I have been [del]splurging[/del] investing in 35L and 42L Really Useful Boxes. Those are just the right sizes for organising stuff around the house. For instance, the 35L RUB can hold 40 standard size soup cans. The 42L RUB can hold one of my spare mATX PCs plus accessories. They’re reasonably tough, they’re clear so I can see what’s inside. They stack stably. They’re easy to move. They’re the right size to shift around - not too heavy. And they’re a good organisational unit. One goes in the car boot holding stuff for that and I have one box holding all my sanding gear - belt sanders etc - and one holding the stuff I use for unblocking drains and the like and so on. A box for this, a box for that, a box for the other etc. And I’ve got a couple holding essential paperwork.
I had those recommended to me by a friend as well.
The other day I missed the recycling truck so was stuck with umpteen flattened cardboard boxes. As I was loading my car with the first of the flattened boxes, the postman came round and said that a friend of his was moving and could he have the boxes for her? I was only too happy to oblige and he was most surprised - and pleased - when I came down with the rest.
Today I have been sorting cables. Chucking bad and obsolete cables. Putting the smaller ones into individual bags so they don’t get tangled again and coiling the bigger ones and zip-tying them for the same reason. And chucking a lot of the other stuff. I don’t need - indeed cannot use - a VGA KVM any more. I’ve now got a bag of power cables which I may just chuck after keeping just a few.
I dug up my old school and university books and notes and have condensed them somewhat. I need to double-check but I think it’s another couple of years before I can get rid of most of the paperwork regarding my aunt, but it’s all in a separate box ready.
I found a box of 2000AD magazines from years ago which I will gift to my nephew.
The past two weeks were first a recovery from the allergies kicked up by the deep clean, then being pretty crapped out from the heat wave. I did maintain the clothing/closet regime I had set up and keep up with the dishes. I bought a new mop because we had destroyed the old one. And worked on the budget and record-keeping so I could toss a bunch of receipts and such.
Today I started in on the living room bookcase, getting rid of old bird feathers (apparently that one shelf is a nice hidey-hole for the feather children!), cleaning up stuff, organizing things like my hand and foot grooming tools and going through the piles of hair rubber bands and such. Some of these things are going into labeled boxes.
Also finally found a taker for the baby food leftover from when G was having trouble eating during chemo, as well as some other stuff. It’s going to the Jewish Federation of Northwest Indiana, which runs a food pantry, on Monday. Can’t do it today, because it’s Yom Kippur and apparently they’re closed this Sunday, too. Throwing in the other food items we had for G that I can’t eat due to allergies or just don’t care for.
Found a home for the 10 volume hard bound series on the history of the world.
While doing some light cleaning/tidying in my late spouse’s workspace I found:
- The staple gun
- Another computer!
- An oscilliscope
Of the three, I’m only sure the staple gun works.
Still making some progress in reclaiming overburdened table-tops. Slow going, but it’s going, and visitors tell me they see a positive change when then come in so even though I feel like I’m treading water maybe I’m doing a bit better than that.
Hard to keep up with this during the holiday season between working retail and shopping for my friends and remaining family (small gifts this year, but I do feel better giving something).
I am also currently facing a Mouse Invasion. In addition to trying to reduce the household clutter, every so often I wake up to little mice corpses here and there (I’ve been using poison bait. When I can convince them to eat it, it works).
When you have a mouse invasion the priority is to find all the possible routes they have into the house and seal them. Perhaps you should start a thread on the subject for advice.
Christmas is a prime clutter season. I like to wait until after the New Year to cull.
Well, between Retail Madness in December, getting the Not Officially The Flu the week before Christmas, dragging around for a bit after that, getting a bad headcold, dragging around after that, and then a week’s vacation… not a whole lot of progress since my last post here.
BUT today I got back on the horse. Spent substantial time digging through mail and paperwork and dividing it into Keep, Toss, and Shred while an unemployed friend borrowed the use of my laptop to apply for jobs. I encouraged him while he slogged through the on-line application, and he encouraged me in digging through the pile.
I am wondering how long to keep my late husband’s medical records and such.
Also went through more old clothing this week - Keep, Giveaway, Ragbag, and Toss categories for that one.
So… I keep coming back to it and s-l-o-w-l-y things are getting better.
I pretty much left the SDMB a few years ago, it’s just the occasional notification from an old thread I was subscribed to that reminds me about it. (I hang out on reddit a lot now)
But this really shocked me.
Broomstick, I am so sorry for your loss. I’ve read you talk about your husband with such love and devotion over the years, you truly did marry in sickness and in health, and this just seems to unfair. My condolences.
If memory serves, you have no children, but since his condition was genetic (again IIRC) might they be relevant to his nephews and nieces? If so, pass them on.
Medical records–I kept my husband’s med. records and the paperwork for his full body donation for 10 years.
No wait, I still have the body donation paperwork. Don’t ask why.
While his condition was congenital it was not genetic, rather, it’s the sort of birth defect associated with poor nutrition and starvation of the mother before and during pregnancy. Which, regrettably, did describe his mother’s situation at the time. This is why many foods are now fortified with folate and B12 and we have things like WIC, both of which have reduced the incidence of this birth defect significantly in this country. While there probably is some genetic susceptibility (Caucasians, for example, are at higher risk than other groups) it’s pretty minor and clearly this is caused more by environment than genes.
Cinnamon Imp (and anyone else) thank you for your sympathy. If you want the story of what happened the thread is here.
Then perhaps you could donate the records to a university or a researcher? A complete record of the condition from birth to premature death must surely be of use.
Been awhile for awhile and didn’t catch that last post until now.
Actually,** Quartz,** the life expectancy for people with my husband’s birth defect is now around 45… and he lived to 57. So his death was not really “premature”, he actually exceeded the norm by over 10 years.
Anyhow, checked back in to say I am slowly, slowly continuing to whittle away at things. Due to water and insects getting into a storage area I had to throw out several banker’s boxes of old stuff, which I probably would have eventually thrown out anyway as it was mostly old work records dating back as far as 1995. There were a couple of things I would have liked for the scrapbook - my very first least on a Chicago apartment in the early 1980’s, for example - but Stuff Happens. I’m getting better with accepting that. Not great. But better.
Also cleaned up some more of the kitchen. Turned out there was a box of electrical stuff the landlord had left in the place while doing some repair work, along with some spackle and stuff so I returned that to him. Got rid of about 3/4 of the plastic bag pile (took them in to be recycled at work, we have a drop-off there). Some old speakers the husband had been intending to repair “some day” are now going to a audiophile who likes to tinker with/rebuild that sort of thing.
So… not huge progress but progress. More trash going out than stuff coming in. More recycle stuff going out than coming in. Starting to actually SEE some progress in the form of more space.
With more warmth and daylight, and with me feeling better in general, I’m doing a bit more so hopefully I’ll continue to see more progress. One day…one day…! I’ll feel like I’ve got this place actually organized and cleaned up.
OK, March turned out to be harder than expected with the approach of the anniversary of my husband’s death. Did not get as much done as I had hoped in my last post but I will not beat myself up over it - neither did things get worse so I am still maintaining whatever progress I’ve made over time. Also, I finally got the second parrot cage cleaned up and set up in the living room/kitchen area so the birds can be with me while I’m bustling around the house without being able to lend me unwanted “help”. This is a big deal, for those of you unfamiliar with birds, because the alternative was to move the one cage from the bedroom to the living and a cage big enough for three parrots, even small parrots, isn’t trivial.
Between emotional stuff and needing a boost on the home front tasks I decided to take some vacation time at the end of the month and also invited a friend to come out an help.
Three bags of garbage out the door, along with some old, ratty pillows (one of them mouse-chewed). Also two old pairs of shoes that are hopeless to fix even for this former cobbler. And some other random crap/garbage. But that’s not the really good news.
See, my husband was a tinkerer and one of the thing he tinkered with is computer stuff. My friend used to work in the computer industry - help desk and building home computers to order. We were able to go through a LOT of the electronic stuff (although not all) and determine what was beyond hope, what could be used to build me a more up-to-date computer (my newest one is 8 years old), what could be used as spares (like keyboards), and identified a lot of stuff I had no clue about.
So… all the computer stuff we found/went through is now identified/labeled/classified. Some things, like keyboards and mice we simply wrapped up for protection and they’re all in one spot instead of randomly distributed throughout the home, available if my current keyboard/mouse dies. She also went over how everything is connected with me so I can better maintain things myself going forward. The usable components went home with the Computer Guru Friend and will be used to build me a new computer. She also took the “hopeless” category for recycling/proper disposal so I won’t have to worry about that, and any money obtained from those is hers as part of her payment for the new computer build (I don’t ask anyone to work for free).
We also evaluated/fixed the parrot-chewed cables on the bedroom TV so it works properly now and, even better, is safe (and the parrots more closely supervised).
My main work desk is now far, far more functional and I have more room in my living space. My bedroom TV is now usable.
Also, my tax information is now sorted on my desk and ready to be finished up and submitted.
Truly cleaning everything up AND changing my bad habits has taken a long time, but I think for me this was the right approach because I am not only (slowly) fixing the problem, but making the permanent changes to keep it from happening again.
Not my house, but my parents are away on holiday, so with semi-permission, I tackled their downstairs “dump room”. This is a large square room, with a childs bed in the middle, buried under old clothes & fabric, with piles of stuff radiating out from it, and stuff piled along all four walls, radiating towards the centre, so only a very narrow path let you navigate the room.
Before - a view of the bed pile https://i.imgur.com/Y0EL4Or.jpg
During - the piles round the bed were being tidied and removed, revealing carpet, and the shape of the bed https://i.imgur.com/YPULV7E.jpg
Progress - I bought in shelves, to get the usable food and toys stored neatly, rather than scattered along the floor https://i.imgur.com/1NJbide.jpg
The bed revealed! https://i.imgur.com/Oaxq7i6.jpg
The bed being dismantled https://i.imgur.com/ZGKeQL2.jpg
My parents holiday has been un-expectedly extended, but they’ve seen photos of the transformation and are still talking to me!
I thought that was nicely done. You had a plan, tackled things in order, saved what was usable.
What’s going to happen to the bed? Donation?
Thank you! I saved more than I would have preferred to, but my mother has promised to go through the boxes of old blankets and clutter when she gets home (plus the four rails worth of clothes that were removed from the bed-pile, and hung up for sorting https://i.imgur.com/qsb5oT7.jpg)
I’ve listed the bed on Gumtree as free to anyone who wants it, but no takers so far. Once it’s dismantled, I’m hoping if I prop the metal base against the end of my parents driveway, it might just vanish mysteriously (there’s white vans driven by gentlemen of undetermined origin who prowl the suburbs looking for scrap metal they can use), if not, my dad says he’ll fit it on his car roofrack and take it to the local dump when he’s home.
I should probably tackle the four boxes full of paperwork and memorabilia under my own bed though before I do anything more to their house 
REQUEST FOR SUGGESTION: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
90% of my records are now electronic, and I cannot find anything. Does anyone have a useful organizational scheme for records? I don’t want to reinvent the wheel if someone has already developed a useful scheme.