Out the Door

Just what it looks like, a pile of random stuff.  It's been accumulating for a while, awaiting a trip to the thrift store. 
A few items of note: 

•     Aqua globes - as seen on TV! 
•     plastic food storage containers whose functions are being replaced by glass (and I'm not counting these on my 1000 things list, because they were more or less replaced one-to-one
•     a wooden tray, which I like in concept but have never successfully deployed in the real world.  It is not comfortable, for the way I sit, to eat off this tray, or even to have my laptop on it
•     a cheap manicure kit, a gift from the very sweet security guard at my office
•     a because-it-looks-cool coin purse, another item I like in concept but not in actual function.  I was using it to hold business cards for awhile, but that wasn't working out either
•     blue vases sent to me by my godmother, having supposedly been my brother's.  More stuff I don't actually remember myself, and of less importance than many many other items of his that I still have
  

Christmas is a Time for Giving

Specifically, for giving away holiday stuff I will never use again. Here is how it appears in my spreadsheet (where I am tracking my attempt to get rid of 1000 Things)

Christmas-small rugs	2
Christmas-boxes of glass ornaments	5
Christmas-individual ornaments	12
Christmas-tapestry stockings	2
Christmas-mugs	4
Christmas-gift bags	6
Christmas-decorative tins	3
Christmas-pkg gift decorations	1

Even with this lot, and another pile of my grandmother's Christmas things I will give to my cousin, I still have 3 bins of stuff, probably too much for a person who isn't really into decorating for Christmas.  But the things I am keeping are 1) sentimental and/or 2) small scale for the type of small scale display I might theoretically muster.  The only toughie in the to-go pile is the mugs - bought about a decade ago at a thrift shop, I've actually used them quite a bit - they are a good size, attractive, and dishwasher-safe.  But I really have way too many mugs* to justify having holiday-specific ones.

*And my uncle recently gave me two more, one of which was allegedly my grandfather's, aaugh.

Christmas is a Time for Giving

Specifically, for giving away holiday stuff I will never use again. Here is how it appears in my spreadsheet (where I am tracking my attempt to get rid of 1000 Things)

Christmas-small rugs	2
Christmas-boxes of glass ornaments	5
Christmas-individual ornaments	12
Christmas-tapestry stockings	2
Christmas-mugs	4
Christmas-gift bags	6
Christmas-decorative tins	3
Christmas-pkg gift decorations	1

Even with this lot, and another pile of my grandmother's Christmas things I will give to my cousin, I still have 3 bins of stuff, probably too much for a person who isn't really into decorating for Christmas.  But the things I am keeping are 1) sentimental and/or 2) small scale for the type of small scale display I might theoretically muster.  The only toughie in the to-go pile is the mugs - bought about a decade ago at a thrift shop, I've actually used them quite a bit - they are a good size, attractive, and dishwasher-safe.  But I really have way too many mugs* to justify having holiday-specific ones.

*And my uncle recently gave me two more, one of which was allegedly my grandfather's, aaugh.

Well. I'm back.

Been busy, then out of town, so not much posting lately.  but I have been filling boxes and making piles of things to go away.  More on that later.  As for these bits of random stuff - top pic, clockwise from 12 o'clock: 1) another eyeglass case.  I have discussed in a previous post why I do not use these.  Toss. 2) a spindle meant to hold receipts, purchased years ago at an antique store.   I actually used this for a long time, as I would use it's intended purpose prior to entering the data into MS Money or Quicken.  But I don't let receipts accumulate that much now, and the thing is kind of a hazard.  Donate.  3) a DVD recorded off VHS of my friend's yoga guru of choice.  Friend no longer does yoga, and I never managed to get into it.  Recycle. 4) Book I thought might have value on eBay, but then I realized I'd smacked a personalized bookplate into it, greatly reducing potential value.  Donate.  5) 2 bits of miscellaneous plastic, function unknown, and a lone earring.  Toss. Bottom pic:  Holiday address labels, from my previous address. 

See the full gallery on Posterous

Dad's Drawers

I hadn't planned on it, but I wound up doing a fair bit of tidying up on/around the desk in the library/home office.  It is a bad place for clutter, since the long-haired cat (who has nine layers of fur and sheds as if it were an Olympic event) likes to sit there.  The surface has been pretty hopeless since the day I moved in, but as of last night I thought, this could look decent if I can clear some of the things off the right side.  Those happen to be things I definitely want to keep, but they don't have to be "out."  I know, I'll put them in one of the desk drawers!  Now, I knew at least one of those drawers was usable, since my spare laptop lives there.  Mistakenly, I thought the others were, too, but really, not so much.  They contain very random small crap, some of which is pictured below.  From left to right, a bit of everything - things to toss (1999 Pocket Pal calendar), relocate to my office (post-its) , donate (tape measure with Suburban Propane logo), or keep (sliding square, which is very cool and which I will actually use).

The reason I was working in that room in the first place is I'm trying to make progress on my curtains.  For now (and the last several months) the fabric in there has been just draped over the rods, but not actually made up.  I started some of the work yesterday (after finally hemming some of the ones in the living room) and that gave me the momentum to do a little bit more.  Today I'm going to try to sew the side hems.

SOMEDAY (there's that word), after I've finished the curtains and decluttering, I'll be refinishing that desk.  My father used it as a worktable for his model train hobby, so it's in pretty rough shape.  But it is from my brother's house (see multiple previous posts) and has potential and would really be perfect in that room once I have it fixed up.

In Hot Water

I have two, count 'em, TWO hot water bottles.  I think I bought one for myself, and then was given the other by either my mother or by my best friend.  I think the second one came with a fleece cover, long since gone (I hope).  I do kind of think my friend gave it to me.  I have a vague memory that I introduced her to the relief to be found in a hot water bottle, but she liked this other kind because it has a thicker construction, and for the fleece cover.  The thing is, that's exactly why I don't like it - to me, it doesn't transfer heat well enough or long enough.
It's not like I use one regularly, anyway - I won't use it during the summer, when it it hot, and during the winter, I don't want to stand around freezing trying to fill it with hot water, which I then need to dry off the bottle.  I'll try to use pain relievers first - the water bottle is awkward when I need it most, when I'm trying to sleep.
Going forward, how often will I need the thing?  I should be hitting menopause before the one I do use wears out.

Gilty as Charged

More from the brother's estate - two large mirrors. My mother had one in her home, and I had one in mine. Mine (which I have actually had on the wall in the condo) has kind of a nouveau look to it. It goes well with the period of the current house, it is a style I like, and I like it enough to have utilized it in the past. I'd like to think the main reason I don't have it up yet in this house is that I need to do some kind of touch-up on the frame. But the chances are decent that I will hang it eventually.

The other one, Mom's, is less my style. It is a gold gilt frame, something you would use to frame a portrait of your great grandfather or something. It is nice, just not my thing. It wasn't really Mom's thing, either, I know she only displayed it because it had been my brother's. When she died, it got boxed up, and it is still boxed (six years later), so no photo. I opened the box just enough to make sure it isn't damaged, but it is packed well and I don't feel like messing with it.

If I didn't already own the deco mirror, and saw it in a store, I might wish I could have it. The other one I would probably pass without a second glance. Right there is probably all I need to know.

Like so many things that I keep because they were at one time owned/valued by my brother and mother, I have to get real over whether they would have wanted me to feel that I HAD to keep these things, especially when I have many, many more items that meet these qualifications.

The mirror really is rather big. I hope it will fit in my car so I can get it to the thrift store.

Words Fail Me

And here is the flipside to the previous post.  This painting is from my late brother's house.  Maybe he painted it, maybe he didn't.  I have no idea who (or what) the subject is.  If this painting was displayed in his house, I don't remember it.  It was never displayed in my mother's home.  It never made it to the wall in my home, and I don't wish it to.  Zero reason to keep, now that I think about it.  I just hadn't thought about it.

So it is going in the "donate" pile . . . um, maybe someone will want the frame. . .

Resolved:

Resolved: I don't need a portable DVD player anymore, as discussed in a recent post.

Resolved: I don't need 2 bicycle locks - I scarcely ride my bicycle anymore; one will suffice.

Resolved: I don't need to the lockset I bought years ago for reasons I am too tired to go into right now. And it doesn't match my current hardware in this house.

Resolved: I don't read the material I get from the Tahoe Rim Trail Association. The only activity in which I am willing to engage is 1) hiking, on my own when I feel like it an 2) occasionally contributing money to the cause.

Resolved: I don't know why I saved an unfilled Ambien scrip of my mother's (I know what you are thinking, but if I were going to abuse something, it wouldn't be this) and the label off of a box of prescription Lidoderm.

Resolved: I don't need old, used padded envelopes. I can utilize my ample supply of bubble wrap and brown paper bags if I need to mail books.

Resolved: I don't need the deco lusterware tea set that's been waiting patiently by the donation pile for months while I tried to think about something to say about it.

Resolved: I don't need the plastic over-the-door hangers that are a relic of apartment life. I can drill holes in shit now, if I want. Also, with less stuff, I shouldn't need to resort to much stored on hooks anyway. None yet so far in this house.

Resolved: I don't need the bracelet I bought when I hadn't waited long enough for the (pre-medical procedure) drugs to wear off.

Resolved: I don't need the little teapot ornament I bought at the airport, of all places, when I though I wanted to start collecting the stupid things.

Resolved: I don't need the rest of the shelf brackets I bought to fix the ones at the condo I'd sheared off.

Resolved: I don't need the jewelry-making supplies I bought for some one-off project a year ago.

Resolved: I don't need the extra phone filter devices I still have too many of. They came with my modems and I think I wound up with twelve. I need ONE, and one for backup, although I'm sure I could get one at Radio Shack if needed.

Resolved: I don't need the little stained glass piece I let sit in my kitchen for a decade. I've only kept it so long because it was probably made by my late brother.

Resolved: I don't need an aerial photo poster of San Francisco. I will never frame or display it. It was a cooler thing to have years ago, before I could call up satellite photos of most of the planet from my cellphone.

Silverware, The Sequel

In a previous episode, I decided I didn't need the set of Pier One silverware that had supplemented the Fleur de Luce I was already using. So this episode is about the Fleur de Luce (FdL) itself. .  Recap: both are being replaced by my mother's "good" silverplate in the Queen Bess pattern.

The FdL must have entered my life, as so many objects have, by way of my brother's estate.  I honestly don't remember.  I just know that at some point, while I was still living in the apartment, I built my set off of eBay, and it's been my everyday silverware for more than 10 years.  It's perfectly nice.  And I am keeping a few pieces - small tea spoons, the butter knife, and some serving pieces.  Here it is worth repeating one of my show's themes, that I don't entertain much, no one cares what my silverware looks like, so I might as well keep, and NOT keep, whatever I please.  I have other random stuff, too - the spoon in my sugarbowl is yet another pattern, one whose name I don't recall at the moment.  And I have five or six pieces of my Dad's favorite silverware, from the Santa Fe railroad.  That little bit has large spoons the QB set lacks, so all is good.

Theoretically the FdL is "worth something."  I've got a few pieces listed on eBay, but there don't look to be any bites, so this pile may get a little bigger.  It's going in the donation box, and hopefully someone who recognizes it for what it is will score a good deal.

Salt and Pepper (Compare and Contrast)

Bought the boxed (note yes, the original box)  shaker set a few years ago, looking to make my dining room table, such as it is, look more like it belongs to a grown up.  Didn't work, since, like many people, my table is mostly a place for me to store junk mail.  The shakers, specifically, were used mostly to prop up priority stuff I didn't want buried in the regular layers.
So I've gotten better at dealing with paper, and on the right you can see the shakers I actually do use.  The blue pepper grinder with the faucet handle sufficiently amuses my few guests, and the plain salt shaker is fine for my everyday salting needs (my last blood pressure reading: 90/65, thankyouverymuch)

Why, Why . . . You Masher, You!

OK, technically is it a ricer, not a masher.
Allegedly, the texture produced by putting potatoes through this device (it works like a garlic press) is vastly superior to that produced by the mashing/mixer method with which I was raised.  I let the thing sit around for several years before checking out its story, which I just got around to a few weeks ago.
Meh, not impressed.  I mean, it was fine, but nothing to write home about, you know?  And again, I have to examine the way I actually live.  I don't make mashed potatoes just for myself; I only did it this one time to test the gadget.  I think it would be a pain for a large quantity of potatoes.  I can't even think of the last time I made mashed potatoes for company, either. 

Let me speak here of another gadget, not shown, which I do use, just for a compare-and-contrast.  I have a mandolin ("It was a Gift!") which I use infrequently, but I get output that I am unable/unwilling to duplicate by hand, so it gets to stay.

Ain't gonna happen

Basically this is another episode of "More miscellaneous crap," and the star of the show is the photo album.  I bought this a few years ago when I thought I was going to get into scrapbooking.  Yeah, right.  I cannot think of any circumstance, under any condition, in which I would sit down with someone and go through an album of my childhood photos.  The real solution is to get rid of the album, scan the photos to ease my conscience, load them into a digital photo frame if I really wanted to look at them, and use a custom book application like Blurb if I really wanted to have a book at some unforeseen and unlikely point in the future..
The shower mat, a minor character, is a recent acquisition, purchased because the bottom of my bathtub is a little off-looking.   But getting a bathmat full of soap scum and my hair is even more disgusting to me, so I gave this a bleach rinse and am going to donate it.  Yes, I still had the packaging.
The photo frame and light string are just extras in the scene and will be receiving no credits in this production.

Books on the Go

More books.  I doubt this will be the last load.  I've already blogged about a couple of there.  Others are duplicates, things I will never read again, things I never read in the first place, the usual.  Some are cheap paperback editions of the classics - these are available instantly on Kindle should I need to read them again.  I don't really know when that's going to happen for The Digest of Roman Law. 
Off to Friends of the Library.
Having said that, I have plenty of books in the public domain of which I am definitely keeping the dead-tree version. In many cases, these are books that have been translated from other languages.  Some translations are better than others, and I've noticed that translated Kindle editions, especially the free/$.99 ones, get bad reviews on this score.  I actually still read 19th century French literature because I like it, so this is important to me.  So I got rid of Dickens and Shakespeare, but I'm keeping Zola and Balzac.

The Fabric of Our Lives

If you are any sort of crafter with wood, yarn, fabric, or thread, you probably keep leftover material in case you can use it for another project.  Yeah, right.  Either you don't really use it at all, or you use only a tiny fraction of what you save.  Since sewing isn't even my primary craft (I only make curtains, chair covers, really simple stuff) there is no real likelihood that I will have a chance to use leftovers.  That's what the middle two fabrics are.  The one on the right is a piece of fabric that floated around my mother's home, for presumably the same reason, for as long as I can remember, so it is at least 40 years old.  Anyway, I've packaged them up nicely and labeled them in hopes that they'll do some good in someone else's to-do pile.
The piece on the left is a bedskirt.  I don't have those colors/that pattern on my bed anymore.  I do still have the sheets, since I use them on the futon for guests (already a totally endangered species in my environment, anyway), but I'm not going to bother with the bedskirt there. 
The impractical comforter from this set was documented in an early March post.

Measure twice

"Measure twice, cut once."  Or not at all, in my case, because I did *not* measure properly for this custom-made bathroom mirror, and could not install it as planned during my 2010 remodel.  Tried to sell it on Craigslist, no luck.  It's been bumping from condo to storage to house for two years now.  Today, I dropped it off at the local Habitat for Humanity store, along with some window hardware and some other random bits of homeowner flotsam such as a 1/2" plastic elbow, a paint can lid, a faucet handle.
The window hardware consisted of: some drapery rods from the condo, and I'm using new hardware in this house, so it can go, and also two sets of vertical blinds from the extra bedroom, which I'm sure was fine when it was used as an office, which is what I think the previous resident used it for, but I'm going to put in something a little more decorative.

Misc Crap

The boda bag was a gift from my brother, who somehow retained the memory that I really liked using a boda bag for my water supply for hiking . . . twenty-five years ago.  It is kinda cool, but I use lightweight aluminum bottles now. 
The chain is for some panels of cheap stained glass I had in the condo.  From day 1 I installed those with small hooks, because of where I was putting them.  I will never use this chain. 
The handled object is one of those jobbies for scraping dead skin off the soles of your feet.  It doesn't work very well.  I kept it because it has a Dr. Scholl logo and I think it is from the days when my mother worked for that company. 
The eyeglass case is damaged (the metal bits that make it open/shut have fallen out and gotten lost).  I generally just wrap my glasses in a bit of microfiber cleaning fabric, anyway.
The foam is from Dad's model train storage.
The carabiner is a cheap giveaway from my company.

These Boots are Made for Walkin'

Don't know how long I've had these - 8 or 9 years, I would guess.  They are still in decent condition.  I didn't wear them at all this last fall/winter.  I have other pairs of boots (one brown, one black) that are more, well, work-appropriate.  I also have a grungier, lower-heeled old pair that is suitable for mucking around in. 
This pair can go to someone else who hasn't outgrown that look yet.  And yes, that is the original box.

Unjustified

I purchased this from an online overstock bookstore the first week of February 2008.  It was $9.95 (shipping for this plus two other books was $4.70).  So, it's been sitting around for about four and a half years.  As I have a landscape now, it seemed like a good time to see if it would be useful.  Well, no, not really.  There's nothing wrong with it, it just doesn't have much that isn't available to me from other sources like the internet in general,  gardenweb in particular, a Guide to Vegetable, Fruits, and Herbs to which I refer often, and my mother's and grandmother's copies of the Western Garden Book, which are also likely to offer some useful region-specific advice.
So this gets added to the two boxes of books that will be going out of here in the next couple of weeks.  Nothing to justify holding on to it.

N.B.  When looking in Quicken to see when I bought this, I noticed a purchase the same week from Circuit City.  It was for an sd card, which of course now I could probably buy at a gas station.

It's a Gift

Getting rid of gifts, one of everyone's least favorite categories, I'm sure.  The Kidlet gave this to me for Christmas 2007.  It was a thoughtful gift, as she was aware that I am extremely fond of popcorn.  I have in fact been using it for its intended purpose going on four and a half years now.  But you know what? I can just as easily eat popcorn out of one of my many, many mixing bowls, just like I always did before.  Attempting to justify keeping this bowl, I tried to use it to actually pop the corn in the microwave (which I won't be trying with my other bowls - metal and/or pre-microwave era), but apparently it isn't made for that (it *is* labeled dishwasher safe, and is *not* labeled microwave-safe), and for my troubles I got some strange sounds and burned food. 
It also doesn't hold very much.  I would consider this a plus if I was worried about portion control, but I don't consider that an issue with popcorn. 
Off to the donation box.