expensive to redo ($100) but it's the hassle more than anything else. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

I have 35 house/family tasks and 5 school tasks to accomplish on Sunday!
I'm going to try to stay off the computer so I can accomplish them.
I hope your day is lovely.

[debthaven]

Big news here ... DS1 and his GF decided to buy a place together, here. They put in an offer on a 2BR on Fri night, and it was accepted on Sat morning! I realize it may not be the most traditional path but it's common here, and we are happy for them. :-) It's only slightly bigger than what each of them planned to buy on their own, so they will have a very reasonable, shared mortgage. They will rent it out (possibly to DS2) when they go abroad again for school or work. Both of them plan to go back to school soon.

But the apt needs a lot of work, so they will probably be living here for a few months, which is fine with us! The apt was originally a 1BR and a studio that was converted into one apt. They may convert it back into 2 so that when they go abroad again, they can rent one out long term and keep one for themselves (and maybe rent theirs out short-term). It's exciting!

ETA: This means that at some point next spring DS1 will empty out his basement bedroom, and take some of his furniture from DS2's bedroom. (DS1 bought some pieces abroad but they couldn't get down the basement stairs, so they're in DS2's room.) 

[Deleted]

I reduced 8 totes of kids clothes to 3 this weekend.  Some donated, some dumped, some moved into younger son's closet that fit him now.

I cannot believe how many pairs of jeans older son had.  OMG.  I think I took about 50 to the donation bin and another dozen or so that had holes in the knees are going to my SIL that is making jean quilts.  I hardly bought any jeans for this kid...this is all my Mother dumping garage sale and Salvation Army stuff off by us constantly.  I decided younger will never wear husky size jeans so I'm not keeping any around.  Even the regular size ones I got rid of.  Really all they need is two or three pairs that fit well and it will be years before he wears that size. 

Today I'm thinking of working on the book situation a little.  I'm going to see how sturdy my dresser drawers are for holding them rather than boxes in the basement.

I'm also going to try and get rid of some toys before the Christmas influx.  Younger son isn't keen on getting rid of anything, but I did convince him taking a bunch to his Dad's apartment would be a great idea. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Exciting, debt! 
Nice work, MPL!

Well, it's 12:30 here. 

So far, I've
stripped the bed
cleaned out the dishwasher
cleaned the toilets
did two hours of prep work for this week's teaching
gone to church
did about 15 minutes of putting stuff away from our trip

I still have
house paperwork to do--first of the month bills, some documents that need dealt with
help DH set up the outside Christmas decorations
mopping
dinner menus for the week
grocery list for tomorrow
cardio
presents to wrap that DH will take with him Wednesday morning

[Wisconsin Beth]

I've been awol.
Swapped a dresser out in dd's room, per her request. It's smaller so she agreed to get rid of some clothes. The other half of this swap was the baby clothes dresser so she and I went through that one. We have a small stack of stuff to pass on. It's my brother's wife's great niece and I think this stuff came from my brother originally. I know the shirts from Italy came from them.
Outdoor Christmas stuff is out. Dh racked the leaves today too.
Turkey carcass is broken down and simmering for soup. Turkey pot pie is dinner tonight. I think those 2 will clean out most of the leftovers too.
Laundry is under control. Homework is under control. Dishes are under control. I'm kinda stunned about this but not complaining. I think I'm done shopping for st nick and have a good start on Christmas too.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Oh and I'm done with crowns. I have 3 fillings but I'm holding off under January. Appt is made. This was around $8k of work that was covered completely by dental insurance. I'm worried a bit about 1 crown, it seems different from the other 4.
Dad ripped his stitches so mom is making him stay home and quiet. He had some tissue removed from his back after they found a stage 0 cancer growth. I'm not sure if that is the same as precancerous or not. We should get results of the biopsy on Monday but everyone is expecting or assuming it's going to be clear so we're not really worried about it.

[debthaven]

Beth you must be thrilled! I have to do the last crowns, I'm dreading starting that up again. I go back to the dentist on Tuesday.

MPL well done!

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Outside Christmas decorations are up. 
3/4 of the house paper work is done. 
Cardio is done. 

Need to make a list for the week. Way too much going on. 

[debthaven]

I didn't do anything yesterday because it was my birthday. We went to DS1's (rented) apt for cake and then out to dinner. I had a lovely day with DH, 3/4 kids (DS2 is in the US) and DS1's GF. :-)

Today after work I cleaned the kitchen and folded laundry.

Tues
- update spreadsheets (Mon)
- mark 4 reports  
- translate W exam (Wed)
- dentist

ETA: The best part of being on a reduced schedule is no more 6 am alarm!!!    DH has very kindly offered to do the 7am bus carpool until my next semester starts in January.  (I always do it because I have to get the 7.20 train.) NO MORE 6.55 CARPOOL OR 7.20 TRAIN TILL JAN!!!!!    Well, except for one day on the main campus, but I'm not going to think about that now.

[Jaguar]

Well Happy Birthday debthaven.

[Chocolate Lover]

Happy birthday Debt! 

[debthaven]

Thank you! The best birthday gift was learning that DS1 and his GF were buying a place together here in Paris, I never expected that! I know they will be off again (2 humanitarian aid workers, both of whom want to go back to school). But now their base will be HERE!

I feel so blessed! 

[busymom]

Happy Birthday Debt! I brought some cake:

(Think this'll be enough to share with everyone?) 

[Sharon]

I am hoping to do some major decluttering soon.  DD and SIL got final loan approval on their house today.  That means all their wedding gifts etc that have been stored at my house can move to theirs.   It will probably be after the first of the year but there is hope.  I am also insisting that they move the car that has been sitting in my driveway for months.  They are supposed to be selling it but aren't working really hard at that either, out of sight out of mind.

[msventoux]

Nov 30, 2015 20:20:41 GMT -5 busymom said:

Happy Birthday Debt! I brought some cake:

(Think this'll be enough to share with everyone?) 

If I'd realized there was cake involved on this thread I'd have been so much more motivated to clean and organize! 

Oh, and a belated happy birthday, debt! 

[debthaven]

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! And Busy, thank you for that gorgeous and delicious cake! 

[lund]

Glad that you had a lovely birthday! May it be followed by a happy, healthy, and prosperous year of life!

[snapdragon]

I have been very naughty. I have done pretty much nothing this last half of the year.

Tonight here is the list - 

Fold and put away all clothes

Strip bed and wash everything.

Watch the first episode of Foyles War.

[snapdragon]

I completely forgot - I just bought a new shredder so I can start shredding at home. My last one decided to do a walkabout.