This month has a been a bit too much. I will be glad when it is behind me. Just this week, to give you an idea.
I did get my mom to the doctor yesterday for her checkup yesterday after needing to change the appointment a few times. I told her to make sure to blame me to the doctor and his staff so they would not be upset with her. She has a pacemaker and was past due to have it checked, as well as having her blood, etc. checked. Mom is 89. She still lives alone in our family house and still drives. She hates to ask for help; I keep telling her to call me when she needs to go somewhere she doesn’t want to drive to, but until now she has refused to call me. In this case she had a problem due to construction near the doctor’s office when she went there earlier in the month as she cannot walk distances and would have had to park too far away. Hence why she called for a ride, I could drop her off if there was still a problem, park and come back, etc. All was good, although blood work will, of course, take a day or two. We had lunch together afterwards for about 3 or 4 hours. We had been headed for a kosher deli - I had to park 4 stores away from it - mom was impressed with my parallel parking, something I just take for granted. But as we inched along, we (she) stopped at a pizza place and while stopped looked in and thought how nice it was - should we go there instead? I was not looking forward to a overfilled, overpriced (especially since I knew she would insist on paying) turkey sandwich (least fatty of the meats there). So I jumped at the change - less for her to walk, lighter meal, and much less expensive. We each had a cheese slice and diet soda and sat and talked and talked. (I write like I talk and she talks more and longer than I do.) It was between meal times and the place was empty or I would have not have stayed, taking up the table as long as we did.
We did go to the Long Island Fair last Sunday to do an embroidery demonstration - and to visit friends we only see at the Fair. One woman used to be the Supervisor of the Juvenile section for decades and had to give it up due to eye trouble, was not at the Fair last year at all. (She continued to volunteer after she gave up the Supervisor position.) I was so glad that she had her son drop her off for a visit. She was sitting in the Juvenile section and as soon as volunteers heard she was there, we all stopped by to see her. She is 90. I was so glad to hear that she was basically well - she had vision problems, which is now mostly blindness and now has hearing problems, but she is the same always in all other regards. After the day, which was the last day of the Fair, was pick up of entries - my three dimensional butterfly embroidery shocked me and won second prize. I had seen the lovely and involved pieces that it was competing with when I dropped it off and figured that I would get an honorable mention due to the technique. That is one project that sat for decades finished. Now to pick another one to finsih. While at the Fair I was also able to check in with someone who is a mutual friend of a friend who moved to South Carolina and find out the couple in SC survived Florence with no problems.
I was suppose to go to a client this week. I called her yesterday (while mom was seeing the doctor) to go there Thursday. The client said it was a problem and could I come on Friday. (Glad she did not say today as we were suppose to have horrible rain - yes, there was rain, but not as bad as they said.) I called her today to say that I could come on Friday, but she didn’t really want me there then, either (even though she had suggested it). Apparently they are filming a movie at her location and her cousin who keeps her company is ill - besides, she tells me, she has had no business all month, so there is little for me to do. So, I will be going there in 2 weeks and do the September and October work at the same time.
In my mind this was great. I get another day to catch up on stuff - the bathrooms REALLY need cleaning. But no, when husband hears that I am not going to the client on Friday, he suggests that since he wants to go to Pennsylvania on Saturday for a wool show, we could go down on Friday for the day and stay overnight. So, the bathrooms will wait a little longer.
Today was the day I write the newsletter for my embroidery chapter and send it out by email. I managed to get that done after dinner - normally done in the afternoon, but there was other “fires” to put out then. I send out 3 versions of the newsletter - the basic newsletter is the same, the email with it changes - one to our members, one to prospective members and one to the other newsletter editors in our region and our region director.
This coming Sunday we were suppose to go to a reenactment event with our unit, but the unit is backing out of it as too few members can go and the place is changing what it said about our setup.
Now in addition to writing to all of you, I am doing our laundry. Will go and change loads between writing this and sending it out. Dinner dishes were done before the newsletter. Kitchen sink area is setup with dish towels over the dish rack, the front of the sink, the windowsill behind the sink, and the pots drying on a towel next to the other side of the sink - so husband can come and wash his hair in the sink. The dishpan I use in the sink is out on a counter with items waiting for washing before we go to bed. ( I made instant diet pudding for snack - the items needed for such are most of what is waiting to be washed.) But no - I still have not thrown out the bad eggs.
And next week I am suppose to teach new stitches (my choice) at the embroidery meeting!
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes it seems that what must be done in terms of larger projects and appointments is coming too often, too much and too fast. Take it one project at a time, that is all one can do. Things will get done.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Friday, September 21, 2018
WHAT SHOULD YOU GET RID OF AND WHAT SHOULD YOU KEEP?
Pardon me - I didn’t post yesterday. As I think I mentioned the most important annual Jewish holiday was yesterday and when it was over last night it slipped my memory what day of the week it was. So here I am, a day late and a post short.
As I was talking about last week, much of what one needs to know about organizing we know. It is finding the time and pushing ourselves to do it that is the problem - at least for me. Basically one has to sort through what one has and get rid of what is not being used and will not be used and then set up what is left in an organized manner so that one can find what one is looking for quickly.
What to get rid of? A good question. Some of it is rather obvious - empty boxes of cereal for example. They are garbage. Almost empty box? Depends on how much is left - if you can eat it all while continuing to work - eat it and toss the box; if it is enough for a meal or two - use it up at meals and toss the empty box. In this case I mean for the cereal box to stand for anything which gets used up, but the empty container is still around. This week and last week I made a chicken stew that my husband loves for dinner. Problem is that the garbage pickup is on Monday and Thursday and I was making the stew on Monday last week and Tuesday this week and both times had to hold it all both times until Wednesday night when I put it out for Thursday pick up. The bones, skin and such have to be thrown out, but if I toss them in the kitchen garbage and they don’t go out right away, it will smell terrible. I can take the kitchen bag out to the can outside, but it really upsets me to put the bag(s) out only about 1/3 full. So, I put the chicken garbage into one of those plastic shopping bags that one gets at groceries stores, put same in the bowl I had used to hold the cooked chicken overnight (cooked the chicken one day, made the stew the next) before taking it off the bones and left it in the fridge. When it was time for the garbage to go out I added the shopping bag of chicken icky stuff to it and out it went. I then washed the bowl the bag had been in. I actually have left over stew from both nights. It can’t be frozen as it has potatoes in it and they never freeze well. I have the stews in two canning jars in the fridge (one from last week and one from this). I will hold them until the end of the next week - if husband has not eaten it by then (he really LOVES this stew) then it will go out that Sunday night in the garbage - it will not be allowed to sit beyond when it will be safe to eat.
Staying with the kitchen, some items are harder to get rid of. Husband will decide that he likes something - say a particular canned soup - and buy a lot of it. Then something will happen and it will not be eaten. Say, he decides it raises his blood sugar too much and he should only have it once in a while. The items sit........and sit.........and sit..........and sit.......and sit. Suddenly they are past their date and one cannot even donate them. It really kills me to throw out 6 full cans of something because it passed its date a year or two before - but out they must go. They are taking up needed room and if they are eaten by accident they may make someone ill. I have to check on some eggs we have in the fridge - wait, I will check right now - an entire dozen dated for June 16, 2018. Now what do I do? Normally I would toss the eggs. But here is a bit of info - when eggs pass their date and are sent back to the producer by the stores they are allowed to be repackaged and sent back out a certain number of times - gross right, but it is true. Eggs can be tested to see if they are still good and I will have to find the instructions on how to check them. Okay, per “The Joy of Cooking” if the eggs float in cold water they are no good. I will test them tomorrow and then throw them out if they float. We go through periods where we eat eggs or use them in cooking and will buy them - and then the period of eating them ends - see husband deciding he likes something and then deciding not to have it any more, above - I think he was making quiches with them and then stopped doing so - and they sit. Usually it only part of a dozen, which is left. In case you are thinking - what about breakfast? We wake up so late that we have lunch for breakfast, dinner for lunch and then a late night snack for supper, so eggs tend to be more of a dinner food here. I am going to test them..... Well, they will going out Sunday night with the garbage for Monday, the 3 I picked at random all floated - but, on the other hand, I was wrong - there are only 10, not a full dozen. We have a quart of milk in the fridge also. I know that is fresh, we bought it for a meeting of our reenactment unit last Monday - husband had volunteered to bring snack - oh that reminds me of something else, we are going to return an unopened package of cookies - we bought 2 different kinds for the meeting and apparently it was a chocolate mint cookie crowd, not a chocolate chip crowd. But no one opened the milk to use in their coffee. So I have to figure out how to use up a the quart - I guess we will be having diet pudding for snack a few times. We were lucky to find the quart - mostly it comes in half gallons and more around here, and the quart cost almost as much as the half gallon.
So - when one sorts through stuff one will find stuff to toss, stuff to check and decide if it should be tossed - now or soon after, stuff to return, and stuff to use up. If only I had some chocolate syrup for the milk, but if I buy same, then I will have a started bottle of chocolate syrup and someday in the future will be deciding if it should be thrown out or not. (Plus we just plain should not have the extra carbohydrates.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
You know that you know what to do. Go through and toss the floating eggs and the long past date things (whether they are actually dated or not) - and the chicken stuff which has been stored until you can toss it. Get rid of the empty boxes or finish up what it is in them and get rid of them. Return items which are in good condition which can be returned. Use up the items that can still be used - before they have to be tossed because they are floating eggs. This applies in the rest of the house as well as in the kitchen - paints and makeup can go past their use time also, for example. The dress you bought for Sally’s wedding a month ago and then bought a different one, that you wore instead - return it if you can or donate it - unless you know that you can wear it for Harry’s wedding next month. And so on.
As I was talking about last week, much of what one needs to know about organizing we know. It is finding the time and pushing ourselves to do it that is the problem - at least for me. Basically one has to sort through what one has and get rid of what is not being used and will not be used and then set up what is left in an organized manner so that one can find what one is looking for quickly.
What to get rid of? A good question. Some of it is rather obvious - empty boxes of cereal for example. They are garbage. Almost empty box? Depends on how much is left - if you can eat it all while continuing to work - eat it and toss the box; if it is enough for a meal or two - use it up at meals and toss the empty box. In this case I mean for the cereal box to stand for anything which gets used up, but the empty container is still around. This week and last week I made a chicken stew that my husband loves for dinner. Problem is that the garbage pickup is on Monday and Thursday and I was making the stew on Monday last week and Tuesday this week and both times had to hold it all both times until Wednesday night when I put it out for Thursday pick up. The bones, skin and such have to be thrown out, but if I toss them in the kitchen garbage and they don’t go out right away, it will smell terrible. I can take the kitchen bag out to the can outside, but it really upsets me to put the bag(s) out only about 1/3 full. So, I put the chicken garbage into one of those plastic shopping bags that one gets at groceries stores, put same in the bowl I had used to hold the cooked chicken overnight (cooked the chicken one day, made the stew the next) before taking it off the bones and left it in the fridge. When it was time for the garbage to go out I added the shopping bag of chicken icky stuff to it and out it went. I then washed the bowl the bag had been in. I actually have left over stew from both nights. It can’t be frozen as it has potatoes in it and they never freeze well. I have the stews in two canning jars in the fridge (one from last week and one from this). I will hold them until the end of the next week - if husband has not eaten it by then (he really LOVES this stew) then it will go out that Sunday night in the garbage - it will not be allowed to sit beyond when it will be safe to eat.
Staying with the kitchen, some items are harder to get rid of. Husband will decide that he likes something - say a particular canned soup - and buy a lot of it. Then something will happen and it will not be eaten. Say, he decides it raises his blood sugar too much and he should only have it once in a while. The items sit........and sit.........and sit..........and sit.......and sit. Suddenly they are past their date and one cannot even donate them. It really kills me to throw out 6 full cans of something because it passed its date a year or two before - but out they must go. They are taking up needed room and if they are eaten by accident they may make someone ill. I have to check on some eggs we have in the fridge - wait, I will check right now - an entire dozen dated for June 16, 2018. Now what do I do? Normally I would toss the eggs. But here is a bit of info - when eggs pass their date and are sent back to the producer by the stores they are allowed to be repackaged and sent back out a certain number of times - gross right, but it is true. Eggs can be tested to see if they are still good and I will have to find the instructions on how to check them. Okay, per “The Joy of Cooking” if the eggs float in cold water they are no good. I will test them tomorrow and then throw them out if they float. We go through periods where we eat eggs or use them in cooking and will buy them - and then the period of eating them ends - see husband deciding he likes something and then deciding not to have it any more, above - I think he was making quiches with them and then stopped doing so - and they sit. Usually it only part of a dozen, which is left. In case you are thinking - what about breakfast? We wake up so late that we have lunch for breakfast, dinner for lunch and then a late night snack for supper, so eggs tend to be more of a dinner food here. I am going to test them..... Well, they will going out Sunday night with the garbage for Monday, the 3 I picked at random all floated - but, on the other hand, I was wrong - there are only 10, not a full dozen. We have a quart of milk in the fridge also. I know that is fresh, we bought it for a meeting of our reenactment unit last Monday - husband had volunteered to bring snack - oh that reminds me of something else, we are going to return an unopened package of cookies - we bought 2 different kinds for the meeting and apparently it was a chocolate mint cookie crowd, not a chocolate chip crowd. But no one opened the milk to use in their coffee. So I have to figure out how to use up a the quart - I guess we will be having diet pudding for snack a few times. We were lucky to find the quart - mostly it comes in half gallons and more around here, and the quart cost almost as much as the half gallon.
So - when one sorts through stuff one will find stuff to toss, stuff to check and decide if it should be tossed - now or soon after, stuff to return, and stuff to use up. If only I had some chocolate syrup for the milk, but if I buy same, then I will have a started bottle of chocolate syrup and someday in the future will be deciding if it should be thrown out or not. (Plus we just plain should not have the extra carbohydrates.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
You know that you know what to do. Go through and toss the floating eggs and the long past date things (whether they are actually dated or not) - and the chicken stuff which has been stored until you can toss it. Get rid of the empty boxes or finish up what it is in them and get rid of them. Return items which are in good condition which can be returned. Use up the items that can still be used - before they have to be tossed because they are floating eggs. This applies in the rest of the house as well as in the kitchen - paints and makeup can go past their use time also, for example. The dress you bought for Sally’s wedding a month ago and then bought a different one, that you wore instead - return it if you can or donate it - unless you know that you can wear it for Harry’s wedding next month. And so on.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
YOU already know what to do
I don’t know about you, but I actually know what needs to be done for to declutter and get organized. You probably also know what to do. You have probably read it in book after book -
1- Go through what you have
2 - Purge anything that you have not used in X years (generally one or two years depending on the book.
3 - Separate items that don’t belong where they are into one of four boxes - keep, put somewhere else, throw out, donate, sometimes, a fifth box - return to the owner.
4- Survey what you have left and figure out how to store it, buying storage containers only after knowing what you need and measuring the space and items to go into storage.
5 - Keep up putting items away every day.
Oh, this reminded me, I am looking to buy plastic storage to organize the freezer compartment of the fridge better. For some reason lately a lot of food items we buy are in bags - they used to be packages in boxes, they lie on top of each other and I forget what I have. I want them to stand up so I can see what I have. Hold on a minute while I measure the freezer section - hmm mmm mmm - sorry, okay, I am back - that’s less than 10.5 inches tall, 14.5 inches deep, and 19 inches across and I plan on 2 containers across - that would be 9.5 inches across each maximum. I put the measurements in my cell phone in the Walmart section of my “to buy” list. I will have to see what is available.
Oh wait - the timer in my cell phone went off - I have to down to the basement and switch loads in the washer and dryer. Be right back....hmm mmm mmm. Okay, back again. I forgot that there was a blanket in the dryer from last week. We sleep with two in winter, one in summer and I had this one on the bed, but put the other one on the bed last week and washed the one that was there as we both had colds over the past month and thought it best to wash to wash the one we had been breathing on. It is now sealed in a plastic bag to keep it clean until it is needed again. It will go in a small storage piece in our bedroom. Back to all of you, cell phone will go off again in 50 minutes to switch loads again.
Okay - while the above is true, I do other things while I am writing my posts, it is also why the common “simple 5 steps” to get uncluttered and organized don’t always work. Oh, I also updated the browser in my other laptop while I have been writing this. It is not that I don’t care about all of you - (I do wish there were more of you, but I am glad to have every one you reading my posts - feel free to tell friends to join us) but we all have to multitask these days. It is not as easy in the real world as it is in organizing books.
Yes, the basic 5 steps are what need to be done, but sometimes they have to be done in small bites - catch as catch can. When my husband was screaming about his sock drawer - too many socks, too little room. He has trouble finding socks which are comfortable and the ones he liked are wearing out quicker and quicker so he is searching for new socks - as the ones he like are, of course, discontinued. Of course he buys MORE socks and then hates them. It is hard to convince him to let me donate them - “I haven’t even worn some of the pairs yet - and what if I can’t find new socks and neeeeeed these? So I went through his dresser drawers - yes, more than just that drawer - over a period of 2 days - on and off when I had a chance.
What did I find, well, his missing “space pen” for one thing. I found that the bottom drawer was filled with more James Bond toys. I managed to add them to the boxes we had bought and put in the spare bedroom (aka the teddys room) closet. Ah, most of an empty drawer to work with. I put some empty shoe boxes in same. I use them for drawer dividers - two boxes make 3 delineated spaces across - box, space, box. I put the socks he does not wear in the bottom drawer. I also went through stuff he keeps on the left side of his top drawer (which is where his underwear and socks are also kept). He has a small jewelry box - mostly junk, the few nice pieces he has are in my jewelry box, empty eyeglass cases (yes, I keep same also) and other small items - under these I found the space pen. Those items were sorted through and mostly stored in the bottom drawer. Why did all of this go to the bottom drawer? Well, he could not get something out of same unless he was sitting down as he would get dizzy, so it is a good place to put things he will rarely, if ever need. I then rearranged the space in the top drawer and sorted the socks he wears into the boxes (the beige set in one box, the ivory set - he calls them white) in another box and the new socks behind them in the same boxes - white socks in with the beige socks and black socks in with the ivory ones - so they are easy to tell apart by color looking in. Underpants are no longer squeezed into a shoe box, but in the space between two shoe boxes, so they have a bit more space. (His underpants like mine are rolled as this seems to make them fit in the space better and easier to grab out - he needs to buy new ones of same soon - he complains all the time.) He also has some ankle height socks which he finds comfortable to sleep in during the winter as they keep his feet warm but don’t “bother him”.
In doing this I did find some items which I knew he no longer needed and would not be attached to - especially the socks he won’t wear - and packed them to be donated. Also in doing this I had pulled out some shoe boxes from the top of my closet - some were empty and set aside for use in situations such as this, others had shoes in them, and I pulled some shoes off my closet door rack, that I don’t wear, to donate also to make room for some of the ones in the boxes - although the door rack is about 1/3 empty after I was done - and I don’t have a lot of shoes. (If I let him know, his extra shoes will end up there, so I won’t mention it.)
All of this - socks, underwear, James Bond toys, shoes, etc. took about 2 hours spread over 2 evenings. I believe in doing things as one can. Oh, I had no boxes for donation, etc. just some shopping bags.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Use the time YOU have available and try using your innate knowledge of what to do. You know to throw out garbage - you just have to figure out what is the garbage in what you have. You know to donate what can be donated - don’t look at it as you are getting rid of something you loved (or hated and regretted), but rather finding the item a new home with someone who needs it.
Think about what you use and how you use it - and how often you do. Something - such as underwear and socks that are worn daily should be able to be reached as easily as possible.
But remember we do things by habit which may not be the best way to do so. What you do not use as often, can be harder to get to. Since I was in junior high school I had a sock drawer and an underwear drawer. In my current dresser these were two small half size drawers, the underwear drawer being the top drawer, the socks, the next one down. The underwear had my underpants that I daily wear one of, my bras - 3 of them rotated through wear and laundry, and half slips - short white, long white, short black, long black - which I very rarely wear - only if the skirt/dress is a bit sheerer than normal. My sock drawer had my every day socks, my panty hose (rarely worn - once a month to work and if there was an event to which I had to wear a dress), my knee high stockings (worn even less), and the socks I wear to keep my feet warm. Husband said to me one day after we had been married for decades “every morning you open the top drawer and take out underpants and close the drawer. Then you open the next drawer down and take out socks and close the drawer. Why don’t you put the items you wear daily in the same drawer and put the other items in the second drawer? Makes sense - why did I not think of this? Well, I had been doing it the same way for so long, it never occurred to me that there was a better way. I now have my everyday socks and underwear in the top drawer - panties are 3 pairs across, 3 pairs up and two sets of same deep (the set in the front is not a full 9 pairs) and the sock balls stand next to them filling the rest of the drawer - no separation between the two necessary. The second drawer holds my bras in front on one side, my sleep socks across the front on the other. A box of stockings - pantyhose and knee highs behind the sleep sock. I have wool socks which I have acquired over the recent freezing cold winters we have had in the back of the drawer. The slips are stacked between the bras and the wool socks. One drawer to open every day instead of two - labor saved.
So think as you declutter and organize about how you can change where items are stored - even in something as common as your dresser - to work better.
My thoughts and prayers to those in the path of Florence.
1- Go through what you have
2 - Purge anything that you have not used in X years (generally one or two years depending on the book.
3 - Separate items that don’t belong where they are into one of four boxes - keep, put somewhere else, throw out, donate, sometimes, a fifth box - return to the owner.
4- Survey what you have left and figure out how to store it, buying storage containers only after knowing what you need and measuring the space and items to go into storage.
5 - Keep up putting items away every day.
Oh, this reminded me, I am looking to buy plastic storage to organize the freezer compartment of the fridge better. For some reason lately a lot of food items we buy are in bags - they used to be packages in boxes, they lie on top of each other and I forget what I have. I want them to stand up so I can see what I have. Hold on a minute while I measure the freezer section - hmm mmm mmm - sorry, okay, I am back - that’s less than 10.5 inches tall, 14.5 inches deep, and 19 inches across and I plan on 2 containers across - that would be 9.5 inches across each maximum. I put the measurements in my cell phone in the Walmart section of my “to buy” list. I will have to see what is available.
Oh wait - the timer in my cell phone went off - I have to down to the basement and switch loads in the washer and dryer. Be right back....hmm mmm mmm. Okay, back again. I forgot that there was a blanket in the dryer from last week. We sleep with two in winter, one in summer and I had this one on the bed, but put the other one on the bed last week and washed the one that was there as we both had colds over the past month and thought it best to wash to wash the one we had been breathing on. It is now sealed in a plastic bag to keep it clean until it is needed again. It will go in a small storage piece in our bedroom. Back to all of you, cell phone will go off again in 50 minutes to switch loads again.
Okay - while the above is true, I do other things while I am writing my posts, it is also why the common “simple 5 steps” to get uncluttered and organized don’t always work. Oh, I also updated the browser in my other laptop while I have been writing this. It is not that I don’t care about all of you - (I do wish there were more of you, but I am glad to have every one you reading my posts - feel free to tell friends to join us) but we all have to multitask these days. It is not as easy in the real world as it is in organizing books.
Yes, the basic 5 steps are what need to be done, but sometimes they have to be done in small bites - catch as catch can. When my husband was screaming about his sock drawer - too many socks, too little room. He has trouble finding socks which are comfortable and the ones he liked are wearing out quicker and quicker so he is searching for new socks - as the ones he like are, of course, discontinued. Of course he buys MORE socks and then hates them. It is hard to convince him to let me donate them - “I haven’t even worn some of the pairs yet - and what if I can’t find new socks and neeeeeed these? So I went through his dresser drawers - yes, more than just that drawer - over a period of 2 days - on and off when I had a chance.
What did I find, well, his missing “space pen” for one thing. I found that the bottom drawer was filled with more James Bond toys. I managed to add them to the boxes we had bought and put in the spare bedroom (aka the teddys room) closet. Ah, most of an empty drawer to work with. I put some empty shoe boxes in same. I use them for drawer dividers - two boxes make 3 delineated spaces across - box, space, box. I put the socks he does not wear in the bottom drawer. I also went through stuff he keeps on the left side of his top drawer (which is where his underwear and socks are also kept). He has a small jewelry box - mostly junk, the few nice pieces he has are in my jewelry box, empty eyeglass cases (yes, I keep same also) and other small items - under these I found the space pen. Those items were sorted through and mostly stored in the bottom drawer. Why did all of this go to the bottom drawer? Well, he could not get something out of same unless he was sitting down as he would get dizzy, so it is a good place to put things he will rarely, if ever need. I then rearranged the space in the top drawer and sorted the socks he wears into the boxes (the beige set in one box, the ivory set - he calls them white) in another box and the new socks behind them in the same boxes - white socks in with the beige socks and black socks in with the ivory ones - so they are easy to tell apart by color looking in. Underpants are no longer squeezed into a shoe box, but in the space between two shoe boxes, so they have a bit more space. (His underpants like mine are rolled as this seems to make them fit in the space better and easier to grab out - he needs to buy new ones of same soon - he complains all the time.) He also has some ankle height socks which he finds comfortable to sleep in during the winter as they keep his feet warm but don’t “bother him”.
In doing this I did find some items which I knew he no longer needed and would not be attached to - especially the socks he won’t wear - and packed them to be donated. Also in doing this I had pulled out some shoe boxes from the top of my closet - some were empty and set aside for use in situations such as this, others had shoes in them, and I pulled some shoes off my closet door rack, that I don’t wear, to donate also to make room for some of the ones in the boxes - although the door rack is about 1/3 empty after I was done - and I don’t have a lot of shoes. (If I let him know, his extra shoes will end up there, so I won’t mention it.)
All of this - socks, underwear, James Bond toys, shoes, etc. took about 2 hours spread over 2 evenings. I believe in doing things as one can. Oh, I had no boxes for donation, etc. just some shopping bags.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Use the time YOU have available and try using your innate knowledge of what to do. You know to throw out garbage - you just have to figure out what is the garbage in what you have. You know to donate what can be donated - don’t look at it as you are getting rid of something you loved (or hated and regretted), but rather finding the item a new home with someone who needs it.
Think about what you use and how you use it - and how often you do. Something - such as underwear and socks that are worn daily should be able to be reached as easily as possible.
But remember we do things by habit which may not be the best way to do so. What you do not use as often, can be harder to get to. Since I was in junior high school I had a sock drawer and an underwear drawer. In my current dresser these were two small half size drawers, the underwear drawer being the top drawer, the socks, the next one down. The underwear had my underpants that I daily wear one of, my bras - 3 of them rotated through wear and laundry, and half slips - short white, long white, short black, long black - which I very rarely wear - only if the skirt/dress is a bit sheerer than normal. My sock drawer had my every day socks, my panty hose (rarely worn - once a month to work and if there was an event to which I had to wear a dress), my knee high stockings (worn even less), and the socks I wear to keep my feet warm. Husband said to me one day after we had been married for decades “every morning you open the top drawer and take out underpants and close the drawer. Then you open the next drawer down and take out socks and close the drawer. Why don’t you put the items you wear daily in the same drawer and put the other items in the second drawer? Makes sense - why did I not think of this? Well, I had been doing it the same way for so long, it never occurred to me that there was a better way. I now have my everyday socks and underwear in the top drawer - panties are 3 pairs across, 3 pairs up and two sets of same deep (the set in the front is not a full 9 pairs) and the sock balls stand next to them filling the rest of the drawer - no separation between the two necessary. The second drawer holds my bras in front on one side, my sleep socks across the front on the other. A box of stockings - pantyhose and knee highs behind the sleep sock. I have wool socks which I have acquired over the recent freezing cold winters we have had in the back of the drawer. The slips are stacked between the bras and the wool socks. One drawer to open every day instead of two - labor saved.
So think as you declutter and organize about how you can change where items are stored - even in something as common as your dresser - to work better.
My thoughts and prayers to those in the path of Florence.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Happy New Year!
Huh? It’s September?
I am again reminding everyone that one does not have to wait for January 1 to start a new year, turn a new page, start organizing. Every day is the start of a new year.
When I was a child my year started in September. School started then - a new school year. The new TV shows came on for the year (later this became the start of the fall season) - a new TV year. And in either September or October, being Jewish, it was the religious new year also - the anniversary of the beginning of the world we were told.. The January 1 new year always seemed lacking in reason to me - what was starting anew - just the newly printed calendars.
It is a bit arbitrary. The new year used to start on March 25 - talk about crazy, Could you imagine March 24, 2018 being followed by March 25, 2019? This change of year changed at various dates in various places based on the religion practiced in the area starting in 1582. In the British countries, including their colonies here in America, the change to January 1 as the start of the new year was made in 1750. (And this led to all sorts of problems as there was also an adjustment to the calendar of 11 days at the time to correct errors in the prior adjustments by leap year days. If you were born on April 10, 1720 O.S. (old style), you would change your birthday to April 21, 1720 for example.)
The Lunar New Year is in February. The Muslim New Year occurs at a different time each year in the common (western) calendar although it falls on the same day of the Muslim calendar. It will vary over the entire year over time. (The common calendar is a solar calendar- it is based on the travel of the earth around the sun and how long it takes. The use of the different number of days in various months and leap year day keep the common calendar set more or less fixed against the seasons of the year. While there are a number of lunar calendars ( based on the length of the months at about 29 days in the time it takes the moon to travel around the earth), some of them will insert a leap year adjustment of some sort - in the Jewish calendar it is an extra month added a number of times over a cycle of years - the Muslim calendar does not add an extra month to adjust for the solar year and so its holidays move through the year over a period of years as there is an 11 day difference in the length of the year.)
Okay, now we are getting religion classes and history lessons. Back then people had less stuff to deal with and could keep it better organized. What is going on?
What I am saying (and I have posted similar in the past) is that the day we consider to be the golden time to start organizing (or doing something else) is a fairly arbitrary day. If today is September 5 - it will be a year until the next September 5, so it is also the start of a new year.
Make sense (I hope)?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
Since every day is the start of a new year, do not put off starting or doing something until January 1. Start NOW! Okay, maybe today is too soon, pick a day soon and start THEN! No more procrastination. No more New Year's resolutions left uncompleted. Pick one thing, just one thing and do it. Then do something else - one thing at time adds up.
Huh? It’s September?
I am again reminding everyone that one does not have to wait for January 1 to start a new year, turn a new page, start organizing. Every day is the start of a new year.
When I was a child my year started in September. School started then - a new school year. The new TV shows came on for the year (later this became the start of the fall season) - a new TV year. And in either September or October, being Jewish, it was the religious new year also - the anniversary of the beginning of the world we were told.. The January 1 new year always seemed lacking in reason to me - what was starting anew - just the newly printed calendars.
It is a bit arbitrary. The new year used to start on March 25 - talk about crazy, Could you imagine March 24, 2018 being followed by March 25, 2019? This change of year changed at various dates in various places based on the religion practiced in the area starting in 1582. In the British countries, including their colonies here in America, the change to January 1 as the start of the new year was made in 1750. (And this led to all sorts of problems as there was also an adjustment to the calendar of 11 days at the time to correct errors in the prior adjustments by leap year days. If you were born on April 10, 1720 O.S. (old style), you would change your birthday to April 21, 1720 for example.)
The Lunar New Year is in February. The Muslim New Year occurs at a different time each year in the common (western) calendar although it falls on the same day of the Muslim calendar. It will vary over the entire year over time. (The common calendar is a solar calendar- it is based on the travel of the earth around the sun and how long it takes. The use of the different number of days in various months and leap year day keep the common calendar set more or less fixed against the seasons of the year. While there are a number of lunar calendars ( based on the length of the months at about 29 days in the time it takes the moon to travel around the earth), some of them will insert a leap year adjustment of some sort - in the Jewish calendar it is an extra month added a number of times over a cycle of years - the Muslim calendar does not add an extra month to adjust for the solar year and so its holidays move through the year over a period of years as there is an 11 day difference in the length of the year.)
Okay, now we are getting religion classes and history lessons. Back then people had less stuff to deal with and could keep it better organized. What is going on?
What I am saying (and I have posted similar in the past) is that the day we consider to be the golden time to start organizing (or doing something else) is a fairly arbitrary day. If today is September 5 - it will be a year until the next September 5, so it is also the start of a new year.
Make sense (I hope)?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
Since every day is the start of a new year, do not put off starting or doing something until January 1. Start NOW! Okay, maybe today is too soon, pick a day soon and start THEN! No more procrastination. No more New Year's resolutions left uncompleted. Pick one thing, just one thing and do it. Then do something else - one thing at time adds up.
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