More on moving house

This afternoon three neighbours came over and helped pack my books, DD’s books and my sheet music, plus the plasticware and kitchen tinware. I have 6 wine boxes (fit 6 bottles of wine each) full of books to take to the charity shop, plus I now have to go through DD’s wardrobe, DH’s wardrobe (still some clothes there) and mine (not many clothes to chuck out now).

Not so much to go in the recycling bin or the rubbish bin. That’s good. That means I’ve been sufficiently ruthless in the past weeks on those locations.

One drawback – lots of darn stuff that need to be shredded before disposal. I’ll get through that this week.

 

Moving house

New flat, new kitchen. Seen here in its pristine, pre-cooking condition. It’s an induction cooktop and I have no idea what to do with one of those. I’m vaguely competent with gas cooktops, ok with electric ones, and this, well, it’s all new to me. Looking at this reminds me I must chuck out more rubbish from my current kitchen cupboards. 

Rule #1 of moving house: Don’t move rubbish. Rubbish goes in the bin and you do not pay removalists to shift it from one place to another.

Rule #2 of moving house: Keep the kettle on the kitchen bench; don’t pack it away. You will be the removalists’ friend if you provide them with cups of coffee or tea and biscuits. Thinking of that, don’t pack away the coffee and tea!

 

I’m sick of all this!

Yes, I’m sick of keeping an immaculate house at all times. I’ve admitted it.

Things I need have been tidied away, not in filing cabinet drawers or desk drawers, but in unfriendly boxes in the back shed or tucked behind clothes in the wardrobes. I had to buy a new packet of envelopes because I simply couldn’t find the packet I’d already opened (and then tidied away!) in early February.

Of course, Little Miss Tidy was so tidy, she tidied everything away and couldn’t find things again!

 

Decluttering – still!

I’m horrified to see how much stuff I’ve put in the garbage bin already, and the trash pack is full a week and a half before collection. Of course, there is a fair amount of garden waste in the trash pack.

The back shed is calling me. There are approximately 10 boxes of doom waiting in there for me to fight spiders and pull out ‘treasures’. I did find some very old fanzines that I will keep, and EVEN MORE books. Seriously, how many books does a person really, really need? I figure if I haven’t needed those books which DH put in the shed, then they can go.

I have boxes of books to donate to the Lifeline Book Fair. There are 4 garbage bags of clothes and knick-knacks and kitchen goods to go to a local charity shop. Anything that is not of saleable quality has gone into the rubbish.

I am very grateful for my mother-in-law’s help. She is helping letting people in for cleaning etc as part of the house preparation. This is wearing me out more than I thought it would. I was rather worried this morning, feeling a pain where my gastric band is, and wondering if I had lifted a box that was too heavy. Here’s hoping it’s not serious.

 

Decluttering the back shed

Back home after a weekend away and I’ve started my holidays – just a short week.

Of course, the way to celebrate bright winter sunshine is to put on a coat and old shoes and enter the dark cave of stinkiness, um, the back shed, in order to get through more darn boxes of who knows what.

Well, there was a reward for my persistence. I found a vase that I’d been looking for (never unwrapped after we moved here in 2002) and a Staffordshire cat which was given to me as a birthday present by my employers in London in 1992. I’d been looking for that cat. No wonder I couldn’t find it – the box was clearly marked “Vases”. Memo to self: put better labels on boxes when we move next year. *Detailed* labels.

I also found balsa wood tulips (for the person who never remembers to put water in vases), and a copy of The Kama Sutra for Cats by Burton Silver. The tulips can go to the charity shop, ditto the glass bowls and paperback books from another box. If I’m serious about removing the clutter from this house and sheds, I’ve got to be ruthless about unwanted, unneeded possessions.

 

Imagine my study

only substitute a plain PC for cool tech, a small child for Star Trek staff, and bloody boxes for tribbles! That’s right. I cleared up one room … and the darn junk did not miraculously disappear into a portal. It went into my study.

see more Lol Celebs

 

So that’s where it went

That’s the feeling of the past weekend.

With help, I have gone through one of the garden sheds. The trash pack and the rubbish bin are now full and there are bags beside the trash pack. Way to go! I was horrified to see what was sitting on the shelves of the shed. Paint tins that dated back maybe 8 years. An oil can that had rusted out on the bottom. And, oh horrors, a redback spider that DD pointed out to me. Thank goodness she doesn’t like spiders and didn’t touch it.

One shed up the back is meant to be a children’s play house. It was used by DH to store some of his weather-proof things. Those have been taken away by his fellow hobbyists. Now there appear to be some aluminium shelving struts and so on there. I will phone the recycling company to see if they will take it for recycling. No sense in wasting metal. Besides, that will save me some space in the trash pack.

The lawn looks very neat. The gardener came on Friday and did an excellent job mowing the lawn and trimming the edges. When the strong wind abates, I think I’ll go out wearing protective gear and use glyphosphate on the leafy weeds that refuse to get a clue. Some are very resistant to my skills with a daisy weeder. We also have an invasion of sticky weed, blasted stuff. It’s in all the corners of the garden so I guess that the winter rains and wind and sweet spring sunshine have been exactly what that weed wanted.

There are two white irises blooming now. The blue ones are being shy. The tulips have shown foliage but no blooms. We have lots of star flowers and some brilliant daffodils. One lavender bush is in full bloom and it won’t be long before I can harvest it.

 

Decluttering

How on earth am I still doing this? Seriously, I’m going mad.

I have moved various boxes into the study now, have cleaned out two more, and yet the house still looks like crap. The now-spare-room (which was formerly a study) has a bed (made up beautifully, thank you very much), a bedside table with a lamp, three bookcases which can stay there, and, 17 small or medium boxes to be sorted out.

Now, I’ve heard of these wonderful, strong men and women who say “If I haven’t used anything in this box for a year, then I will throw the entire box out”. I say to those people “Can you say, hand on heart, that there are no papers in those boxes which may compromise your identity security?”

The reason I am being rather more particular than I was perhaps 10 years ago is that this exercise has shown me that DH, lovely and adorable as he was, was also quite capable of doing a quick clean-up when visitors came and that clean-up involved picking up things like my bank statements and credit card invoices and more. I’ve found things from 1998 (before we moved to this house), and things from 18 months ago. While I am eager to find the floor underneath the mess, I’m also keen to avoid making unnecessary work for myself, including having to make trips to the bank and so on.

The filing cabinet is being used more. I’m working out which categories I need for each suspension file and I am trying, depression allowing, to read my mail every day and file it as soon as I have read it.

 

Buy Nothing September

Since it’s 1st September, I should write a bit about my plan for September.

Inspired by Shipmates, I’m joining in Buy Nothing September. Doing it with others gives me a bit of support, a bit of accountability, and some good ideas as well.

I had a look at my bank balance this morning. Gasp! Things have been vile since DH died – huge drop in income, even allowing for his small pension. Time to pull my head out of the clouds about how I spend my cash each week.

I should add that I’m apparently pound-wise and penny-foolish. Obviously the latter translated into pound-foolish later on when I think about the money that I’ve wasted on cups of coffee or muffins or lunch or dinner or silly wee things at the supermarket.

I suspect part of the reason why my everyday account looks so beaten is because I tend to put any lump sums into my mortgage offset account to cut down on interest payments. That certainly is a good thing and as far as I can, I’ll try to continue that.

As part of my No Spend September, I have to budget for bills and ongoing payments. That means two fortnightly mortgage payments. There’s also the trash collection service bill to pay which is $125. Particularly high this month because I had two CRT monitors collected and the ACT charges like a wounded bull for recycling monitors and TVs. Part of me applauds the ‘green’ policy behind that. The penny-pinching part of me is having a bloody good whinge about having to pay to get rid of DH’s excess, old monitors as part of my ongoing decluttering project. Apparently there will be some free national e-waste scheme started sometime in 2011 (hey, that means 2012 in Australian terms) but I’m not willing to store more stuff in the shed for that long as a hiding place for spiders, cockroaches and wriggly things.

My tasks for today and tomorrow are to do a more accurate stocktake of the pantry and the refrigerator. I have chicken to make into a big dish of chicken risotto tonight (may have to extend the arborio rice with some long grain rice but that’s my fault for not doing a proper shelf check at home before going out to the supermarket).

The other thing that occurs to me is how much I do love my snacks. I really do. So at work I have some of those sachets for DIY cappuccinos, just add boiling water. Looking at the pantry properly has reminded me that I bought way too much self-raising flour in April. I have recipe books, I have baking trays and I have eggs from my friend’s hens. I can make biscuits. Maybe even raspberry jam biscuits.

 

Decluttering this evening

Good grief, is there no end to the stuff in these filing cabinets? Another supermarket bag full of stuff to shred. A box of paper, magazines, etc. to be recycled. I even found old printer cartridges – used ones!

It’s amazing I can even get to the desk.

No wonder the burglars gave up.