2017 Declutter and Organization Thread

[moneysquirrel]

Upcoming week: No particular order

Usual  chores -- dishes, laundry, etc
Beading: one small order plus a new project
Exercise -- aiming for at least 2 times , hoping for three
Garage door -- call for repair -- Monday
Craft Show -- Saturday
Decorate for Christmas -- begin the process
Activity with friend -- Thursday
File the pile
Organize/declutter -- aiming for at least two areas
Christmas Gifts -- need to begin thinking about this.  Tired of doing gift cards for most of family.  Will do some but want to come up with other ideas if possible.

Going to post this before I lose it again.

[moneysquirrel]

Most of you have been very busy. 

I hosted Thanksgiving so the house is still mostly in order.  I have all of the fall decorations put away and plan to begin the process during the week of getting the house ready for Christmas.  I have finished with the leftovers except for the few items that I placed in the freezer that I will pull out a little at a time. 
Noticed that the garage door cable is not where it should be so will call to have that fixed.  I don't need it to fail on the car as I am backing out of the garage.  Decided that I will not park in it until it is fixed so I hope that I can get someone here to repair it early this week. Not something that I want to spend $$ on but I feel safer when I come home after dark if I can pull into the garage.

I only have two craft shows left this month so by the tenth I will be finished with those for this year.  I hope to be able to focus on the Etsy shop after that.  I have quite a few things to post there but still have to get the photos done (without shadows and with better lighting if possible). Haven't done anything to it in at least a month.  I know that this is the time I should be working on it but I have so many other things I am trying to get done that I have it on the back burner.  I must do better on it. 

[chiver78]

I cleared out some pantry items yesterday as I put together some trays of food for a friend that recently lost her DH. I fried 2 eggplants' worth of thin cutlets, and made ~3lbs of meatballs - which means all of the sauce.    I cook meatballs by simmering them in red sauce, so I used up a few cans of crushed tomatoes. so tasty! 

I added to the clutter a little today, my roommate found a pretty sweet deal on a yard sale site yesterday. a sound bar that retails for about $150 was available for $20. I figured that was worth the gamble that it works well.

[moneysquirrel]

Thought that I would share this with you.  I will probably delete it later.  This is the bracelet that I finished this week.

Edited to remove the photo.

[tcu2003]

Hugs, debt. I’m sorry about the insurance results.

Cute bracelet, moneysquirrel.

[tcu2003]

Did anyone here keep some baby clothes their child(ren) wore? I’ve sold/donated/given some away, but have more to do. I’m torn on keeping a few pieces, and if so, how to decide. I don’t know that I think any possible future grandchild would wear them, but I know that my mom had zero baby clothes that my sister and I wore, and that makes me sad (she gave to her brother and SIL when SIL was pregnant, they had a boy, so SIL got rid of all the clothes). I’m thinking I might keep 1-2 pieces from each year?

[ilovedolphins]

I wanted to get a lot done today but I'm in a funk and can't seem to get out of it.  Usually if I exercise that helps with the anxiety but today it didn't seem to work.  I can't seem to get motivated to do anything.  I have had to force myself to do the few things I have gotten accomplished today.  I miss the days I would wake up full of energy and excitement about all the stuff I could get accomplished that day...now I just can't seem to get it together on my days off.  I could get a lot of stuff done if I would try.

[TheOtherMe]

Keys with the remote built in.  We have a battery store so I think I will go there next time.

I don't think the car is "smart" enough to tell me it's time.  I had not replaced it since I bought the car in May of 2012.  My BIL told me I might want to do that before I got stranded, so I did. 

[TheOtherMe]

Nov 26, 2017 17:52:17 GMT -5 tcu2003 said:

Did anyone here keep some baby clothes their child(ren) wore? I’ve sold/donated/given some away, but have more to do. I’m torn on keeping a few pieces, and if so, how to decide. I don’t know that I think any possible future grandchild would wear them, but I know that my mom had zero baby clothes that my sister and I wore, and that makes me sad (she gave to her brother and SIL when SIL was pregnant, they had a boy, so SIL got rid of all the clothes). I’m thinking I might keep 1-2 pieces from each year?

When we went through mom's clothes, my sister and I were presently surprised that she had kept one outfit for each of us as well as our leather jackets.  Neither of us had any idea.  

You might want to keep something.  We think mom probably did it for herself, but they ended up being surprise gifts to us when she was gone.  

[chapeau]

My mom made some of the clothes that my sisters and brother and I wore, so she kept more of those than she did store bought stuff. My DD has worn several items that Mom made, if not particularly for me, then for one of the sibs.
And they have come in handy sometimes. DD was born in April, so I didn't buy cold weather clothes in 0-3 months. And then she was not NB sized, so I had nothing for her to wear home from the hospital when it snowed in late April. Fortunately, mom hauled out some outfits of mine for DD to wear home and for her first trip to the doctor's office. So glad she hangs on to things!

And when I box up clothes DD has outgrown, I make 3 piles. One for stuff that I will happily give away to anyone who needs girl clothes. The second pile, mostly things that one of my sisters or mom bought, is for my future nieces and nephews (or if we end up having a second one). The third pile, which is small, is the stuff that isn't being loaned or given to anyone. Might not even let kid #2 wear them. (I have a couple of outfits that I remember very clearly from when I was a little kid that my younger sisters wore to pieces. One in particular I would have loved to have, even though it would be very dated now. DD probably won't be that sentimental, but I don't want "And Mom let her wear my Anna dress!" be something that has to be discussed in therapy .) That pile includes the outfit that she wore home from the hospital (yes, the one from the winter of 1975 that was mine), the Anna dress, and other items like that.

[Sharon]

moneysquirrel I love that bracelet.  I am curious as to how long it takes you to do much beading?

As far as keeping kids clothes I kept one paper box (held 11 X 14 tractor feed paper) of baby clothes and then I have others that are older sized and are hanging on one end of DD's closet.  I have been surprised that DD has been raiding those clothes and putting them on DGD.  She even took her picture at 5 weeks in the same dress that she was wearing at 5 weeks.  She then posted it on FB as a who wore it better.   I did keep all of the Halloween costumes that I made over the years.  DD never had a store bought costume that was strictly for Halloween.  I either made one or a couple years when she was older she wore a previous years dance recital costume.  I also made a couple of Daisy Kingdom dresses when DD was Kindy and 1st grade.  Those had way too much work in them to ever get rid of them.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Here's my organization accomplishment for today. I've been putting this off since the end of August. These are my deep cleaning checklists. These pages should last me a year. It should also get me back on track for deep cleaning--dear goodness! I've been way off on that since school started.  

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Nov 26, 2017 17:52:17 GMT -5 tcu2003 said:

Did anyone here keep some baby clothes their child(ren) wore? I’ve sold/donated/given some away, but have more to do. I’m torn on keeping a few pieces, and if so, how to decide. I don’t know that I think any possible future grandchild would wear them, but I know that my mom had zero baby clothes that my sister and I wore, and that makes me sad (she gave to her brother and SIL when SIL was pregnant, they had a boy, so SIL got rid of all the clothes). I’m thinking I might keep 1-2 pieces from each year?

I have one dress for each girl's first year in my closet. I know there's a zip-lock bag in the garage somewhere of stuff I thought was cute. That's all though. Otherwise, it's just pictures. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Nov 26, 2017 18:44:03 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Keys with the remote built in.  We have a battery store so I think I will go there next time.

I don't think the car is "smart" enough to tell me it's time.  I had not replaced it since I bought the car in May of 2012.  My BIL told me I might want to do that before I got stranded, so I did. 

Hmmm...I've never replaced those. DH's are like that; his are three-years-old now. My previous two cars had those. One of those cars lasted five years, and I never replaced it. Maybe I killed the cars before I killed the key battery?

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Welcome, chapeau!

[busymom]

Hi Kids!  Not much progress to report, as this weekend was mostly devoted to Thanksgiving, and Christmas shopping.  I AM catching up on laundry tonight.  I got 6 Christmas cards dropped off at the post office, along with some bills, and when everyone is gone tomorrow, I hope to write up more cards.

[chapeau]

Thank you, Chloe!
I've been lurking here forever, but I absolutely have to get a handle on the disaster that is our house in 2018. And since it takes 30 days to make something a habit, if I start now it will be a habit by 2018. Right?
I'm going for getting my dining room and daughter's playroom cleared up by the end of this year. The rest of the house will have to wait. There aren't that many hours until Christmas!

[startsmart]

Pretty good Sunday since I finally got clients to stop emailing me wanting replies at 10pm on a holiday (just because I don't celebrate doesn't mean I don't need time off!). Today I picked up more fabric on sale for burp rags, got my bags mostly packed for my trip, caught up on laundry and made it to the gym. 

I also started Christmas cards (very small list) and boxed up 2 packages I need to ship out this week. 

Trying to make a list of everything I'm taking with me to the airport vs with me on the trip is making my head hurt - praying that I don't pick up the wrong bag. I did get my snacks packed for the trip, I'll be mostly on Whole30 for December though not super strict while traveling. 

My house cleaner is feeling better and coming over on Tuesday. I am hopeful that I can decorate for the holidays before I leave and do a deep clean the weekend before I go. 

Update: 

I ended up working on my own projects late tonight including writing 2 articles that will go out as guest posts. Trying to get ahead of emails I need to write before my trip so I have some buffer time and don't need to check in while I'm traveling. 

Oh but good news! My phone will get free text and internet while I'm in the UK so I only have to pay extra for any calls. 

[Iggy aka IG]

Made it through the holiday without any major drama.  I even helped my mom with kitchen duty and clearing the table while the rest of the fam went outside to "take pictures".    To say I wasn't happy about the lack of help is an understatement, but whatevs.

The next day I went to the cell phone store to pick up the phone I ordered to replace the one that had died earlier last week and bought an on sale $30 tablet while there.    It will be useful on snowy, work-from-home days.  Yay Black Friday!

The rest of the weekend:
Did 6 loads of laundry, including the sheets
Swiffered downstairs
Made several yummy meals
Kept up on dishes
Decorated the house, including the tree
Wrapped a few presents
Cleared off half the main counter pile
Cleaned the chandelier bought a few weeks ago.  Waiting for DH to install it.
Processed food for lunches, steamed eggs for breakfasts
Watched my Raiders kick Donkey butt

There's more, but I have a client coming in.  Sigh...

[Waffle]

Everything in the list below is done - it wasn't all done on Tuesday, but it is all done.

Things to do tonight: (Tuesday 11/21)
Finish load of mom's laundry (threw it in the washer when I went home for lunch.)
Do one load of laundry for me.
Wrap 4 items that sold on Ebay.
Rearrange/clean/declutter things in "corner" where breakfast nook and family room meet.
Mop kitchen and laundry room floors.
Throw out pile of magazines that are currently in the living room.
Throw out shedding plant and sweep 3 season room.

Since then,  I also worked on that 2nd guestroom - there are still shelves of inventory in it - but it's somewhat organized and all of the junk that was just piled on the floor and on chairs has been moved.   In other words, it's not pretty, but I wouldn't be embarrassed if one of my aunt's had to sleep there.  I also retrieved two tubs from the garage and sorted through them - there was some garbage, but mostly it was just stuff that needed to be put away.

Tonight - I need to go grocery shopping, wrap two Ebay items and clean my mother's bathroom.  As always, there is much more that could be done, but if I can get those three done, I'll be happy.

[bean29]

Well on the subject of baby clothes, I kept more of DD's clothes, but forced myself to keep a few items from DS also. They were in the kid's closets when they were younger, but now they are mostly hanging up in my closet. I also have a few hand crocheted receiving blankets in a box in the basement closet. 

I also have some trucks and miscellaneous toys from each kid. Why I ever bought Barbie and Ken with a sleigh and horses etc. IDK, but they are in a box in the garage. Buzz Lightyear and Woody are in the garage too. I have a whole big plastic box of beanie babies and beanie buddies. My kids have told me over the years to go ahead and get rid of this stuff but they both seem to want me to keep the beanie buddies.

I had to clean up the house as we hosted Thanksgiving. We had about 25 people. Black Friday I did a little online shopping and only ran in to Kohls to pick up my on-line order...then since I was there I bought a few things. On-line shopping is a much better deal--the line was really long. My husband left, so I had my son load 2 file cabinets we had in the garage and some miscellaneous stuff in the car and made a run to goodwill (when we try to take stuff to goodwill when DH is home, he always says he will take it to a different property or it is still good and he wants to keep it etc).  We also took miscellaneous bats and gloves and balls.  The plastic stand that held that and any sports equipment that was not in good shape was thrown on the truck for the .  DH and I worked on the garage some more on Saturday, and DH added some more stuff to the truck and made a run to the  before they closed at 3 pm Sat.  DH and DS brought in the lawn furniture and took down the grill house, brought the portable bar into the garage for the winter.  I mostly have the Christmas Decorations on the Shrubs in front of the house.  I hang lighted ornaments on my shepherd's hooks.  I had a few bad net lights, so we went to Target on Saturday and spent $100 for replacement lights for the house and the office.   We have one Blue Spruce Tree Decorated - 3 to go.  DS has 2 Wreaths I bought from the Girl Scouts, that need to go on my pillars in front too.

My entryway is a mess, We usually bring the lights inside to make sure they are working before we put them on the trees.  There is about 4 sets of net lights in my entryway that only light 1/2 way.  I also had some stuff migrate in from the garage that I have to find a home for.  I moved my winter sweaters up from the basement to my MB closet and move some summer stuff downstairs. 

I brought my Christmas Cactus up from the basement - hopefully it will bloom this year.  I have to repot my snake plant - it split the pot open and a shoot is actually growing out the side of the pot.  This next week we have to choose the Medicare Advantage plan for my in-laws.  We also need to get our tree up in the next week or two.

DH has about 10 boxes of paper in the garage that need to be shredded.  IDK if I will work on them, or if I will take them to office max. 

I bought a crock pot for DS for Christmas, I have a medium size one that will be 9.99 after rebate and a mini one that was about 8.  I also bought a instant pot for DS.  I don't know if he needs all of them or not.  I have to decide.  I have a co-worker that uses the mini-one for nacho cheese for chips and dip.  DD is getting a Toaster for Christmas, and all this is sitting in my basement pantry closet.  I suppose I should start wrapping presents.  IDK what to get DH.

Debt, I am so sorry about your insurance claim.  Hopefully the New Year will be better for you.  I like the bracelet moneysquirrel!

[debthaven]

Home
- pharmacy/Mon
- conference call w DH's lawyer/Tues
School
- Group A: 19 grammar tests/Tues
- Group B: 22 grammar tests/Thurs?
- MSc: 2 group reports/Fri?

The bracelet is stunning moneysquirrel

I fell asleep on the couch at 8 last night so not much got done.

[Jaguar]

I used to make bracelets and earrings like that with my bead loom. I still have it in my craft bin. Awesome job moneysquirrel!

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Good morning!
Tuesday, Tuesday!

Today's non-routine goals include:
We're setting up for Christmas; I'd like a bit more in the front yard set up plus some weeding done.  
I have some planning to do for the second trimester. If I can accomplish 30 minutes of planning, that will suffice for today. 
I  have three menial tasks to accomplish. 

[debthaven]

I either misunderstood or heard what I wanted to hear, but we just spoke to DH's lawyer. She said the file would be CLOSED by next summer, not that we'd have a decision or settlement by then. And (I found out tonight) once the judge makes a decision (in late 2018 or early 2019) either or both parties can appeal it. So, this is far from over. The lawyer brightly said "the worst is behind us!" I feel like I've been punched in the gut.

Home
- pharmacy/Mon
- conference call w DH's lawyer/Tues
School
- Group A: 18 grammar tests/Tues
- Group B: 22 grammar tests/Thurs?
- MSc: 2 group reports/Fri?

ETA: One of the reasons the lawyer called is that the opposition says there is no proof I ever went to the hospital to visit DH, take him to his doc appts, etc. So now I have to ask my posse to rally round and write letters saying that I went to the hospital, that they cooked for/fed/looked after my kids BECAUSE I WAS AT THE HOSPITAL VISITING DH. Although the younger ones were old enough not to need babysitters, they still needed love/attention/food and my friends gave them that. I my posse but it's VILE that we have to write these letters ... 6.5 years on, to boot. The older ones were busy visiting DH themselves in the evenings, so they could pick me up from the hospital and drive me home so I didn't have to drive myself home at night.

 

[Waffle]

Oh debthaven, I'm so sorry.  You guys just can't catch a break.

[Iggy aka IG]

Nov 28, 2017 13:12:52 GMT -5 debthaven said:

ETA: One of the reasons the lawyer called is that the opposition says there is no proof I ever went to the hospital. So now I have to rally round my posse to write letters saying that I went to the hospital, that they cooked for/fed/looked after my kids BECAUSE I WAS AT THE HOSPITAL. Although they were old enough not to need babysitters, they still needed love/attention/food and my friends gave them that. I my posse but it's VILE that we have to write these letters ... 6.5 years on, to boot.

[Jaguar]

Oh my geez what a clusterfuck that is, so sorry debthaven. << BIG HUGS >>

[debthaven]

Two of my three friends prefer that I help them write the letters (we are all Anglophones). So I cancelled my Fri lunch with (another) friend I haven't seen since July, and told my former boss/mentor that we couldn't attend his open house this weekend (he has them once or twice a year and we've never missed one before). Frankly I'm relieved at having two fewer commitments.

The letters need to be done by Dec 11 and we are going to London from Dec 8-11 (my birthday present from DH).

I'm going to see A on Sat morning, she'll write hers then. E will come over at some point (E lives 5 min away). S will do her letter herself. S lives 20 min away now but at that time, S lived 2 houses down the street, our kids all went to the same international MS and HS, so DS3 ate and slept over there quite a bit during that horrible period (S calls DS3 her fifth child).

[dee27]

Sorry, Debt, but the wheels of  French justice sure turn slowly.