On Friday morning, it occurred to me that my method of going through STUFF was possibly not the most efficient way to do it. My tendency has always been to pile up the STUFF in an inconvenient place so that I would have no choice but to deal with it.
To understand that picture, you have to realize that the garage is on the other side of that door and that I created the pile by throwing things in from the garage. This picture was taken after I had cleared a path. The before picture was probably more interesting. It was certainly less navigable.
Besides being the only route to the garage, this location is right in front of the laundry area (to the right in the picture) and the Wizard and I were out of clean clothes. Access to the washing machine and dryer became a priority as well.
I quickly divided most of that STUFF up into piles. Three for Freecycle:
This third pile actually includes STUFF I had already planned to Freecycle:
(NOT the music stand. That belongs to Future Vet.) Obviously, I had let the Freecycle STUFF get away from me. So I Freecycled a lot of STUFF on Friday. I keep learning and forgetting that Freecycling a lot of STUFF takes more time than Freecycling a few items at a time.
I also managed to add a bunch of STUFF to the donation pile for the organization that is coming by on Thursday to pick up things.
And I found a couple of comforters that belong upstairs.
I have no idea why they were in the garage. Unless... maybe they got washed a while ago and people were coming over, so I tossed them into the garage "for now" (dangerous words, those) and then I just never got around to moving them.
I cleared out a big space in the garage, with a little help:
Before Malka and I started, there was a pile of STUFF between those two sets of shelves that was higher than the third shelf. Same old, same old -- trash, freecycling, and a few treasures. Including these:
A whole box of fabric markers! Bought for a family education workshop, used in the religious school, and left over. I'm sure I can find a good home for these.
Malka and I also uncovered this:
This cane rocker is from my Grandmother's house. It has been in the garage for 5 years, and the Wizard and I have come to the reluctant conclusion that we are probably never going to get that seat re-caned. Yet another thing for which to find a new home.
Grammy update: Interesting. I don't think I've ever heard or seen the Jonas Brothers before, though I have certainly heard of them. And Coldplay just won a second Grammy.
Okay, enough of that.
Yet another thing found in the garage over the weekend:
This is a bag of toys collected for Toys for Tots. The person who was going to drop them off at a collection point didn't make it there before the final pick-up. We drove and called all over Dodge trying to find someone to take them. Not even the Marines answered my calls. I'm sure I can find some charity who will take them, even at this late date.
I also got some other things done over the weekend. I wanted to bake cookies, so I asked Sports Nut what kind of cookies I should make. He wanted something with dried cranberries. I wanted something chocolate. Believe it or not, he immediately found a cookie recipe that met both our requirements. I'll admit I took one word out of the recipe to make it more palatable: the recipe called for white chocolate. Fortunately, the Sports Nut agrees with me that white chocolate isn't really chocolate.
I also spent more time making my iTunes files fit the categories I wanted them in. But then I tried to synch the iPod with iTunes:
This looks so promising. But right after this picture was taken -- nothing to do with my files and the way I set them up -- the iPod gave up the ghost. If it's plugged into the speakers, all is well. But the computer isn't recognizing it. At all. It's off to the Apple store early Monday morning to get them to restore the thing. Again -- this happened about this same time last year.
I still have a small pile of CDs to load onto the computer:
I only ripped one of those today. But I started on those boxes of cassette tapes. Not only did I sort through them and pull out the ones we had already bought again on CD, I already gave those cassettes away to a neo-Luddite. (He still owns an 8-track player and recorder!) He also took a bunch of other stuff that I was planning to post on Freecycle, saving me much time and effort.
Today I also started my one-cassette-a-day project with the original Broadway cast recording of "Kiss Me, Kate". And when I say "original", I mean "original" -- this was a recording from the 1948 production.
I feel pretty good about the de-crapification process after this weekend. I need to pick an easy task for tomorrow, however. I have a lot of family business to catch up on. For example, Future Vet keeps calling me from Israel to ask if I've gotten the official high school transcripts sent to the colleges he is applying to yet. Uh... no.
One last thing -- I got some major work done on Sports Nut's cat bed (or the bed for Sports Nuts' cats, if you prefer). I'm to the point of starting the decreases, which will form the sides.
All right, I realize that I didn't finish this in time to felt it over the weekend. But I've been feeling unwell. All of us have. Between my headache and stomach upset, the Wizard's cough, the Media Guy's stuffed-up nose, and Sports Nut's sore throat, we figure we have the flu. Or parts of it.
So I guess I am caught up and now I have to watch the Grammys with my full attention, except that which is focused on knitting.
And one last thing -- after a hard weekend of decluttering, Malka takes a well-deserved rest on top of the world:
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