Clearing the decks at home

[htmb]

Apr 12, 2020 17:29:02 GMT Kimby said:

Can you not put it out at the curb with a sign that says “Free”?

Unfortunately, no.

[bixaorellana]

Apr 12, 2020 17:37:06 GMT Kimby said:

45 packages of Biscoff cookies

When life gives you expired Biscoff cookies, make lotus cheesecake!

Apr 12, 2020 17:08:23 GMT htmb said:

We don’t have curbside pickup here, but must drive to a recycling center for furniture and small appliances. Unfortunately, it’s closed

Would this business be of use to you: www.1800gotjunk.com/us_en/locations/junk-removal-gainesville ?

[htmb]

Not really, but thanks. I don’t want to pay anyone for something I can do myself. Plus, I know where I can take the items so they can be picked up by others in need instead of the local landfill. I have a perfectly good porta crib and high chair to give away, but the thrift places can’t take them because they don’t meet current safety standards.

[kerouac2]

Apr 12, 2020 17:37:06 GMT Kimby said:

Only TWO packs bear expiration dates in 2020...

I hope you don't actually believe the expiration dates of canned or dry goods. Cookies might be a bit stale but they will never poison you.

[Kimby]

Do you want the 30 pre-2018 packages I’m tossing? I probably won’t eat the 15 2018 vintage and newer ones I’m keeping.

[kerouac2]

Don't you want to feed them to your pet deer?

[bjd]

I just reread this thread from the beginning. I'm a firm believer in occasionally moving and getting rid of things you don't need. These days I have a box into which I put books I will get rid of. Why on earth did I bring many of my old university books with me to France and then dragged them through successive moves? Not sure I had ever planned to reread histories of the Soviet Union but I did bring them. Now, it's hard to know what to do with them since book boxes are closed and we can't go anywhere anyway. And they are in English, so that's even less useful.

Meanwhile, my husband is a bit of a hoarder and claims that you should never get rid of books. As someone mentioned a few pages back on this thread, when you are no longer there someone is going to have to get rid of all the junk you have accumulated.

[lagatta]

I am amazed at a Parisian, who doesn't live in the poshest districts, has a closet that is too large!

Now I have time to sift through clothes I never wear, but all the charity shops are closed!

[kerouac2]

Apr 13, 2020 15:41:30 GMT lagatta said:

I am amazed at a Parisian, who doesn't live in the poshest districts, has a closet that is too large!

Yes, it is inexplicable. I have tried to imagine what this little room could have been used for in the past and have not come up with any ideas. Already the kitchen is smaller than it should be because 2m² were carved out of it to create the WC.

[htmb]

The nursery?

[kerouac2]

Before an investor bought several flats in my mostly abandoned building to fix them up a minimum and sell them at a huge profit, it is clear to me that my place had neither a bathroom or a WC, so a nursery would have been an incredible luxury. When I moved into the building (in 1991) only one flat was occupied and all of the others were empty. The flat which had some residents was occupied by a Franco-Egyptian couple, but they didn't have a bathroom or anything. So when they had a baby, they moved out as soon as they were able.

[htmb]

What was the use of the building before it’s most recent abandonment? Any ideas?

[bixaorellana]

Apr 13, 2020 16:43:29 GMT kerouac2 said:

es, it is inexplicable. I have tried to imagine what this little room could have been used for in the past and have not come up with any ideas.

My guess is just that it's sloppy, unskilled, or unimaginative planning on the part of the renovators. My house was designed by an architect, which is less impressive than it sounds, since all houses here need to be signed off by an architect. There is a goofy dead zone in the hall from the living room to the staircase. The architect told my landlady at the time that he just didn't know what to do with that space. That's world class indifference. The hallway upstairs is pointlessly wide, but not really wide enough to do anything with. The house has two bedrooms and an "estudio", a dinky little room with a window in it. Obviously estudios can be used for home offices or nurseries or junk rooms or dog bedrooms, but I've always had the sneaking suspicion that they're space that local architects had left over after penciling in all the regular rooms.

[kerouac2]

Apr 13, 2020 18:10:40 GMT htmb said:

What was the use of the building before it’s most recent abandonment? Any ideas?

It was already apartments and everything was owned by the bank on the ground floor.

[lagatta]

There was a cleaning thread here, but it ended up with cleaning Louis Vuitton stuff, which I doubt I'll ever have unless a wealthy aunt in California decides to palm some off on me. I have zero interest in luggage that would be heavy and expose me to thievery.

I decided to clean out my bedroom closet; there is far more to do (sorting out things I wear and things I don't and taking the latter to charity shops) but at least the floor is neat and clean, and I've paired shoes, boots and slippers. Also the inside of the fridge, throwing out any dubious stuff (as I've had little appetite). There is more to do but it is in a far better state than before. And as I've said elsewhere, found a very pretty and comfy pair of Chinese slippers.

Needless to say, my lower back is throbbing in pain.

[lagatta]

Return to decluttering - the emotional kind. I know that I'll have no use for the interview notes for my master's thesis (at least 20 years ago) but it is incredibly painful to look at them (I am rather depressed these days, if only due to convalescence and feeling fairly useless. However I really want more space in my large legal-size filing cabinet.

[kerouac2]

I only recently started getting rid of old documents. Even though there was a pang sometimes, I have not regretted any of it. Just ask yourself, "if I die, what will the cleaning person do with this stuff?"

[lagatta]

They'll chuck it. But we all have the illusion that some younger researcher will find it precious.

I guess a wiser attitude would be to think that all those hours taught us the skill of doing research.

[questa]

"Keep a diary and one day it will keep you" Mae West.

I had read some autobiographical stories written by nurses and fancied I could do that when I started my Nurse training. Ha! It soon became a collection of non standard abbreviations that I have forgotten the meaning of and a list of shifts worked and rosters for lectures and exams.
Years later when working in my own clinics a trade rep gave me a fine bound A4 diary each year, so I started up again. Over time it recorded the arrival of 2 boys and the departure of one spouse and the gradual mismanagement of the organisation when the Government took it over.

It can be summed up as the nurses knew what they had to do, did it well but were never trained in office or personnel management skills, meetings, reports or "The big picture". The dozens of admin staff who appeared in our over crowded offices had no concept of our activities, how long they took and to us, much time wasting. As the senior Managing Nurse we had a person who had no idea of her role and trailed disaster and ineptness wherever she went.

It wound up that I was doing both our jobs and the stress was giving me various ailments. It came to a head when in front of the team after a meeting she slapped me, pushing me down a step. I was advised to write down any other times she had upset me...dates, places, witnesses
etc. for the Govt Tribunal.

Thanks to Mae I had kept my journal. From it I gleaned 11 fine-written pages of incidents, quotes and information. The Tribunal found in my favour but I was offered a smallish lump sum or ongoing costs for life, which I chose. Five years later the Govt ceased ongoing payments...But by then I'd discovered a restaurant in Bali.

[Kimby]

My sister and I will be clearing the decks at our family cabin next weekend, in preparation for selling it, as it just isn’t getting used the way we’d hoped it would since our parents died.

And now there are only two of us, and our “menfolk” have no use for the place. (Too much work to maintain, not enough fun.)

She’s a master organizer and has arranged for the delivery of a large dumpster (8’ x 13’ x 5.5’) for the junk, and has tasked me with finding an auctioneer to come haul away the “good stuff” for an estate sale (off-site, because it’s too remote to draw a crowd on-site).

She’s also ordered shipping cartons (the maximum size that will be accepted as baggage by airlines) for me to put the stuff I want to keep from 57 years of family history. She’ll drive me and my treasures to Mr. Kimby’s family’s condo for temporary storage (that idea has him freaking out, so I have to restrain myself if I can).

This whole process got exponentially simpler when a friend of our parents offered to buy the cabin, just before we were to sign with a realtor. The realtor had wanted us to wash windows, clean carpets, take down all the deer antlers, cut view-obstructing brush, and generally work our asses off to make it ready for showings. The buyer says we can take what we want and leave what we don’t want. Seems too good to be true.

Especially to my sister, who had to clear out our parents’ house in 2016, and just now wrapped up a big garage sale to thin out stuff at her Illinois home.

I wish I had her energy. Her doing most of the hard stuff is allowing me to take the time to find the right homes for some of Dad’s good stuff. Like the 20 or so hand-blown glass miniature lighthouses he created on sandstone slabs. He used to give them away, but I’m contacting a local nonprofit group that advocates for water quality on the large lake the cabin is on, to see if they’d like to raffle them off to raise funds for their good work, something Dad would totally have approved of.

[kerouac2]

You know already that you're going to keep too much stuff. Please give Mr. Kimby veto power on what you bring home.

[Kimby]

He’s already making suggestions of that nature. But he opted to not help us get the place ready, so he’s lost his chance to be there to direct my choices.

He is coming to terms with my (eventually) bringing the elk antlers back to Montana (where the elk lived till my dad bagged it in 1967). We already took a table saw and Dad’s 14’ sunfish sailboat and a canoe and a collection of arrowheads mounted on a weathered board from the cabin. What I want are mostly books. A lighthouse painting. The cabin guitar and a baritone ukulele that I played on before my hands were big enough to learn the guitar in 6th grade. Maybe some brightly colored fishing lures... and the photo albums and scrapbooks of course. A parka I made for mom (Frostline Kit mountain parka) and some leather cabin slippers. A lighthouse windsock I made for them. One of Dad’s Greek Fisherman hats. I hope I will be able to resist items like the spud guns (aka potato cannons)...

[bixaorellana]

Take and keep what you want, as long as you & your (wonderful!) sister are in agreement. Screw everyone else, married to 'em or not

Your idea about the lighthouses is lovely & generous.

[Kimby]

Here’s a photo of a small one. The light blinks with a 9-volt battery.

[Kimby]

The water quality group was delighted to receive the lighthouse sculptures (assemblages, more accurately) and is selling them to thrilled members - and using them to recruit new members. They took 30 of them, and we left 3 at the cabin for the new owner and his two adult kids.

Now my remaining cabin project is to sell Dad’s boat and motor. It may need work on the fuel system to get it running again after 9 years sitting in the boathouse unused, but the motor has about $3000 value, even though the boat is too old to be worth much (and not old enough to be an antique).

The problem is finding a marina willing to do the repairs and either buy it from us to resell or that will consign it for us.

[kerouac2]

Can't help with the boat, but I have the ambition of visiting two major lighthouses in France, hopefully this year, dating back to the 17th century.

[cheerypeabrain]

We started clearing our loft space this morning...nine hours in and we are only a quarter of the way through. We've got a pile of stuff to be taken to the tip and the hall is full of bags that are for the local hospice's charity warehouse....

Sorting through 40 years of detritus I found lots of memories. Awkward clay figures made by our boys in their early years at school, a huge wooden chest containing Dad's blueprints for telescopes, the advertising material produced for his business in the 1960s with pictures of him standing next to huge telescopes. Mugs...soooo many mugs...baskets, 2 picnic sets, picture frames, lots of my old paintings, teddy bears..it goes on and on. Yhen there's the furniture...occasional tables, dining chairs, a corner wall unit....

I posted pics on our watsapp family group and two of my sisters have claimed books and baskets....but aside from a few precious keepsakes it's all going either to the tip or the charity shop. We've kept a few things, the best 4 picture frames, some of my paintings...Mummy's italian espresso set. However when things go back up there they are in labelled boxes. Organised...we want to reduce the amount we keep by at least two thirds if not three quarters. I think that we will be working all weekend....

[htmb]

I admire your energy in getting it done. This type of thing is not usually an easy task, especially when it comes to dealing with items that bring up good family memories.

[kerouac2]

The picnic sets could come in handy when you invite us all to a bucolic meetup.

[bixaorellana]

Don't put any more pictures on whatsapp. Instead, choose groups of items with sentimental, esthetic, &/or amusement value. Gift wrap each group and then randomly give them to your siblings & children whenever the mood hits you. They may be delighted, but in any event the items become their problem & you look like a sweetheart for sharing.