Yeah, but if something goes wrong a new kindle for Mr. Bezos isn’t even a rounding error in his pocket change. For me, it’s a significant outlay. Would rather not risk it myself.
Does that mean Bezos is also fond of reading in the tub?
Oh yeah, came in to say: I got my butt in gear yesterday and - motivated partially by the thought of my friend seeing my place next week - got a really good amount of general putting-away-of-shit accomplished.
I’m going on a short trip, and am having a friend from work drop by to check on my critters & pull the trash bin back in.
Looked around the other day and thought, “Well, I can’t let her see this mess!” and thoroughly cleaned up the kitchen in addition to putting away several boxes of stuff.
It looks good!
Maybe we should all invite guests.
I actually got a good bit of cleaning/decluttering done before the electrician and HVAC were here to install my new mini splits this summer. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t slovenly, either.
StG
I got lots of cleanup done before we had people come in to fix the shower door and mirror. However, due to the current virus situation in Switzerland, I ain’t inviting nobody here.
We did manage to make progress on on the contents of our cellar and I’m still working on papers. Bought two more boxes to store stuff. After sorting (so far), I managed to empty two boxes so now I have four empty boxes. Papers take a long time and don’t make a huge difference, but with enough papers, there is a noticeable improvement.
I started out this morning getting some stuff done. Trying to settle nerves, and keep busy. Then the news hit and stopped all progress. I may restart tomorrow. Today is celebration.
I unpacked a box. Whoopee! But it was underfoot, and “a” box is a bit of a victory when I still have a sore arm from my flu shot yesterday.
Among other things was an unnecessary wall clock. It has a fresh battery in it & will come with me to work tomorrow. I’m sick of the break room having zero timekeeping ability - that’s where you really want employees to keep track, ammirite?
I also started putting my “nice” things into a glass-front display case where I can see them. It’s silly to stare sadly at all this boxed clutter instead of enjoying my stuff.
I just need energy - which is in short supply, but I can do little bursts here & there, right?
Oh, and I did find a spot for all those boots (on some protective newspapers, under a little side table) so they’re visible & accessible, but somewhat outta the way now.
Progress. We haz made a little.
I’m getting bags of unneeded foam packing materials out to the trash. I’m close to done packing for my move and have far more styrofoam that required.
Some odd cardboard is recycling tomorrow. But my big decluttering is done now.
Kicked myself into enough of a “get shit done” streak to unpack 2 boxes of books. Looks much better having books on a bookshelf, than boxes labeled “books.”
Also hung a small, decorative mirror. This place is starting to resemble a home!
Let’s see…
Finally got all caught up with the laundry after the weeks of covid and isolating left me with piles of the stuff.
Didn’t do much on the Big Pile but I did go out to the Old Place, reconnoiter, and assemble some boxes (when I empty them I break them down for easy transport, then take them back to the Old Place to re-use), then went to the storage unit to review what was and wasn’t there to remember where I was in all this process and plan out my next steps.
Which doesn’t sound like much but I’ll take baby-steps over no steps.
I finally dug out my humidifier to use. It’s only taken the start of my third winter in this place get me motivated. In the process, I found a box of empty three-ring binders that will go in the trash tomorrow. Small progress, but progress it is.
I saw some shelving on Facebook marketplace that is fairly cheap. I’m feeling a bit motivated to start doing some intermediate organizing. I’m pretty ashamed that I’ve been in here for over two years and still have so much that is unfinished. I know it’s due to lack of finances, but I can do some stuff on the cheap, can’t I? Yes, I can, dammit.
Check the “free” section of Craigslist for your area, and see if there’s an active FreeCycle group while you’re at it.
Years ago, Freecycle was the shit for scoring awesome stuff other people wanted to clear out, but I don’t know if pockets still exist or not.
Also look for local gifting or free groups on Facebook. That’s how I divested myself of the ~50 boxes of cookbooks
I need to join this thread and declutter too! I’ve been decluttering. We’ve been decluttering, the wife and me, and we still have more to do. Wish us luck!
Funny thing is I’ve been decluttering for 2 years and now when I finally move into the new place at the end of December I have more to do. As I unpack my books, many will box back up to go to Good Will. I feel like almost everything else is done though. Maybe by next May, I’ll be under a 1000 books. That would be good.
That’s the theme of this thread!
I keep looking at all the stuff I didn’t get to yesterday, and I can feel the demons rising. This thread has been enormously helpful in keeping me focused on the positive, on what I did achieve, and thus, beating those demons back down.
My trash bin today is about 3/4 full of useless crap and a few empty boxes, which - while adding to the landfills, sadly - is at least that volume of dusty junk NOT inside my home.
I’ll just point out that I started this thread eight years ago and I’m still not done.
On the upside, I seem to have conquered my hoarder tendencies. I no longer fear being crushed beneath a paperback book collection and I can actually find stuff I’m looking for fairly quickly.
I suspect I’ll always need some sort of support group and keep working on this issue for the rest of my life, but I’m glad I have learned to ask for help, I’m glad I started this thread, and I’m thrilled if others find it useful too.
I’d like some hints on photos. I have SOOO many, and I get bored quickly.
I don’t have very many in frames, and I want to do that. I have lots (too many!) of frames. I bought some photo albums two years ago and still haven’t filled them.
The problem I find is sorting. There are so many categories. Vacations, grandkids, brother, sister, Dad, Mom, Mom and Dad, husband, me, dogs, husband and me, son, son and wife, two different extended families like aunts and uncles and cousins from Mom’s side and Dad’s side…
It’s endless. It’s just people, really, I’m no National Geographic photographer. And that’s just MY collection. My husband has a few boxes, too.
It’s exhausting just writing about it! 
Should I take them to some place that digitizes them? Then it would be somewhat easier to delete the blurry ones, and the ones who I don’t even know who the hell they are (from my Mom and Dad’s collections.) Have any of you done that? It is expensive?
At least one of my sisters (the one that still speaks to me) bought a good quality scanner and scanned her photo collection herself, which also allowed her to tag them with all applicable categories. That means, for example, that a single photo of a person and their dog on vacation can be found by searching on [person name] or [dog] or [dog name] or [vacation] or… you get the idea.
I’ve known a couple other people who did it on their own.
But… I get the feeling that you don’t feel up to this yourself. Yes, absolutely there are people/services who will do this for you. Prices vary but it will likely cost a hundred or a couple hundred for the sort of collection one gets with “mom and dad, siblings, husband, husband’s relatives, vacations, etc.”
It always seems to be a choice between time/sweat equity or money.
Sounds like you’re trying to hit too many goals at once. Do you want to categorize your entire collection, or do you wanna display the frames?
Sounds like the latter, so ignore the former. Poke through your collection with the sole intention of pulling out some favorites: the ones that make you go, “Oooh, I love this shot!”
Wander off and do something else once you get bored. It’s okay; you’ll have something to put in your frames, plus a couple extras so you can rotate through them to keep the view fresh.
Categorizing the whole shebang is a whole separate project, and can mentally be filed separately.