On the Road Again

No decrapifying going on here because I'm not there... in Dodge, that is. Back very late on Sunday, so it's back to the grind on Monday.

Yet Another Farewell, and More Progress to Report

Sometimes things do occur in sets of three. This weekend, we said good-bye to the third pet within four months. And this one seems the hardest to understand. Sweet-pea and Max were our oldest cat and dog, respectively. Each had had their share of medical problems; neither was totally unexpected. But our poor Dybbie was only 5 years old and his loss to kidney failure was a surprise to us all.

Dybbuk and his brothers -- and their Mama -- came to us in the summer of 2004. Mama and babies had been hanging out under a shed in my sister's yard, sneaking food from the dog's food bowl. They came to us because they were semi-feral and more of us were home more of the time to help socialize them.

Dybbuk was the short-haired light orange kitten, always a little pale and freaked out, thus his ghostly name. Dybbuks are generally malevolent, and this Dybbuk never warmed up to most of the family. But he could be a sweet kitty on his own terms -- as long as you didn't try to pick him up or hold him or even look at him for very long. He liked to pretend to be a towel.

Dybbie, we hardly knew you. Yet you will be missed, by your cuddle-buddy Junior and by me.

Last Friday my camera crapped out and I couldn't post a picture of the Freecycled item that nobody wanted. Here it is:

I actually think they are kind of pretty, but whatever. I'll offer them one more time and then they become trash.

Today was back to the boxes in the front hall. The contents of boxes 5 and 4 went directly onto the bookshelves. I got a bit of a giggle out of contents of one of them, however:

College yearbooks. Heavy college yearbooks. Who would have thought, 35-odd years ago, that we would still be lugging these around the country? And caring so little about their contents?

The next box had an interesting description on its tag:

Really? This had to be checked out. Sure enough, when I opened up the box, I found contents that we are unlikely to eat:

I started to go through them to figure out whether there were any we want to keep, however "unlikely" that may be. But I decided to go back to my other project instead. There will always be time to look at books. I really want to finish Future Vet's sweater, however, and get it in the mail to him.

As you can see, major progress has been made. It's a little big on this model, but should be just about right (if a little loose) for Future Vet. All that remains is the hood, the underarm seams, and weaving in all those ends of yarn. The end is definitely in sight -- of both this sweater and the pile of 37 boxes that were in the front hall.

Freecycle Friday, with a sick kitty

This is the week I had planned to get back into Freecycle mode. You know -- give away the STUFF as part of the decrapifying process. Somewhere I have a big box of things to Freecycle, but when we moved all those boxes out of the storage locker, my box of Freecycle items got buried. So I had to find something else to give away.

It should not be a surprise to anyone that finding other things to get rid of was no biggie. And two of the items I listed take up lots and lots of space, so that's another plus. First of all:

That's right - TEN empty Tidy-Cat litter buckets. There are a lot of people who seem to have uses for these, so I hang onto them when Sports Nut empties them. And since they were relatively accessible in the garage, I offered them up on the Freecycle altar. And tomorrow, people are coming to take them away....

The other big space-waster was two enormous garbage bags full of empty DVD cases. Over the last few months, I have moved our entire DVD collection into slim cases to free up more shelf space. Back in June, we did this with Future Vet's DVDs. I offered the empty DVD cases back then and people took them. And when I offered more yesterday, lots of people showed an interest. I'd show you a picture of the one enormous bag and four merely big bags of DVD cases being picked up this weekend, but the camera crapped out on me.

And there were smaller things, like this iPod case:

Or these extremely unfortunate oil paintings made by one of my Grandmother's sisters:

I suspect the person taking these is only interested in the frames. And that's okay.

In going through boxes this week, I also found a collection of trail maps from all over the state. I have no idea when or why I collected these, but somewhere in Dodge, there is a person who wants them. Yay!

Other Freecycled items that I can't show you because of camera problems (how can we possibly be out of AA batteries?) are some small bags that Hanukka gelt came in and a keychain fob with a small level that came in something we ordered from somewhere. Seriously, why do companies toss in things you don't order? To them, it's probably good advertising, but to me it's just more crap that I have to get rid of.

If I find some batteries tomorrow, I will show you what did NOT rush out the door when I listed it on Freecycle.

The knitting continues but is not picture-worthy even if the camera were working. As soon as I make some notable progress, you will be the fifth or sixth to know.

I did not go through a box today because I got derailed by taking one of the cats to the vet. Poor Dybbie has a urinary tract blockage and we spent a lot of money getting his bladder flushed out. Sadly, our vet is not offering a very good prognosis, partly because Dybbie was so traumatized (he doesn't like being picked up and shoved into cat carriers) that they couldn't put an IV line in him.  When he came home, he was still pretty pissed off at the world in general, and at me in particular.

That is a very fat tail for this cat. He spent most of the afternoon hiding in a drawer hissing and spitting at me whenever I checked on him. He finally came out later on and I managed to give him some liquid antibiotics without stressing him too much more. His recovery depends a lot on whether he will eat and drink and then, you know ... eliminate. He's only 5 years old. It just doesn't seem fair for him to be having problems of this magnitude at such a young age.

What-is-it? Wednesday -- It's Finally Here!

I was tempted to post these as a what-is-it today:

But I realized that it isn't really fair to put up a picture of a bunch of junk that appeared in the bottom of a box. The spring is a spring, the green thing is probably an eraser, and I have no clue what the three round things are. A young friend who was over for a visit suggested that they were originally something like pop beads, but I'm not sure I agree. Whatever these things were, now they are trash.

So here is the real What-it-is for this Wednesday:

I'll give you a hint later on.

In the meantime, I went through bunches of boxes today. Many books got shelved. Three boxes of books that had previously been set aside for some homeschoolers we know went out the door. This is today's collection of box number tags:

Aha! you may say. There is no tag for box number 10. True, but box number 10 does exist. See?

The problem was that this box is not full of books nor is it full of other items that are easy to sort of dispose of. Instead, it is full of memorabilia -- like stuff from my days in high school. (Not my favorite part of life.)

There's also stuff from other periods that were a little less of a problem. I pawed through things quickly and realized that I really need to take the time to go through this box item by item. So I'm putting it off for a few days.

Despite the fact that box 10 was merely moved from the front hall to a chair in the dining room, significant progress was made today. The front hall is almost clear of boxes.

That's the last pile of 5 boxes back there. If you can discern the pile of boxes way back in the back -- rest assured, those are empty  boxes. Tomorrow they will be flattened and stored, if usable, or flattened and recycled, if not usable.

I have not yet done any knitting today, but I plan to knit after supper while watching some television and relaxing. No blog update tomorrow (I'll tell you why on another day.) On Friday we will be back with Freecycle Friday and the answer to the what-is-it for those who can't figure it out.

Ah! The second clue:

Any clearer now?

Finished the To-Do List Today!

Checking off everything on my personal daily "to-do" list doesn't happen often for me, but updating this blog is the last thing on the list -- and it's not even midnight yet. Whoo-hoo!

Okay, down to brass tacks. Today the back hallway, the one that goes past the bedrooms, finally became passable:

And books we are keeping, at least for the present, were put onto the shelves (which had been cleaned):

Multiple boxes were emptied:

That's where most of those books came from, which means that some of the boxes from the front hall got sorted out:

Leaving us with how many boxes still to go through?

The astute observer will note that there is no box or tag for #13. This is not because we are superstitious or anything like that. It's just that box #13 was full of former homeschooling materials and went, in its entirety, to some homeschooling friends last week.

Hey, I don't care how the stuff gets moved out or in what order. I'm just glad that they are gone.

One interesting find in the boxes I went through today was this book:

Interesting because, once upon a time, when the offspring were much younger than they are now, we contributed some information about our family that ended up as a chapter in this book. It was kind of fun to read through it again and see what we were doing (or, more accurately, what we said we were doing) ten years ago.

And finally, the reason I am getting to this update so late -- I managed to sit down and knit this evening. (Yes, that was on the to-do list.) It may not look like much progress, but the shoulder shaping has started:

The wind is howling outside and snow may be in the offing. That sweater might come in handy here, but it's going to sunny California as soon as it is finished.

Spent MLK Day at Home Doing Stuff, as usual

I worked on all those piles today, but there is still stuff to go through so I'm not going to count that as done. Besides, while dealing with piles that accumulate on CFSs (convenient flat surfaces) is definitely decrapification, I'm not sure how much it helps toward the goal of leaving Dodge.

I did accomplish one minor task, however, which may have saved me a bit of money. I have wanted a good light to have by the chair I sit in while knitting and watching TV. Some time ago, the Wizard bought one for me but when he tried to put it together, it broke. (Looks like a manufacturing problem, not a klutz issue.) Unfortunately, we didn't send it back right away and it has been gathering dust for quite a while.

This weekend I took matters -- and some metal rods and some duct tape -- into my own hands and made the lamp usable, if not aesthetically pleasing.

In order to up the aesthetic quotient, I used the tie-dye duct tape I bought a while back. This is one of those things that is Good Enough. A new lamp, even at 50% off, would have been $85. With any luck, the duct tape will hold until we are ready to get out of Dodge for good.

I did manage to get some knitting in on Future Vet's sweater, but the progress doesn't look like much yet. Maybe tomorrow. I'm getting together with some friends to knit and schmooze.

A Weekend of Knitting Progress and Not Much Else

Media Guy and Future Vet left to go back to college this weekend, so the decrapification progress can start proceeding again. They got back to school safely enough -- they were only stopped by the police once and only blew out one tire on their car. Not bad, all things considered.

Last Thursday, before Future Vet left, I had him try on the body and sleeves of the Wallaby to make sure that they fit before I went any further:

Yesterday, during the period when they were supposed to be driving but I was getting attempts at phone calls from both of them (they obviously had no cell phone service wherever they were) and the only thing I heard from them for over an hour was a cryptic text message that said: "Did [my brother] tell you what happened?", I took up the knitting again to stay calm. I made a lot of progress while waiting to hear that they had blown out a tire while traveling at 85 mph, spun completely around on the road, and were waiting for a tow truck. But we're okay, folks!

That was about 8 inches of knitting -- all done on automatic. This morning, I added about one more inch at the top of the body and attached the sleeves:

This Wallaby may actually get finished this week. (G'd willin' and the river don't rise.)

After the young men got their car packed and took off, I took a picture of the Drama Queen's living/sitting room, which Media Guy has been using for the past month. Just for the record. Media Guy will be back for Spring Break at the end of March, after all. I'll try to sneak in and check on how it's holding up from time to time, but not on a daily basis.

Tomorrow I plan to start de-crapifying the debris of having everyone home for most of a month. Things got piled up everywhere. Like on and around the desk in the dining room:

And the butcher block table in the dining room:

And my desk, the clearing of which seems like a Sisyphean task.

Funny. That desk looks a lot more cluttered from where I am sitting.

Getting More Done Than I Expect

I know, I know -- I said I wouldn't have time to update this week and yet, here I am again.

There is a bookshelf in the hallway that goes past the downstairs bedrooms. It has been there for 4 or 5 years and, originally, the offspring each had a shelf on which they could keep text books and papers that they didn't want in their own rooms for whatever reason (study? what's that?). For well over a year, I have been asking the offspring to go through the stuff on their shelves and deal with it. For well over a year, I have been -- as always -- The Inaudible Woman.

I have no idea why, but this morning I decided to take matters into my own hands and clear off the shelves myself. Here's an early morning shot of the bookshelf disaster:

One trip from the back hallway to the dining room table with my arms full of very heavy college text books convinced me that I needed a book transportation device (BTD). Books are heavy! So I found one:

The BTD soon became a transportation device for wildlife:

But eventually, all the books -- and notebooks and PAPERS -- were piled on the dining room table. You can't actually see the papers and notebooks. There are three piles of them hiding behind that tall stack of books.

And the bookshelf was empty:

Except for the dust and a few odd pencils. (And some of those pencils were very odd.)

Next, I had to harangue the offspring (who were, by the by, all at home today) to sort through their papers and notebooks. A great many things were discovered and the vast majority were recycled or shredded. Very little of all that mess of papers was kept. Good riddance, I say.

There were a few oddities:

You would think they could share their text books, wouldn't you?

On the other hand, we found three books that Sports Nut needs for a class he is taking this semester:

Which meant that we could take the copies of these three books that we bought last week back to the bookstore and get a credit of -- oh, wow! -- $31.25!! Unfortunately, these were not the books that brought his book bill for the semester to the point where it was higher than his tuition bill for the semester.

While at the bookstore, I looked around and decided that I really was not up to the task of sorting through all those books, figuring out which ones were still in use, and selling them back to the bookstore for a pittance. (Returning the books brought us roughly $10 each; selling them would probably have netted about $3 each. If we were lucky, that is.)

So I listed the books on Freecycle. The timing is great because this is the first week of classes at this college and lots of students haven't yet bought their books -- probably because they aren't as anal eager as Sports Nut to have their books before classes start.

The offspring actually made it through the papers and notebooks. Here's the last pile, waiting for Sports Nut to get home from his evening class and go through it:

And all those books (over 50) that I offered on Freecycle? Students (or their moms) have already asked for all but four of them. These should all be gone before the weekend is over:

All in all, I have to say that this was a good day in terms of decrapification, even if I only managed to knit a couple of rows on Future Vet's sweater.

Minimal progress to report

I know I said I wouldn't be posting this week, but today I actually got rid of 4 boxes of books! They were full of homeschooling materials that my family no longer needs. I gave them to two friends who are currently homeschooling young (age 12 and below) children. I am so grateful that I have these people in my life to hand off all these things to.

And now, all those boxes are their problem, instead of being my problem.

 

I also made progress on Future Vet's Wallaby sweater, but the progress is not so enormous that taking a picture would make a great impression.

Short and sweet (maybe)

I don't think I'm going to be able to update this blog again until after Future Vet and Media Guy go back to school next weekend. There has been so much going on that, by the end of the day, I don't have the energy to sit down and think up something to blather on about.

I have made minimal progress on the boxes in the front hall, even with Canti's help:

Progress kind of ground to a halt because I need to figure out what to do with both the things (mostly books) we are keeping and the things (again, mostly books) that we do not want to keep. I need to update the book catalog, put up some more bookshelves, and dispose of lots of things. Fortunately, this little girl's mother came over last week and carted off a full box of books:

Max the Rocking Unicorn is but one of the objects that came home from the storage locker. We bought Max before the first of the offspring was born and he had many years of good use. Now that the offspring are all in their 20s, we are waiting for some grandchildren to give Max another good ride. Failing grandchildren, I guess we'll have to settle for young friends.

What with one thing and another, the cat dynamics in the house are in flux. To make sure that one particular cat didn't starve because the other cats weren't letting her near the food bowl, I put a food dish on top of the dryer. Shortly after that, we noticed a new cat phenomenon:

That's Dybbie among the towels on the shelves above the washer and dryer, but he's not the only cat who has found this soft and warm spot. Before there was food, I guess they had no desire to enter the laundry room. That, or I kept the doors shut.

I don't really have a what-is-it for last Wednesday. The oddest thing -- in terms of where did this come from and why do I still have it? -- was this pile:

I have absolutely no clue why I have 100 postcard stamps. But I have a plan -- first class postage is currently 44 cents. Before too long, I'm sure that a letter will cost 46 cents to mail. At that point, all I have to do is put two of these postcard stamps on, and I'm set. (Though I'm relatively sure that this strategy is not what I had in mind when these stamps were purchased.)

I have been doing a lot of knitting on Future Vet's sweater this past week. I do not think it will be finished by the time he heads back to school, but I do know his mailing address. Oddly enough, it takes much more time to knit a XL sweater than it does to knit one for a 2-year-old. But the sleeves are done, the body is started and I'm working on the pouch.

Barring unforeseen complications, the sweater should be done before it's too hot to wear it.