Good morning!

Tatoulia, it is good to hear from you!

Will you and your boyfriend be nomads after you retire? Do you have a plan to eventually settle? Will you store things somewhere for that time or just get what you need when you can no longer travel?

I'm glad you had a good trip.

Lila, I'm pretty sure I have literally thousands of books. When Dh and I moved states over 30 years ago, the movers estimated half a truck. I kept pointing out that we had a lot of books and books pack up, not down (one of the things I remembered from my parent's move when I was 7). They did not listen to me and we nearly filled the truck - which they had scheduled to pick up another partial load and then drop that load on the way to our house. They also finished packing the morning after they had planned to leave in the afternoon .

Most of my books are children's fiction. I love books with beautiful illustrations. Bean and I are both very into Jan Brett at the moment. He is learning to knit.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your rolls.

We have early finished emptying the refrigerator and I will be going to the grocery store tomorrow. Dh made a long list. We argued about some of the things on it, but in the end I will get it all. I need to find a way to buy fresh herbs that does not involve plastic clam shells.

Today will be the official end of the holidays with the tree coming down. I'm a little sad about it, but it is made easier knowing Bean is looking forward to the project.

This will be a week of going places and actually removing things from the house. Tonight my pottery classes start back up at the city studio. I will drive the boys home before class and take a bag of trash with me to drop at the gas station. Dd took my trash last Monday, and I think I have collected two more plastic grocery bags since then.

The mixed recycling pile is huge between Christmas with visitors and cleaning out. I last dropped that on Dec 17 and I am pretty sure it will completely fill the back of my car when I take it on Wednesday. I've also got three bags for school and a significant donate pile.

Ok, much to do before the boys arrive!

Good morning!

Today is a tasks and errands day.

Once again I am getting off to a very slow start.

I started my pottery class last night, and while I think it will be a good class, I came home too charged up to sleep and got to bed late. I need to come up with a "wind down" routine that will let me stay alert driving home, but then do my chores and get to be as quickly as possible.

Bean was a big help with the tree yesterday. He even vacuumed up the needles.

Oh! And I just remembered that Buddy was a big help too. He broke my orchid pot. It's ok, because I have another pot that will work that is empty. I need to add that to the tally later.

I'm having a really hard time getting started today - it is so dark even though it is nearly 8!

My brain says "do yoga, do chores, start your tasks!"
And my body says "sit on the couch and drink coffee."
You know who is winning..

I will come back later. I am going to need a stern talking to if I waste this day.

What a great conversation with your daughter, SubC! That is a real blessing.

I have made the miniature version of the cake I made yesterday, enough for my son and his girlfriend to each have some. He requested a special cake, and I had enough ingredients left and time to make this small one. I hope it turns out and he enjoys it. It is in the oven.

Also today I:
- loaded the dishwasher and it is running
- hand washed the rest of the dishes
- put the pans back in the stove drawer
- finished washing out the inside of the stove and the filter on the bottom of the microwave
- adding 2 things to the tally

We are having a party tonight and I just want to go to bed, but, will join in. I need to wrap 2 presents, clean off the dining room table, and make myself something to eat.

Hello again, not quite afternoon.

I now have a neat, orderly, organized and sorted recycling area in the basement. I did find a few things that had been put there incorrectly that had to go in the trash, but I also cleaned up a few things from the counter of doom and sorted them 8nformation the correct locations.

I will need to plan some regular trips downtown to drop off everything. I'm not sure how often they will need to be, but 8pm thinking not more than every other month. Maybe only 2x a year once I finish clearing things out.

I am rewarding myself with the last of the berries bought for Christmas treats. After this, it is canned or dried fruit and apples.

Dh is still in the basement working on his train set, so I am going back down to work on my part again.

Good morning SubC, and happy new year! You have some good goals. You inspire me to deal with my own counter of doom, which would be so much better if I did not have two giant PCs sitting on it, with stuff piled all around and on top of them. They have sat there well over a year. Dealing with those 2 PCs and the 3 laptops in my bedroom AND the old/messed up laptop in my living room will be something to complete this year, hopefully before long.

The main thing with these computers/laptops is this massive fear of "losing" some photos, emails, or data, or documents, that are important to me. And, about a year and a half ago, I did start pulling information off of them but now am not sure what is done and what is not. I have some things written on a paper (things I saved on an external drive) but I have this phobia. And they are not connected to a monitor or to the internet, so that means I have to find cords, plug them in on the dining room table, get a monitor and hook it up (do I still have one??), sort files, save them...I have a massive anxiety about duplicates also... and do I save to a drive AND the cloud?? Probably... ugh, it stresses me out so bad.

There are thousands of files on each so I cannot go through and delete all the ones I don't care about, I started and it was overwhelming.

I guess I need to come to terms that THE most important things are photos, second most important are documents, and anything else is not essential.

I just have a terrible fear of deleting something important and I can never get it back.

Well that was a long rant. Anyway, have to make a cake for a family birthday this week, and need to vacuum (d0g hair). Wanted to walk but it is sleeting.

Back later!

Lila, thanks for coming by! I was feeling lonely.

I don't think I can help you with the photos and files. Photos and emails are my downfall. But I hope you can free yourself from the old computers soon.

Good luck with your cake!

I don't feel like I have made very much progress in the basement, but a lot of what I have done involved small things and recycling or trash, or even just throwing things in the yard. I have not counted those things, or the craft supplies that I have put in the bag to take to the offsite craft storage (not very much in volume, but lots of little bits and pieces)

About the yard. I opened a box, and then I said out loud to Dh "I have a ginkgo tree. And I have a flower press. And I have a five year old grandson. So I do not need a box of pressed ginkgo leaves that are so old they have turned brown." Dh said "right." So the leaves are in the yard. There are a few other nature materials that are in the yard too.

I moved things around until I could open my filing cabinet. Then I refiled the files that I pulled out of the filing cabinet before I blocked it. I also pulled out a couple of old files that caught my eye, thinned them, and reduced the paper mass of the filing cabinet by about half an inch.

I found three things that could go in the donate pile.

You are getting to work right away, SubC! Good work. I understand saving leaves and such. Somewhere around here I have rose petals from the first flowers some guy gave me as a teenager! If I ever find them, I am going to set them free!

I am also looking at things, thinking, "what will one of my sons think of this item/do with this item if I die and they have to deal with it?" Most of the time, the answer is they would throw it out or donate it. Some things like old letters, papers, and diaries, I would NOT want them to find and read anyway. So I hope to let a lot of that go as I sort this year. I decided I would count something like a letter I have saved for years as 1 item out, since it is not really trash - it is something I have been saving that is taking up space.

I just went and emptied the vacuum which was full, into the dog poo bin, because both my trash cans outside are filled to overflowing. That is one thing that bothers me - when my adult kids who live here fill the trash cans so full, several days before trash day, that I cannot fit my own trash in it. We have had this discussion but they still do it and I am tired of mentioning it. I will ask my son if he can take a load to the dump this week to get caught up on all of that and leave space for me. Frankly I am really ready to live alone. I have never lived alone and was dreading it, but for the first time, I am ready and looking forward to it. Please remind me of this is I ever say I want to add a roommate or let someone move in with me.

Good afternoon for real this time.

Who is paying for the trash service? How many cans can you put out each week?

My mom saved letters from two men she thought about marrying (one match was ended by her potential future mil because of religious differences, and the other guy just kept saying "will you marry me when..." And my dad said "will you marry me now".) she told me where the letters were so I could burn them if anything happened to her. Then the first guy died and she reread his letters and threw them out because they made her sad. After that, she gave all the other letters BACK to the other guy at their 60th high school reunion. Apparently the second guy read the letters and sent her a note saying "thanks for returning my letters. It was interesting to revisit who I was over 50 years ago. No wonder you dumped me, I was a pretentious @$$."

I am up to five things. 4 in the donation bag and one in the recycling because it was a hard thing to let go of because it meant letting go of a project idea I was attached to, not just the object.

I continue to slowly add things to the recycling, trash, and craft thrift bags. And I have a bag to take to school.

I am also finding things that make me cry because they remind me of times I miss or people I have lost. But I have not given up.

SubC, I loved your letters story! How cool. If I come across mine, I will likely read them and toss most.

I pay for the trash service, but TotsDad gives me $200 to help with expenses each month. He pays the internet as well. It is not much, but I want them to be able to have enough to move out! Which should happen before summer I believe. I have had the experience in the past of being calm and tolerant for years, but then at the last month or so (with other people, not him) losing my cool and getting harsh and "putting my foot down" and messing up a relationship, so I am cautious. Seems like people remember the last thing you did or said, and not the months or years of good and calm things that preceded it. I am in the home stretch with my kids living in my home...

I went into the wardrobe cabinet it my bedroom again today. It is a hard cabinet because I have not messed with it in years.

There were a lot of jars, mugs, and glass kitchen items in there from when Teen was breaking all my stuff so I had to lock it all away. That made me sad. I got a dirty storage bin, washed it out, pull those items in it and put them in the storage small bedroom. Yes, I want to get rid of jars. But not those jars, and I cannot get to the jars I want to donate yet. They are behind piles in the storage bedroom.

Anyway that made space in the wardrobe. I needed to take a break after that. There are other things in there like photos, documents like the restraining order against Teen and my divorce papers, and it is a bit overwhelming. Maybe I will move them all to a different space and use the wardrobe for nice things like sweaters and blankets.

I just took all the ornaments off the Christmas tree, and TotsDad came up and took it out to the curb. Now there are needles alllll over the place, living room carpet, table, dining room floor, stairs, entryway, porch, sidewalk...

I will have to clean up the living room tonight at least. It is so many needles I will have to sweep them first or the vacuum will clog. I am glad the tree is gone, though. I am ready.

I need to look for the cake pan I need to make this cake. I do not feel like doing anything!!! Bah!

It's true that people tend to remember the most recent thing.

I guess if he is willing to make dump trips, that will do. You can't have garbage piling up at the house!

I basically spent my whole day on the basement. Dh spent his down there too. He is mostly working on the trains. He has his father's toy trains, and dsil dropped all of *his* father's toy trains at our house. He told Dh he didn't care what Dh did with them- he could throw them out. Dsil loved his dad, but his dad died, and it was a complicated relationship. I don't think he's really processed it. Anyway, those trains are in a variety of conditions and Dh really wants to get them working as much as possible, because he thinks some day dsil will care, and if not "they are still part of our grandson's heritage from their other grandfather, and I want them to have that even if they didn't get to meet him."

I have cried a lot today.

But, Dh says he can see that I worked on the basement, that it made a difference. Besides trash and recycling and things "set free" in the yard, I have half a paper grocery bag for the offsite craft storage, and a full paper grocery bag for school (all uncounted) and 8 items to start my tally for the year.

Oh dear Lila, you must have listed right after I started typing!

I am taking my tree down on Monday. Bean wants to help undecorate it and feed it to the goats.

I didn't know goats would eat a Christmas tree! That is really cool!

Oh your Dh sounds so sweet, thinking of the trains like that and dsil and grandson. How dear. I am sorry you have been crying today. I am guessing things you are coming across are triggering?

Tomorrow is trash day, and I have every intention of taking out as much of my trash as possible even if it fills a bin. There are two bins. Maybe if the bins are full, TotsDad will make that dump run soon.

I hate conflict, it makes me upset most of the time. I hate bringing up negative things. Youngest Son had his gf over and she spent the night. I am not okay with this even though he is an adult. I let him know in a nice way but now I feel bad because he is sensitive and I don't want to hurt his feelings. But I really do not want, and never have allowed, girlfriends to spend the night here. They have only been dating a few weeks too, so I feel it is not appropriate. If he wants to go to her place, he is an adult. But I feel like with it being my house I should be able to have that kind of rule. It may be an outdated idea of waiting until you are married to sleep together, but that is what I think is best, and they are not even in a long term committed relationship. Am I being an ass? I am not trying to. But for some reason I feel bad that I even had to say anything.

I am not in a great mood, it is raining and grey, the trash bins being full annoy me, having no space for my stuff is tiring, I just need to get over it and stop being annoyed about things that will soon not be an issue.

Good morning!

Lila, the crying was because I am finding a lot of things with strong emotions attached (the basement is where I store my boxes of stomachaches.) and then once I was feeling emotional, it became easier to set me off. I cried when Dh talked about fixing the trains for our boys.

I'm not sure what to say about the girlfriend. While yes, it would be good of your son to respect your wishes, he is an adult, and it is also his home. It does seem like staying at her place would be a better option. Depending on her circumstances. Your house has a mother that is made uncomfortable and young children whose parents may prefer not to have that behavior modeled. Does this son also have a plan for moving out soon?

I am looking at another day of working around the house/in the basement depending on what Dh has planned. He is currently at the gym. I have done yoga and am heading out to take care of chores. I have been going out late because I can and it is very cold.

Closing in on lunch time here. I have a feeling I'm going to be posting a lot for a while.

Did chores, carried an empty shelf out to the studio loft, packed up one bin of Christmas decorations, found two items to let go (one Christmas, one not) plus another handful of craft stuff.

Also found my Mickey Mouse clock from when I was a kid. It has not worked in decades. Dh is trying to fix it for me!

The dishwasher and washing machine are running.

Back to the basement.

hi SubC! I will come check on you today! I have the day off and am also doing stuff, but not what I would have chosen to do. Last night I spent a lot of time making a cake just right for a birthday today. It was in a springform pan. As I was putting it into the oven, it fell apart. The latch just popped right open without me touching it. The batter went everywhere. All over the front, door, inside, drawer of the oven, the cabinets, everywhere. I was devastated. I had to go cry while the oven cooled down. I do not have time nor ingredients to redo it. My son had to come and take the door off the oven and put it in the shower, and I scooped up as much batter as I could and then he put the drawer in the shower. I was cleaning up this mess for 2 hours last night, as it got in all the holes and creases and seals. It was awful. I also had to unclog the bathtub which meant Son had to take the drain apart.

So this morning we pulled the stove out from the wall and I spent another 2 hours cleaning behind it, the sides, the floor, backsplash, inside the oven, then mopped the kitchen. Then son put it back together. It is still not totally done as the stove top needs another cleaning with the burned on stuff. It has been exhausting. I have enough ingredients to make a miniature cake that they wanted. Ddil is going to bake a cake for the rest of the family that is not as complicated.

I am glad it is over. I will go bake the mini cake now. See you again soon.

Oh Lila, I am so sorry about your cake! That is horrible.

Dh fixed my clock! It has been running for two hours (the works are out of the case) if it is still running tomorrow, he will put it back in the case. He says I have to put it somewhere where I will remember to wind it.

I am up to four items out today. One of them is a doll my grandmother gave my daughter. She doesn't want it anymore. I think it is creepy. My mom agreed that it was creepy and I should donate it. (I called her.) She said she is sorry that she and her family gave me so much stuff and taught me to hold on to everything, and that she needs to work on her own house. She said I can call her any time I want for help with the basement. She also blessed passing on the box of Girl Scout stuff I have in the basement that was hers. I called our council and they invited me to drop it off, they have a historian who will go through it and make best use of it. It is a twenty minute detour after work, so I will do that next week. I will count the box as 1 after I drop it off.

I started to make the food I want for dinner, because I remembered it takes a long time - longer than I remembered. I will have to make it tomorrow because I don't want to eat dinner after 7pm. Dh bought himself a tool with some Christmas money that arrived today and he is out in the woods working. I might ask him if he wants to take me out to dinner tonight. Or we can have leftover pasta or soup.