WAY TO GO!!! Tatoulia!!! 😀
(((HUGS)))

Tillie--beautiful and well-timed post! I was just getting another bag together. Got some more books off the bookshelves and was able to make enough room to have a few of my treasures on the bookshelves! Also found some glassware that survived the Big Cleanout of 2014 but didn't make the cut this year. So I have another bag ready to go!

The bookshelves look nicer with fewer books. Really pleased with myself and your post is perfect!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Good Morning Everybody 🙂

Hi Tatoulia 🙂
Thank you.
WAY TO GO!!!
For sticking to the no shopping except for essentials and the donation bag! 😀

One thing that helps me to keep my possessions under control is to figure out what my[/I] priorities are.
What kind of life I want to live now and possibly into the future.
My main priority is to keep things simple, easy for me physically and mentally.
I also want to have beauty and fun in my home.
At my age, I know right now what hobbies or crafts I want to pursue so that keeps the supplies under control.
I know what I want to cook or bake and most important what I no longer want to bother with cooking or baking so this keeps the kitchen cabinets clear of unnecessary dishes and utensils.
I know what clothes I enjoy wearing and do wear so this keeps the wardrobe under control.
Take the time to sit quietly and "Know Thyself".
Try to get past what you used to do and enjoy and find your true passions now.
Get past anything other people have tried to ever pigeon hole you into being.
Try not to be the "Keeper Of The Past", meaning only keep things you honestly treasure/want/use. Don't feel guilty or obligated to keep every gift or inherited thing. Keep the person/memory in your heart.
Become who you truly are because you are a beautiful and wonderful unique individual.
(((HUGS))) 🙂

Congratulations on the sale, Tillie! I wish I could have a yard sale to make a little $$. No yard=no sale. There is a block yard sale every year in June nearby. Maybe I'll buy a table next year and see what I can do. I think it's a modest price to get a space there.

Have only purchased food since my promise. I'll keep you posted. Took a bag to goodwill. Will need to get another together. I have too much stuff. And it bothers me. I think of f it as too much. It bothers me to have this much stuff. I need to figure it out.

HI Everybody 🙂

Hi Anonymoniker 🙂
Hope your weekend has been a good one for you. 😀

Hi Tatoulia 🙂
Hope you enjoyed the day too. 🙂

Well, the yard sale is over and done with.
We packed up all leftovers, donations now, ready for pick up.
This is a rural area, lots of space between homes, ranches & farms and not a whole lot of people.
So we spent a lot of time visiting and catching up with our neighbors as they came by for the sale.
Had a good amount of people from town stop by too.
The weather was great, the company was good so all in all a pleasant way to spend the weekend.
Made some money and cleared out a lot of items we were done with.
We are tired, sore and dirty now. LOL 😀
Time for showers, dinner, ibuprofen and bed.

Have a great Saturday evening/night! ;D

Hi Greta. What a wonderful post. Enjoy this beautiful day.

Hi all sorry I haven't had time to write with the start of school, back to work and life in general. Hope everyone is doing well ok here so far but it's early lol. Off to to mom's today for a bit witch always gets me going but I have to realize if she not willing to change or admit she she needs help I can't make her. But it's looks like a beautiful day out so we will go with that.

Wish everyone a great day!

I just made an appointment with a Homeopath for next week AND i requested to my friend that when he comes over that he refrain.from.criticism or sarcasm.about the state of my place! He agreed! HA! Im gonna take care of my needs and move forward! 😀
.....yesterday i was done with the cleaning and putting the tools away when.i checked if the liitle screw drawers were empty and what looked like a big spider crawling to the front of the drawer turned out to be a metal spring rolling! ha ha It got me out picking mesquite beans instead, which was good!
I hope you all find your own.power today and make some good changes and sparkle with joy! ...even.if your home doesnt sparkle...yet! 😀

Thank you Anonymoniker and Tatoulia 🙂

Wishing everybody a GREAT day tomorrow! 😀

Good luck with the sale! People will enjoy the bargains!

Hello to all--coffee clinks, Roxie.

Wow, Tillie?!!! Thats great! How exciting! It will feel so healing to sit back and watch your junk turn.into another's treasures! All the best tomorrow! ;D

Hello 🙂

Hi Karl 🙂
Thank you for that information! 😀

Hi Tatoulia 🙂

Hi CriticalMass 🙂
YEA!!! WAY TO GO!!! 😀

Hi Anonymoniker 🙂
Wishing you good luck getting your porch all squared away and the pretty table there for you to use. 😀

Hi Roxie 🙂
Wishing you the best of luck straightening out that problem with the checks, "clink" 😉
Have not heard from anybody who has not posted here. 🙁

Got up this morning and went to the neighbor friends house.
Helped her organize and price all her yard sale stuff.
Then got all my stuff over to her garage, where the sale will take place.
My stuff was already priced and sorted.
We priced stuff real cheap, want people to get a bargain and the stuff is all nice stuff.
As we worked I jotted down things that she was trying to remember to do so she would not forget important stuff, like having easy to prepare food to eat because she will get hungry and be too tired to cook something.
So, everything is now ready to be set out bright and early tomorrow morning at 8:00am. 😀
There is this one woman in town who goes to all garage sales and thrift shops all the time.
She has driven by here at least three times this morning trying to see what we have. 🙂
I feel good about everything I am releasing and will be glad when it is all gone. No regrets. 😀

I'm still battling upside-down sleep issues, so I'm tired. I want to individually acknowledge each of you and say how happy your posts make me. So please consider it done in my mind if not my fingertips, okay?

Hugs and coffee clinks, and "way to go."

TIP: After you hit the button to post your message, check to see if it's now visible on the forum page. If it isn't, then wait fifteen seconds and refresh the page (or Ctrl-R), because sometimes there's a short delay. If it's still not there, then use the BACK button (or Alt-LeftArrow), and you should get back to the compose window with your text still intact, so you can try to send it again. This seems to work on Firefox, anyway -- I don't know if it's the same on Explorer, and I'm not even going to guess what happens if you're using a mobile device.

It's always safer to copy the text before you send it (or even compose it in another window in the first place, which is what I'm doing right now), but since we don't always think to do it that way, it's good to know the above procedure.

...ooops? Sorry for the double posts?!
My goal for today is to get the rest of the tools, etc., cleaned and put away.on the porch, and bring my freshly painted turquoise table and chairs back onto the porch!
May you all reach your goals today, and feel great about it!!! 😀

YEA!!! Critical Mass!!! Thats great! Youre on a roll!!!

YEA!!! Critical Mass!!! Thats great! Youre on a roll!!!

Just popping in quickly - which is what I seem to do these days. Hope to get back to keeping up better. Thanks for encouragement though, and I'm pleased to report I did have a minion, and we got some good things accomplished at the storage unit! More to come!

Thanks for the encouragement, Tillie and Anon! Greatly appreciated. Glad you have good support in your friend back East (I am on the East coast myself) Anon!

Take care, all. I need to keep it up. Wishing you all a good evening, thank you for everything!

Thinking of Diane, Bitsy, LR, Roxie, Oodles, CM, and everyone else.

WAY TO GO!!!! Tatoulia! 😀

Hi Anonymoniker 🙂
I grew up in Tucson Arizona then migrated up here for work. 😀
These areas are a lot alike except Nevada doesn't have many cactus.

Congratulations Tatoulia on letting go of some old items and shreading notebooks!
Congratulations Tillie on getting rid of the metal lawn furniture! Im.in southern Arizona, but one of the most wonderful times in.my life was a Rainbow Gathering in Northern.Nevada in July 89! It was when rainbow meant hippie, not gay.
Today it rained so i couldnt collect the last of the mesquite bean harvest, and i talked on the phone all afternoon to my friend back east. In an indirect way its helped motivate me and feel.better about myself! In some ways, at least for me, thats more important that a tiny chunk of clearing and cleaning! Ive got a goid plan for quite a bit out back, so.im excited about that! The decisions are the biggest part for me!

Does this item make me happy?? No?! In the bag. This is working for me today.

Got rid of some old holdouts today. In the bag for goodwill. Also shredded two notebooks of stuff I previously couldn't let go.

Take care, everyone.

Congratulations on the upcoming sale, Tillie! I'm so happy for you! Sounds like you have a good decision-making process!

Hello to all. Cleaning and vacuuming carpet this AM.

Good Morning Everyone 🙂

Hi CriticalMass 🙂
I learned that hard lesson posting here
always copy posts!
It is so frustrating to have our posts disappear after we have worked hard to put our thoughts into print.
WAY TO GO!!! using a "staging area" to sort!
Good luck finding your minions. 🙂

Hi Anonymoniker 🙂
WAY TO GO!!! getting back to your project even after having to do battle with the spooky spider!
I killed a huge black widow just yesterday. 🙁
I can truly sympathize with you about the creepy crawlies, I have snakes here too, LOTS of snakes here in the desert of northern Nevada.
Don't stress about typos, we all make them too. 🙂

Yesterday the neighbor friend dropped by and said that this Friday/Saturday we will have the yard sale.
All my small stuff is ready and priced.
There is big stuff like metal yard stuff that I need to clean up to get ready to sell.
Since I am not a hoarder or gatherer there really isn't much for me to let go of. This is why my friend and I double up to have the sale, to make the sale bigger to get more customers.
I am selling all my metal yard furniture because for decades now I have not been able to use it, it is always piled high and buried deep with all of his assorted collections.
This has been very frustrating for me so I have decided to sell it and then I will not keep getting depressed seeing it like that and never being able to enjoy using it.
This was a very hard decision to make but I feel so much happier and freer now that I have made up my mind to let these things go.
I am also selling an antique chest of drawers from my room. It has no sentimental emotions like the two dressers I am keeping in there and I don't really need it.
My two sentimental dressers that I will never part with are heirlooms from Grandmas, one was even my Great Grandma's. 😀
So, today I have a plan and a deadline to work towards.
Hate having yard sales and don't like going to them either but it will feel so nice once this is over with.
P.S. all leftovers will be donated to MS. They send a big truck to pick up stuff and our other neighbor has MS. Win, win.
Any bedding type items always go to the local animal shelter for animal beds.

Wishing you all the best with whatever plans you have for today. 🙂

...i was cruising along, getting lots done, on a roll, when.i went inside to grab a scrubby from.the sink.to clean and a BIG spider was under it!!! I did manage to kill it, but im still shaken.up! ...im havinga small glass of wine...(sigh)...im going back to finish what ive decided on...theres still plenty of time to complete my goal for the day...dang, the spider and rattlesnake season.can.definitely make one jumpy...

CriticalMass, yesterday.i had to retype(and remember!) my.post.3 times cuz it didnt post! Today that almost happened again, but i backed upto it and it let me tey to repost the same text.
I have started on.my screen.porch project yet cuz my good friend from.the east coast called and she always gives me inspiration.and motivation and i feel like its a valuable thing to 'procrastinate' for! I need to reassure her on her recent new healthy endeavors that id help.her to get going on, and shes doing great with it, so it was mutually positive! ...she doesnt know the extent of my mess...ive told her its bad, but i know she could never even.imagine it...but she stills gives me confidence and inspiration!
Tillue i hope youve found a good project for the day, or maybe just spend the day having fun taking a break from
it all! ...ooops? Sorry for the typo of your name...and all the typos?!!
Happy cleaning and clearing to all!!! 😀

Good day all . . .

NOTE - I'm irritated at the moment because my post I just tried to make got eaten; this is a reconstruction of it as best as I can remember. I had typed in the Captcha and everything seemed OK, but the screen went sort of blank in an unusual way and then my post never showed up. So take my advice, and do a "Copy" before you post to be on the safe side. Now to the post I had intended to make, or a reasonable facsimile thereof:

I can certainly relate to the "Where do I start?!" dilemma. I guess it's a byproduct of our indecision which breeds hoarding, hoarding then breeds clutter and clutter breeds more indecison when we go back to start dealing with it. I don't have any great pearls of wisdom since I'm suffering from the same indecision but here are a couple of strategies I've used.

One thing that has helped me is to have a "staging area." A blank place to put the stuff to be decided on. But only while you're doing the deciding, mind. A card table works well for this with indoor sorting of papers and knickknacks and items of that size range. Then you fold up and put away the card table at the end of the session so it doesn't become another clutter surface.

When doing the van yesterday the driveway functioned as my staging area. We're blessed here with a nice long driveway and the back part of it is out of sight of the neighbors, so I just backed up the van and used that back of the driveway to set things so I could go through them. It worked well.

While I was doing this van project, it became apparent that I really do need to proceed on to my storage unit for my next project. For that, I could really use some MINIONS. I'm going to have to pull out a bunch of stuff in order to be able to get the shelving in place, and get as much junky clutter out quickly and (ideally) make a staging area within the unit, or at least a wide enough path to make further decluttering go more smoothly. When I'm trying to do this all myself, given that things are stacked precariously every which way, its hard not to fall on my butt or have an avalanche of stuff falling and making a worse mess. It's also more emotionally stressful with all the stuff spread out on the parking lot and wondering if I'll be able to get it all where it should go before the day's end, whether that's back in the unit neatly, to the dumpster, to the thrift shop, wherever.

So my current mission is to beg, borrow, kidnap, or whatever, to get myself some minions! And of course they have to be patient, nonjudgmental minions. Wish me luck!

P.S. - re internet time - it's been harder than usual not to sucked into the internet because of going on Facebook in the mornings to see how my friend is doing in her recovery. I guess I'm going to have to be more aware to stay focused on only that and not get to looking at everything else till later. My sleep rhythm has also been way off, due to early morning awakenings last week from a storm and other things, so I'm awakening much later than I'd wish and moving like a turtle in the mornings, which doesn't help much.

Good morning 🙂

Hi Tatoulia 🙂
WTG! FANTASTIC! Keeping up with maintenance and also finding more to donate. 😀
YEA!! for only food purchases. You are off to a great start.

Hi Anonymoniker 🙂
Good luck with your plan for today! 😀

9:00am here now.
Have no idea what I will do today.
There are too many things that I could be doing.
I need to find some motivation, some reason or desire.
Sometimes I just feel "why bother?" when I look around at all the clutter surrounding my little clean and tidy spot.
Before I sign off I will send another email to Diane.

Everybody, try to make this a GREAT day! 😀

Congratulations on the van, CriticalMass!
Tillie, thank you for that reminder that i use to use the internet as (bait) a reward for tasks completed or worked on. I need to go back to that!
Today its cool and cloudy, so im gonna work on the screen.porch. if i can get the tools cleaned and put away, then.the table & chairs put back, ill have my space back outback for another pile for taking to the dump! That will be my goal for today!
Happy accomplishments to all, today!!! 😀

Hello Tillie! Thanks for the good internet advice. So far, have only purchased food items! Also washed an old sheet and put it in the donate bag. Keeping kitchen clean since friend's visit! Am back to emptying dishwasher as soon as it is finished.

I got garbage out, litter box cleaned and recyclables out. Time to finish evening chores and get to bed.

You are a great support, Tillie. Next time you are in touch with Diane could you tell her I say Hello?!!??