End of Week 2 Progress Report

I started out the week with 57 boxes, some of which were immediately sorted into certain piles like "books" or "kitchen stuff to ask young men about". Despite that, I did have somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 boxes to go through. One may have ended up in Media Guy's room, but the rest have been emptied and their contents are -- for the most part -- on their way out of the house.

Those 49 boxes of books in the front hall were getting to me, however, so I started a very rough sort on their contents. The rough sort seems to be fiction, non-fiction, books we won't keep under any circumstances, children's story books (our youngest child was 14 when we moved here, so please explain why we have multiple boxes of picture books....), homeschooling materials, and Jewish books. The cat room (aka living room) is doubling (or tripling) as a staging area.

About 39 of the 49 boxes got sorted in this manner yesterday. And then, of course, I needed a new challenge so I had Sports Nut haul the rest of the boxes out of the garage this morning.

There is lots of stuff still out in the middle of the garage, as well as all those things on the shelves that line 3 sides of the garage. But... it's progress! Just don't look at the interior of the house.

I was down to 12 boxes of books left to sort. Now there are 42, so that's 30 new boxes of books. (Don't do the math. 49+30=too many books.) I also have 12 new boxes of assorted STUFF to sort through for next week. And another 10 or 12 boxes were carried into bedrooms for the offspring to deal with.

The bottom line is, I am still on track with my 16-week plan.

Week 2 Begins -- Another 50+ Boxes?

Last week, I guesstimated that there were 150 boxes (banker's boxes full of stuff, that is) stacked in the middle of the garage. I went through about 50 of those boxes, then over the weekend we pulled out another 57 boxes. That number includes 29 boxes of books, which joined the 20 boxes of books already in the hall waiting for Book Week(s):

I may have to start sorting some of these boxes before Week 4 because I have a feeling that one week is not going to be enough.

We also brought out 25 boxes of assorted non-book things so that I could sort through and (I hope) empty them this week:

And three more boxes of kitchen items were carted off to Future Vet's bedroom for those who are moving into apartment to fight over in the spring. So 29+25+3=57! Fifty-seven more boxes moved out of the garage, which is now looking emptier if not neater:

And remember that 150-box guesstimate? There are 53 more banker's boxes piled up in the garage, so I was off a bit. About 160 boxes instead of 150. Considering that some piles of stuff got counted as "boxes", like the stuff below, I'm impressed.

I counted this as one "box". It's some rubber mats and storage boxes that are no longer in use. And some packing materials. I suspect most, if not all, of these items will be freecycled later this week.

Going through boxes is never quite as straightforward and opening a box and disposing of its contents. Way back in June of 2010, I found a box full of negatives and opined that perhaps we should invest in a scanner to convert the negatives into digital images. So the Wizard found one and I dutifully put it on a shelf and put the box of negatives out in the garage (where else?).

Well, the box of negatives made its way back into the house over the weekend, so I dug out the scanner and tried it out. Here is the first picture I scanned:

It took a while, but I finally figured out that this is a picture of some wallpaper repairs I did in a bedroom in the second house the Wizard and I owned. This was the Drama Queen's bedroom back when she was a mere Princess, and she did not choose that wallpaper. We only lived in that house for about 18 months, so never took the time to redo the rooms into something more .... modern.

Despite the rather pedestrian nature of this photo, I was impressed that the scanner worked so well at turning negatives into positive digital images. Now I can scan in all the rest of the negatives in my (copious) spare time. I doubt that I will be able to empty that particular box within the coming week.

Nor this "box", for that matter:

More cassette tapes that need to be turned into mp3s so that we can load them onto our iPods. Another project to fill in the spare moments of my days.

Not only is emptying boxes not always a simple task, sometimes clearing an area creates new tasks. For example, here's a view of the back wall of our garage now that we've emptied out boxes and other detritus:

It struck me that, now that there is room to move around in the garage, I should move the dog-feeding table that is out in the middle of the garage, over to this area. But first, there's some cleaning up and consolidating to do and that set of shelves needs to move over to the right about 2 feet so that the table will fit. I don't know whether I want to leave that task for Week 5 (Garage shelves, games and puzzles). If the weather cooperates and I won't freeze my fingers off working out there, I may try to get that done this week.

I have momentum. Better to strike while the iron is hot. Or at least before I run out of steam and decide to go catch up on all the TV shows recorded on the DVR.

Phew! 50 Boxes Down

I spent quite a lot of time today writing offers for the items in the 9 or 10 boxes for Freecycle. I tried to group similar items together -- like "various electronic gadgets and accessories", a group that included iPod cases, a GameCube memory card, and three hand-held Sudoku games. All told, I wrote 13 posts offering 160 items or groups of items. I'm not counting 10 binders or 20 spiral notebooks as individual items, for example.

And, by the by, 2 of those 22 boxes of books set aside for Book Week(s) were added to the Freecycle mix. The World Book encyclopedia that we used for reference during our homeschooling days and some other reference books that we don't intend to keep had been placed with the books to sort through.

Any way you look at it, that's a significant amount of STUFF that will be leaving the house one way or another -- i.e., via Freecyclers coming and carting it off, or me dumping it into the trashcan on Sunday night.

The up side of Freecycling  is that many of these things will be used. Plus I get them out of the house. The down side is that I end up spending a lot of time on the details -- sorting things out, writing the offers so that people know what is up for grabs, and then sorting through the requests and matching items with people.

Tuesday's Box Count -- 26 (and only 2 to go!)

Since I went through 22 boxes yesterday, I figured I could come close to that number again today even though Sports Nut and I had to run a bunch of errands. Would you believe that the  book for Sports Nut's one class this semester costs a little more than twice the tuition for the class? On the other hand, considering that we are paying $64 for tuition by having him take it at the community college, rather than the $687 (plus fees) he would pay to take the same class at UNM, I figure we are still ahead of the game.

Back to boxes.

This morning, I started by pulling 18 boxes out of the garage. With the 22 boxes I went through yesterday, that would make an even 40 boxes. I also figured that I could find another 10 boxes of books to set aside for Book Week, which would bring me to 50 boxes, which is my quota for the week.

I almost made it. The box count stands at 48 gone through, with 2 more (see below) that I will sort through in the morning. The 50 boxes break down as follows:

22 boxes of books set aside for Book Week (maybe that should be Book Weeks?)
1 box of kitchen stuff set aside for Future Vet and Media Guy
3 boxes taken up to the Wizard's office (1 box each of papers to file, cords and electronic things, and office supplies)
10 boxes of stuff to either Freecyle or throw away
1 box of things that I want some friends of ours to look at before disposing of
2 boxes of sheet music and music books to go through in the morning

That's a total of 39 boxes, meaning that 11 boxes have been emptied!

And the garage looks a little less crowded this evening. It looks less crowded to those in the know, that is.

I really wanted to get through all 50 boxes by today so that I could spend tomorrow writing up the offers I plan to post on Freecycle. Let's see, there are 10 boxes with Freecycle stuff and I plan to get all of their contents out of the house by the weekend. That will be 21 emptied boxes out of 50. Not too bad.

In other news, kittens are good recyclers.

Monday's Box Count -- 22 (sort of)

If I'm going to go through 50 boxes this week, I figure that means about 10 boxes a day, right? So I dragged out 10 boxes from the garage this morning.

These were boxes close to the front, therefore put out into the garage recently, and I knew that most of them contained kitchen stuff that I need to save for the young people who are planning to move out and/or items that I had intended to list on Freecycle. In other words, I planned for an easy day.

To my surprise, the first box I opened had a really odd assortment of things.

Starting in the top left corner and moving clockwise:
-- 3 bottles of Peacock Blue ink for fountain pens (I used to write exclusively with that color. When I was in high school. Decades ago.)
-- A Cross fountain pen (??), which cannot be used with the fountain pen ink
-- two screwdrivers, which have been returned to the tool box
-- some dice (again, ??)
-- lenses and prisms, presumably from studying optics during our homeschooling days
-- a pretty glass bead-y type thing (yet another ??)
-- a patch from a Boy Scout conclave that Media Guy attended in 1998
-- a kazoo from the Kazoo Factory and Museum (at least I remember going there!)
-- a tape measure from the MA Forestry Service (I have a pretty good idea of who and when, but no idea why)
-- the combination lock that I used on my locker in high school (I know this because it opened to my high school locker's combination -- 28-18-10 -- and don't ask why or how I remember that)
-- a baggie with some strange plastic things (Sports Nut said it looked like hardware for a baby gate, and I agreed, but the baby gate in question is long gone so I threw them out)
-- a very short slide rule (the young people who were in the house today were all unable to figure out what it was, and were likewise unimpressed when I showed them how to use it)
-- some 34-cent stamps (how long ago were those used for first-class postage?)
-- a table-top "football"
-- and last, but not least, a hand-held black light, useful for finding animal stains

So there I am staring at all this stuff and wondering not only how in the world it all ended up in a box together, but also what I was going to do with it. As noted above, some was put into proper places, some was thrown away ... and some will be offered up to the gods of Freecycle.

Since I didn't have much else to do today, after I went through the first 10 boxes, I kept going out to the garage and getting more boxes. The total for the day is 22 boxes!

But.....
6 of those boxes are full of books that I am holding off on dealing with until we arrive at Book Week.
1 box has kitchen things in it and has been set aside in Future Vet's bedroom
1 box became a holding places for various items that the Wizard has to look at
1 box has bank statements and check registers, etc., to file
7 boxes have stuff for Freecycle

However .... if we have all done our arithmetic correctly, that means that 6 boxes were emptied. Hooray!

The garage actually is a little less empty than this picture indicates because this picture was taken after the initial 10 boxes were removed and I am far too lazy to go out there right now and take another picture.

Sixteen Weeks

Now that winter break is over, things are returning to what passes for normalcy around here. But a lot of talking went on in bits and pieces over the past 3 weeks, leading me to examine a calendar closely this morning.

A whole bunch of inter-connected things are going down in mid-May. The lynchpin, as it were, is that Media Guy will be graduating. Since he's looking for a job in LaLa Land, or possibly somewhere on the east coast, he will also be looking for an apartment and moving out. Second, Future Vet plans to move out of the dorms for his next year of school, so he and a couple of friends are looking for an apartment. Since the Wizard and I are talking about moving back to Eastern Time, he will also be moving out.

In the meantime, the Drama Queen is also planning to move back to Eastern Time, so she is thinking she will work up until the week before Media Guy's graduation, then drive out to LaLa Land with us so that she can visit Disneyland. Sports Nut has also finished his degree program and will be applying to business programs back on the east coast. He'll be done with his one spring semester class at the end of April, however, and he wants to see the Grand Canyon before quitting Mountain Time. A trend develops....

So, as I said, today I looked at a calendar and noticed that there are 16 weeks between now and the day when most of these plans need to be in place. That's sort of a deadline, right? I went around the house -- which looks really great right now because we shoved a bunch of things into the garage and the Wizard's office -- and made a list:

-- approximately 150 boxes in the garage (a guesstimate, but it's an educated guess)
-- 4 sets of shelves plus shelves on the walls in the garage (all full)
-- 3 four-drawer file cabinets, mostly full of papers that need to be looked at
-- various stuff crammed into the Wizard's office
-- packing Media Guy's and Future Vet's stuff up to be moved
-- going through t-shirt collections and other clothing
-- two sheds full of boxes and other stuff
-- books on shelves, piled on tables, etc., etc.
-- games and puzzles
-- plastic bins on the balcony

Now the question is, is it possible to deal with all of that in the next 16 weeks while also taking care of the projects that have to be completed before this house can be sold, like:

-- paint the master bedroom and bathroom
-- replace the flooring in 4 bedrooms and the Wizard's office
-- stucco and masonry repairs (exterior)
-- tile backsplash in kitchen
-- front yard (right now, there is negative "curb appeal" out front)

While at the same time, staying on top of the laundry, general cleaning, knitting, reading, writing, family meals, preparing for Purim and Pesach, and maintaining my sanity. Good thing I quit my jobs already.

I made a very sketchy plan for the next 16 weeks. It should be interesting to see whether I can stick to the plan.

Week 1 -- 50 boxes
Week 2 -- 50 boxes
Week 3 -- rest of boxes
Week 4 -- books
Week 5 -- garage shelves, games & puzzles
Week 6 -- file cabinets
Week 7 -- file cabinets
Week 8 -- Catchup
Week 9 -- blank for some reason
Week 10 -- balcony
Week 11 -- sheds
Week 12 -- sheds, Pesach cleaning
Week 13 -- Pesach cleaning
Week 14 -- Pesach, the Wizard's office
Week 15 -- t-shirts and other clothing
Week 16 -- finish packing Media Guy's and Future Vet's stuff (they will be home for part or all of Pesach and I expect them to do most of the packing themselves)

Stay tuned for progress reports.

A (Temporary) Resting Place

After a month or so of complete chaos, including the college men returning from LaLa Land (upon which return they were promptly put to work moving things around), we are at a stopping point. For now. There are still five rooms that need new flooring and a few that need painting, but I finally feel that we can invite a realtor in to take a look. And that, gentle readers, is a prerequisite for selling the house, which is in turn a prerequisite for getting out of Dodge. Finally.

Presenting pictorial proof of our progress!

The kitchen was the first room to be cleared out. Considering that we had to use it every day even in the midst of the work being done, this was not a bad choice.

Anyone who knows me can figure out where all the stuff in the kitchen ended up. The nearest CFS:

The convenient flat surface closest to hand being the dining table, of course! But I'm pleased to say that the dining room is also now whipped into shape.

As you can see, I moved most of my work area into the dining room along with the dog's crates. That paved the way for turning the living room into ... well, a living room rather than an office/dog bedroom.

Friends loaned us the futon couch, we brought down the rattan chair from the balcony (and bought it a new cushion so that it kind-of, sort-of didn't look too ridiculous), and bought a coffee table (our old one having been freecycled some time ago). Speaking of Freecycle, Future Vet's cello can be seen behind the couch in a new-to-him "hard" case received from someone on Freecycle who didn't need it any more.

The kittens LOVE the new living room. Not only are there lots of places for them to sit, but also the new floor is much better for knocking toys around on -- marbles, in particular, go much farther than they did on the old carpet.

The family room is also more-or-less in its final form.

The dog beds were moved in from the dining room in an attempt to keep the dogs off the couches. So far, it seems to be working. There are still pictures and things that were taken off the walls piled up on the hearth and behind the television. But I'm really happy with the way the flooring looks in this room.

That's just Puck, trying to figure out where the paper went. It started to come out, then the printer pulled it back in to print on the other side. This confuses kittens.