Progress Report: Week 3

Short Version:
Tackled and tamed the cords.
Cleaned out 3/4 drawers in large filing cabinet.

Garbage and Recycling: 36 lbs
Donations:
There isn't a total for donations this week, really. There's stuff ready to go out, but since I have a bad habit of stockpiling stuff to donate, I decided I wouldn't post the pounds until it was actually out the door.

Toss total (to date) : 370 lbs

Long Version:
Monday

The husband and son did all that incredible work down in the basement (dismantled shelving, and removed the black dresser) and I shuffled the furniture around. Hemmed one set of new curtains and hung them.

No donations (yet).

Shopping:
picture frames for picture frame project: $18.00
Curtains for Basement (5 x $7) $35.00
DVD holders for Living Room: $18.00
Hanging clothes case to protect sentimental clothing: $14.00


Tuesday

Shopping:
Velcro: $9.00
Curtain Hardware and rod: $4.50
(I already have the other four I need).

Removed the rest of the clothing in the exercise area and sorted through the last "keepsake" box. I found my old army long underwear! I was in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves, briefly, when I was seventeen. I thought I'd tossed them long ago, so out they went, this time.

I installed the clothing keeper. As a result of what Wende said:

But there's such a huge difference between storing a handful of garments that have intense sentimental value, versus storing boxes and boxes of garments that just kind of exist!
There needs to be a place in our lives for sentiment and nostalgia, and culling stuff down to the TRULY meaningful honors that place.

I decided that if I was going to keep my sentimental favourites because I loved them too much to part with them, then I ought to truly honour them. So, I took them out of their makeshift closet under the stairs, dusted off the shoulders (they'd just had plastic garbage bags draped over them) and then placed them back in this:

It felt right.

I spent about an hour, a very pleasant hour, I might add, down in the basement working on the picture frame project.

Washed mittens and hats and gardening gloves. Realised all my clothes pins are missing. How do 100-odd clothes pins just disappear?

Spent another hour, not quite so pleasant, implementing Zooza's cord management system.

Wednesday
*Galloping Curitis:
Washed inside the fridge door while dictating spelling test. That completes the fridge cleaning (except for the coils).

Worked on fastening more cords. In a couple of sessions I got everything I'm going to do done. It is most satisfying, even if the pictures are inadequate for the tale.

Finished framing all the pictures I want for the framing project--except one. It's a print from our wedding and I want to scan and enlarge it. That may take a while as I scanned it at a ridiculously high resolution.

Thursday

Bagged up "outbox" of clothing from WT in the fall. Put all but two of my coffee can collection into recycling.



Apparently you can make ice-cream with them. I'd like to try that some day.

Started emptying the out-box.

Sorted the outer winter wear and boxed it up.

Opened a file drawer and stared at the husband's business paperwork.

Closed the drawer.

Looked at the stack of children's artwork.

Tackled a box overflowing with mending. Sorted things that are needed and could be used if mended. Threw out a lot. I'm going to have to spend some time at the sewing machine.

Got permission from the husband to toss his business related paperwork. Freed up two file drawers.

Read about using old coffee cans mounted end wise on a wall to store rolled up towels and toiletries in the bathroom. Would that be cool--or tacky? Oh well. They're gone.

Friday

Tossed most of a filing cabinet drawer devoted to my past. It was actually fun. I came across a file with all the academic awards I've received (the ones with money attached!) and I tossed it: but I wonder if I should have kept it. The only reason I think I should, is that I like to think of my kids discovering it someday after I'm gone and saying, "Hey, mom really was somebody. She had a life before us." (It was worth about $3,000 from the Ontario Government. Heady money back in the early 90's. You could live on about $6,000 back then, books and tuition included.)

OK. I just fished them out. It occurred to me that the stuff we keep will tell a story about ourselves after we're gone. What's the story I want to tell? Whatever it is, I think it can include my accomplishments.

Used the new drill to fasten the power bar near the stairs. Yes, a new drill. The old one started sparking right after my husband finished dismantling the shelves in the exercise area. He had to buy a new one. Since it was the virgin run of the new drill, the husband took it upon himself to put in the power bar (admittedly, after I'd picked the wrong sized screw head.)

Retail Therapy:

1 brushed chrome pedal operated garbage can for the bathroom. (Now that we have a dog....)

1 paper towel holder. This was a very clever idea from a salesperson at Canadian Tire. I need something to hold a towel by the back entry to wipe the dog's paws. I have about 16" to work with--2" less than the standard 18" towel bar length.

1 plastic cage for the bare bulb in the laundry room. $4.00

50 clothespins. $2.00

Thanks for cheering me on this week, everyone.
Let the Cure continue!