September Purge

[happystuff]

Put this here as I've started to purge myself of my back deck - LOL. Initially it was not going well, then our wonderful neighbors gave me the power tool I needed. Down to the base and hope to remove the rest on Monday. We'll see, but I'm very excited and already liking my vision of the patio!

[rosarugosa]

Put this here as I've started to purge myself of my back deck - LOL. Initially it was not going well, then our wonderful neighbors gave me the power tool I needed. Down to the base and hope to remove the rest on Monday. We'll see, but I'm very excited and already liking my vision of the patio!

That sounds like an exciting project! You will have to keep us posted.

[iris lilies]

I haven’t done a major purge in a few weeks although last night I did finish up all the reading materials on the table by my chair in the living room. They were plant society bulletins from last spring that I had not read, so I sat down and made myself go through them.

Anyway – I did a “pre-purge “discussion with DH about kitchen cabinets in Hermann and what they will hold. His hoarder brain works in this way: I have X amount of stuff therefore I need to find room for X amount of stuff, and he was talking about our kitchen objects in that vein.

So, I gave him a tour of our current kitchen and pointed out that only two shelves in each cabinet and perhaps three in places are being used for things we really need.

And then I pointed out where dishes now reside, some will go live in my condo.
Where flow blue 100 year old dishes reside now, Because I love them, I’m hanging onto them but I will place them around our Hermann house in various places. They are decor.

I hope he can see that just because were using up X amount of space now doesn’t mean that we must have X amount of space in Hermann. I would be happy with 1/2 X.

[iris lilies]

Massive refrigerator/freezer units will be residing in Hermann. I don’t know how DH does this, but he wrestled, single-handedly, the biggest damn refrigerator I have ever seen into the basement of our Hermann house. He did this a couple years ago when our friends moved and gave him this refrigerator. They owned a bed and breakfast inn, so they had need for lots of refrigerator and freezer space.

Then someone else moved and gave us his freezer.

The Hermann house also has a normal size refrigerator on the first floor, this unit from my condo.

2 units from our city house will be joining this group next year. Oy. At least I will not buy a new refrigerator for our new Kitchen in Hermann because the existing black refrigerator is the size and color I want. It’s rather old and worn at 12 years old but I will use it until it goes kerplunk.

All of these appliances are old and could conk out at any moment.

When I stopped into Hermann earlier this week I peeked into of all these units and they’re all jammed full of food stuff. DH has made good use of the giant refrigerator because he put all of our kitchen food stuff into it including canned and boxed foods.This keeps them all out of the way of plaster dust and construction mess, and I understand that, but then why did we rent a storage place?

In the end he is handling every iota of moving household stuff around in Hermann during construction and I have not had to lift one finger. I absolutely cannot complain about that.He really is a hero for doing this!

[catherine]

So, I've had a purge that I didn't volunteer for. Our house (which my son is renting from us) had a flooding due to Tropical Storm Ida, and--not unexpectedly--the basement got a couple of feet of water.

When I left for VT, and my son let me have the garage/basement to continue to store stuff, I had kept some things in the basement. My son called me to tell me that a couple of my boxes were waterlogged and damaged--old memorabilia like letters and newspaper clippings from the 60s, etc. So he promised he'd spread out all the stuff on the lawn on the sunny day and try to salvage stuff.

My DIL apparently got really into it and was texting me photos she apparently found especially interesting, and then today, they found a tin box that had the naturalization papers from my Scottish immigrant relatives, and other things apparently saved by my BIL. I didn't even know they were there. They were in a plastic container that my BIL saved a few things in.

I asked DIL to continue to do her work in helping us salvage some of this family history. They are sending whatever they could save in a shoebox-sized package (the original box was a big Rubbermaid container). I'll scan and post the best pics/papers to Ancestry or to my computer.

I am so glad that when I went to NJ last November I brought all my diaries (started in 1964) to VT. I don't really care THAT much about the old letters that my mother wrote to me when I was in Junior Year Abroad in London, but I would have been upset if those diaries had been ruined. My journals are my therapy, and my grounding for the gap between memory, perception, and reality.

[iris lilies]

Oh Catherine that is nice about your daughter-in-law doing that. And a shoebox full of stuff is inconsequential to store.

[catherine]

Oh Catherine that is nice about your daughter-in-law doing that. And a shoebox full of stuff is inconsequential to store.

I was on the phone with my son and he was telling me about how they should be considered for a job as an archivist somewhere, and I joked, "Well, I hope M___ is wearing latex gloves for this Important Work. And he laughed and said, "Haha! She IS wearing latex gloves!"

I feel that it's wonderful that my life's footprint is getting smaller and smaller, yet so great. Like concentrating the flavor of tea or maple syrup

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[sweetana3]

A local cat shelter is having a garage sale so we are cleaning out the things that are not a good seller on Ebay or are hard to ship. Just cleaned out a huge box of ornaments that we no longer use but are all cat and mice themed. Anything that can be sold, we are selling for them with 100% going to the charity. I am only going to keep my Nativity set that can go on a shelf and special ornaments. Probably have at least 6 huge totes of things for them and another 6 full of things to sell.

Feels so good.

[Teacher Terry]

Sweetana, I love that your stuff will go to help the shelter. I gave a curio cabinet full of Hummel, antique glassware to a husky rescue at The Lake to sell in their thrift store.

[sweetana3]

OMG, got up super early and decided to mine the basement for more things to donate. Found another huge tote of "saved" items to give as presents. Just decided to give them to the shelter. So another box out of the house. Plus they are getting the totes that are not clear in color.

Why should I keep these things if I dont even remember they were sitting there and I have not really looked at them in several years. I opened one book and the page said "Don't be a slave to your possesions."