In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 185 of 1154
Hey all - got a new computer and I'm glad to be back!
It seems like we all got the clean-up bug for different reasons, including me. For me it was finally being retired. With my nonexistent energy levels, and the build-up of things that need to be done, this is going to take a while. But at least now I have the time. After cleaning out (most of) my home office, today was my day to set up the desk, haul the 'puter stuff in, and hook everything up. Tomorrow I'm going to start tackling the stuff I brought back from work. Mostly I had a lot of gifts and decorations that I kept there to take my brain off of work and remind me of my life, and I'm going to keep them, but I want to store them carefully while I clear out the rest of the place. I don't have much, but I have even less storage space, so working on this is like playing those puzzles where you have numbers to arrange in order, but only one empty spot to work with. It gets a bit irritating - demoralizing? - have to do, undo, and redo, but if that's what it takes ...
Jack, for what it's worth I have had my own issues with raccoons - destructive, dirty, nasty creatures. And imo second to them are rats, then squirrels. Fingers crossed your problems got solved! If you can call out a pest / rodent person to find out how she got in, you might want to have that blocked off. (If you mentioned it earlier, apologies! I didn't go all the way back to when I last has a working computer.) And I'm glad to hear you got advice on your porch problem. Without looking at it it was hard to opine, but many things are fixable and almost take longer to explain than to do.
Hey Brenda, I'm still stoked you've moved! I hope that made as big a difference in your life as I imagine!
Signy - just hey!
JSF - sorry abut your login issues, but it seems like they're fixed now ...
Cheers, all!
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Hey all - got a new computer and I'm glad to be back!
Welcome back. :)
Quote:
It seems like we all got the clean-up bug for different reasons, including me. For me it was finally being retired. With my nonexistent energy levels, and the build-up of things that need to be done, this is going to take a while. But at least now I have the time. After cleaning out (most of) my home office, today was my day to set up the desk, haul the 'puter stuff in, and hook everything up. Tomorrow I'm going to start tackling the stuff I brought back from work. Mostly I had a lot of gifts and decorations that I kept there to take my brain off of work and remind me of my life, and I'm going to keep them, but I want to store them carefully while I clear out the rest of the place. I don't have much, but I have even less storage space, so working on this is like playing those puzzles where you have numbers to arrange in order, but only one empty spot to work with. It gets a bit irritating - demoralizing? - have to do, undo, and redo, but if that's what it takes ...
You might find that the clutter itself is sapping your energy levels.
It sounds like you're making good progress though. And at least for now, you're doing the right thing by keeping something that is special to you while moving on to the other stuff. As long as you're making progress in other areas, there's nothing wrong with making choices about things you know you want to keep and protectively boxing them up. Just don't let it become one of those things where you find yourself keeping everything. Otherwise you're using up all that mental and physical energy just moving things around in that limited space.
Once you get everything out that you know you don't want or need anymore, then you can go back and make a second run through the stuff you kept. I'll bet you'll find that not everything is as important to you as you first thought it was. In the case of all of that stuff you kept from work, for instance, you might choose to keep some of it for sentimental reasons but realize that you don't need to keep all of it.
You might have missed when I talked about my massive purge that I did around 4 years ago, and the fact that of every single thing I kept in my attic that I simply couldn't ever part with, I've only ever gone into two boxes of computer junk since then and to be honest I don't really even have a clue what else was so important that it's still sitting up there. Once I get around to purging everything from the main house and garage that I know I don't want or need anymore, I intend to go through the attic with a fine tooth comb and I hope to get rid of at least half of that stuff I initially saved too.
I've got this huge tri-level house with a fully finished attic and 2 1/2 car garage, and I filled everything. My end goal right now is to reduce the amount of "stuff" I have to what I would have had in a single bedroom apartment when I was younger. Not only will this make getting to whatever I need to remodel a breeze, but whenever I finally do move I want to be able to rent nothing larger than a 12' truck to take it all with me.
It's amazing my change of thought processes on everything now that stuff is getting cleared out. I'm actually excited about getting back to work on the house now that I can actually have room to do it. The clutter was holding me back.
I wish you luck with it. It's a great thing you're doing for yourself. :)
Quote:
Jack, for what it's worth I have had my own issues with raccoons - destructive, dirty, nasty creatures. And imo second to them are rats, then squirrels. Fingers crossed your problems got solved! If you can call out a pest / rodent person to find out how she got in, you might want to have that blocked off. (If you mentioned it earlier, apologies! I didn't go all the way back to when I last has a working computer.) And I'NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hey KIKI! Welcome back! I'm glad you got a new 'puter, and that it's set up, along with a desk!
Also, progress here is slow, slow, slow...
This is how yesterday went, for me ...
walk the backyard with our (fomerly homeless) gardner and scope out the work that we have for him. As I mentioned, he quit his sweet deal in Idaho because someone wanted him to fill out a timesheet and he got into a snit ... NOT a good decision! ... and we don't really have regular work for him but I do have some projects that need help
Finally got back in touch with our next-door neighbor (again) to get the OK on installing a (plastic) root barrier between our two front lawns. I'm sick of digging their grass out all of the time and at the same time I'm sure they won't want tree roots invading their lawn from the trees that I planted. We had staked and marked the property line from the surveyors mark to the middle of the back wall, but it was so at-odds with where the grass had been allowed to grow it looked like we were intruding on their property by a foot-and-some, so I halted that, then got a ladder and "sighted" down the block wall to the curb and confirmed our mark was indeed correct, but needed to get back in touch. At the same time I gave their gardner the OK to trim the avocado back to the property line ... the leaves are falling into their pool
Took the dog and daughter for a walk. One hour. During our walk I stopped by another neighbor's house (he is a few blocks away) ... I have seen him woodorking on his driveway while walking the dog and since hubby is getting back to woodworking I stopped to chat a few times about his work. Well, hubby is looking to get rid of his water- and oil-stones (for sharpening) because he's using diamond plates and a slow-speed CBN wheel now instead, so I thought I would offer a fellow woodworker a chance at some equipment. So I rang the doorbell, and as it turns out he was JUST looking at sharpening stones and would be VERY happy to have them! I ran the stones over to his front porch later in the evening ... does that count as cleanup? It DID get rid of a few things from the garage...
Prepared lunch for our gardner and spent the time just chatting with him about his situation and how a mutual friend is doing. One hour
Helped dear daugher with some wound dressings ...
Finally got a start on the room painting, we are still working on completing it. Dear daughter did the baseboards and I did the crown molding. Jeez, its fiddly work. Three hours because the crown molding needed two coats. But I have to say I'm ecstatic over the color that I chose, even if it DID take a month and three or four "sample" cans of paint to figure it out!
Finished preparing dinner, and family dinner, two (?) hours, and kitchen cleanup one hour.
Did some TV watching with the family but I felt so crappy I spent most of the evening kind of uselessly wandering around before rinsing my sinuses, taking ibuprofen, letting the dog out for a pee, and going to bed.
Did you notice any cleanup in that list?
Yeah, me neither!
Hubby and I are going to take down some "saved" drawers from the garage rafters today so he can break them apart for disposal (assuming he is well enough to work, he caught the same URI that I had a couple weeks ago) and put some better "saved" drawers up there instead, which frees up some space in the den, so there's that!
This upcoming week is going to be another "doctor" week... kind of like the two previous weeks, but this time all of the appointments are for dear daughter. I'm aiming at finally finishing the room (just needs the window and door trim painted and some wall touch-up), fixing the toilet (tank ad leaking from where it is mounted on the base) an cleaning the bathroom and then we can move back into our regular bedroom.
Like I said ... progress has been slow, slow, slow.
Well, on with the day!
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor -
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Hi KIKI,
Good to see you back on line.
I am doing good now but unpacking and checking and cleaning things is a slow process as they have been in boxes for so long.
Body is feeling a little better but the healing of various injuries will take more time as I was in that other place for 5 and almost half years.
But all in all I am much better.
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2,000th post :)
My god... that closet. Mice made a den in there at some point. Spent the last 1 1/2 hours just thoroughly cleaning a box and bag full of misc computer wires and plugs I had stored in there. Some gloves, scarves and hats on the floor are going straight into the trash. My best guitar was tucked away in the back of it all. Haven't gotten to it yet. The case looks fine, but its' going to need to be scrubbed down. Glad it was a hard shell case or I'd just be throwing it out too. Hopefully nothing happened to the guitar itself.
I know where one of my bait stations are going to be put when it's all cleared out. Never putting anything on the floor in there again.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Happy 2000th post!
My, but we're in a cleanup mode this early summer! Many changes for us: retirement, move, anticipated move...
Life never stands still!
*****
I had a mouse in the house once; cute little thing that liked to visit dear daughter's snack drawer and eat her junk food. If it had stayed there it might well have died of an early heart attack. I bought a teeny-tiny trap, caught it and released it across the street into a vacant lot.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .
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Signy - "(plastic) root barrier" Have you purchased it yet? I have ~1' aluminum flashing in ~20' lengths (as best as I recall) I was going to use as root barrier, but I'm not there yet! You could use it instead, I could get that to you.
Jack - I have never been a 'saver', a fact I bless frequently! But I'm an organized 'thrower-outer'. :) If I'm going to throw something out I want to be sure I know what it is! What got me was lack of energy = lack of time, while I was working. I was so wiped out and in pain that every little thing took forever, and I couldn't manage even day to day. Retirement has been good to me. Apparently the long works days really didn't get me enough sleep, and now that I can sleep as much as I need, my energy and pain have improved enough to allow me to plug along a few hours at a time. Which is far better than before, where the treadmill of life was running me backwards faster than I could manage to move forwards!
Brenda - I'm so happy you're literally in a good place. I can't say it enough - hooray for you!!! BIG BIG GRIN AND CHEERS TO YOU!
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I had a mouse in the house once; cute little thing that liked to visit dear daughter's snack drawer and eat her junk food. If it had stayed there it might well have died of an early heart attack. I bought a teeny-tiny trap, caught it and released it across the street into a vacant lot.
Yeah... I'm not playing nice anymore. If you saw what lied beneath all of this crap, I don't think you would either. The poop is visible and gross enough, but wherever there is poop there is pee, and from what I've read that is where the real danger lies. Meningitis doesn't sound like a party.
I don't think I've ever washed my hands this much while doing anything in my life. So gross.
Guitar was fine. I didn't have to throw out much in the closet. Spent about 5 hours yesterday cleaning cables and wires with antibacterial spray though. Geez...
My entire living room floor that I had cleaned now is full of wires and cables that I brought down from the attic. I'm putting them all in one place, wrapping them up with electric tape, organizing them, and then deciding what I need and what I can curb. I know I don't need 15 CAT-5 cables or 8 HDMI cables. I'll keep plugs though. That's kind of "hoardery", I know, but there's a lot of cool things you can do with plugs of different amperages and wattages. I actually had thought of that the other night when I had put a strobing LED flashlight up in the attic (the last night I heard the racoons). I could actually wire up that flashlight with the right plug spliced up so I can just plug it into a wall outlet out there and have it going 24/7 instead of draining the batteries once per day.
I would have done it then, but I didn't know where any of the plugs were.
But this is all a really good learning experience for me. I'm NEVER going to accumulate this shit again. Just because I have empty floor space, doesn't mean something needs to go there. Depending on what area you live in, that's not just keeping an orderly house, that's eliminating spots where critters can thrive.
So far I have 15 mid-sized boxes packed up and ready to go and the box for the cables and wires I'm keeping will be box 16. I figure the small amount of kitchen stuff I kept will be box 17 whenever I do move. After I get rid of all of the old clothes I don't ever wear anymore, maybe another 4 boxes of clothes (21). The books I'm keeping will be 22, my DVDs and the games my brother gave me for the XBox360 would be 23, and my printer/copier/fax machine would be 24. 2 computers will be 26. Oh yeah... towels and sheets would probably get it up to 30. Not too bad considering I've given two car-loads to Goodwill and I've thrown out countless bags and gotten rid of two projection screen TVs, two tube TVs and all of that furniture so far. I'm also putting out a few small computer monitors next week, so I'll just have 1 flat screen TV and two computer monitors left.
I've got a lot of tools. A LOT. I'm not getting rid of any of them. That may double the amount of boxes. I'm still fairly sure that as long as a house I'm eventually moving in comes with appliances and I don't need to take any of mine with me that a 12' truck will be more than enough with the small amount of furniture I plan to keep.
I think I'm going to mow the lawn today. It doesn't really need it yet, but I've actually been the guy on the block this year that does it first all the time and that kind of feels nice. Going back to work again tomorrow, so if I don't do it today I'll definitely have to do it in between shifts and I'm usually exhausted (and ravenous) after a good night of work.
If I can get all of those cables packed up and off of my floor, I'm going to look at this is a vacation well spent. :)
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Jack - I have never been a 'saver', a fact I bless frequently! But I'm an organized 'thrower-outer'. :) If I'm going to throw something out I want to be sure I know what it is! What got me was lack of energy = lack of time, while I was working. I was so wiped out and in pain that every little thing took forever, and I couldn't manage even day to day. Retirement has been good to me. Apparently the long works days really didn't get me enough sleep, and now that I can sleep as much as I need, my energy and pain have improved enough to allow me to plug along a few hours at a time. Which is far better than before, where the treadmill of life was running me backwards faster than I could manage to move forwards!
LOL... good for you for not being a "saver". It all starts out with good intentions, but one day you wake up and realize all of the broken and half-working crap you accumulated with the intention of fixing that you never got around to and you're literally swimming in it.
I'm an "organized thrower-outer" on top of that too, which makes this all much harder. I was looking at the mess of cables on my floor last night and thought "I could just get a big black bag, throw them all out right now without looking at any of them and be done with it in 2 minutes". But there are a lot of useful things in there and the two boxes that I have rummaged around in since the last huge house purge were the two computer boxes. There's nothing more annoying than having to be faced with the choice of driving to Best Buy to pay a 1000% markup on a cable you need, or waiting a week to have it delivered to your house with ground shipping... especially when you know you had 5 of them but you threw them out.
It's good you're getting enough sleep to get things done at home now. Congratulations on that.
Keep up with the purge though.
Nobody thinks they're a hoarder, especially if they haven't let their house get to the point where they have designated walkways through rooms in between the crap. But that "junk drawer" in the kitchen always seems to find a way to overflow into other areas.
Minimalist lifestyle for me all the way from here on out. If I'm going to continue to be a hoarder, it will be virtually on my hard drives and my computer projects where the mice can't hide. :)
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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