Update: Going Down Under

[Keitha]

It occurs to me that as scrapbookers, aka memory keepers, it's not at all surprising that we're inclined to fall on the 'keep it' side of the spectrum. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's looked at old craft supplies and thought 'oh I remember when/where I got this'. Especially if the nostalgic thought is about an LSS long gone but fondly remembered. HA!

[Monica]

Keitha, that hits very close to home! I actually just pulled out my drawer of flocking jars (which I haven't used in years) and decided it could all go.

[pat-czap]

Off track a bit more...when we moved out of state first time we had garage sale to lighten the load since we did not have basement in new house. Our moving van came on trash day. I got caught up in moment and pitched my wedding dress on top of trash. I have 3 sons. Who would want my dress which was a sample and bought on the cheap, but was lovely. I did not even think about donating dress. Lesson learned the hard way, but now I have a hard time letting go of things. A very hard time.

I am currently trying to organize and lighten my belongings again, never know when we will be moving to our forever home. I found a check from my dad, to one of my sons dated 2007.

[Keitha]

Pat, I know your post wasn't particularly meant to be amusing but I did laugh, sorry. The cheque thing - these days its not unusual to see cheques lying around with virtual deposits. Makes me nuts.

[pat-czap]

Pat, I know your post wasn't particularly meant to be amusing but I did laugh, sorry. The cheque thing - these days its not unusual to see cheques lying around with virtual deposits. Makes me nuts.

Keitha, it is funny!
The check was in a Christmas card from that year, 2007. My dad passed in 2012. Being the good mom that I am, , I sent my son a check for the amount with an apology.

More clearing out is needed.

[Keitha]

Keitha, that hits very close to home! I actually just pulled out my drawer of flocking jars (which I haven't used in years) and decided it could all go.

Monica, yesterday I pulled out some old flocked rub-ons from 2011, and I'm happy to report put a couple on my layout. I'm sorry these have been around so long though; I had to fight with them, and am afraid I won't be able to salvage the rest of the package. I was never interested in loose flocking but wish Prima would make more of these; I do like different textures on my pages.

[Keitha]

Pat, I know your post wasn't particularly meant to be amusing but I did laugh, sorry. The cheque thing - these days its not unusual to see cheques lying around with virtual deposits. Makes me nuts.

Keitha, it is funny!
The check was in a Christmas card from that year, 2007. My dad passed in 2012. Being the good mom that I am, , I sent my son a check for the amount with an apology.

More clearing out is needed.

Pat, you definitely get the Good Mom award!

[jfugina]

This thread has totally motivated me to start making an honest attempt to go through our storage area, and I made a bit of progress this week. I've come to terms with the fact that it may literally take us wanting to move into a new house before Rob realizes that the thousands of miles of cables and the literally hundreds of computer components are not worth moving. And a lot of that stuff is piled in the public spaces of our house because there's no room left in storage. So I decided to take a look at storage and see if I could do some purging from there, and make room for the electrical junkyard to live until Rob is ready to deal with it.

I've had some success and have actually made a couple of (small) goodwill runs this week. There were a few boxes on our storage shelves that were just... boxes. Nope, broken down and gone. Some things were boxes with very little in them, and what was in them was literaly garbage that had been moved from our other house 20 years ago. Likely an arm swiped across a desktop, and put in a box, and never opened. In an effort to be nice, I did pull out some stuff that seemed like it would be sentimental. But the rest - right into a trash bag. Business cards from 20 years ago? Don't need 'em. A coffee mug full of 20 year old ink pens? Toss the pens and wash the mug and put in the cabinet.

I even found three reusable grocery bags of stuff that Rob brought home from the last day of his last job - 7 years ago. I went through all three bags and consolidated down to 1. Last night, Rob finally got curious about what I was up to, and went back and looked in the storage area, and brought out the consolidated job stuff bag, and said "hey - look what I found!", and was absolutely none the wiser that that one bag used to be three. So... it's slow going, and I'm being a bit mean, but it's "tough love" and he'll probably appreciate in the long run that we don't have as much stuff to go through when we do actually move.

[Monica]

Good for you, Julie! Every little step taken to purge and clean out things is one more step in the right direction.

[mpizzazz]

Nice work on the consolidated 7 year old job stuff and the 20 year old stuff, Julie! Keep up the good work! Doesn't any of that computer stuff he is saving go out of date? Would be nice if it did!

[jfugina]

Nice work on the consolidated 7 year old job stuff and the 20 year old stuff, Julie! Keep up the good work! Doesn't any of that computer stuff he is saving go out of date? Would be nice if it did!

So the deal with the computer stuff is complicated. Yes, it's old. And in many cases, that's the point. There are three(? I think) terminals back there - huge and heavy. They're from the mid-80s and were actually what we originally used when we were in college and connecting to the mainframe. They belong in a museum. They'll be the last thing I ask him to consider parting with. Maybe we can agree that it'll be fun for him to have one, but that he only really needs one of any given historical thing. Old network switches also have a kind of form factor that screams how old they are, and for some reason, that hold some kind of appeal too. Then there are the cables - that's the part I can't quite wrap my head around. And I've snuck small collections of cables out of the house before without him even noticing. But I have to be careful to leave enough behind for him to sort through himself.

I've made it clear to him that I'm working towards having our house tidy enough that I won't be embarrassed to have guests this summer. I'm holding out hope that the pandemic will be enough under control that I can have a proper graduation party for Nicole. He's doubtful that we'll be in the clear by then, but I choose to have hope. Therefore, the attempted purge shall continue.

[mpizzazz]

Nice work on the consolidated 7 year old job stuff and the 20 year old stuff, Julie! Keep up the good work! Doesn't any of that computer stuff he is saving go out of date? Would be nice if it did!

So the deal with the computer stuff is complicated. Yes, it's old. And in many cases, that's the point. There are three(? I think) terminals back there - huge and heavy. They're from the mid-80s and were actually what we originally used when we were in college and connecting to the mainframe. They belong in a museum. They'll be the last thing I ask him to consider parting with. Maybe we can agree that it'll be fun for him to have one, but that he only really needs one of any given historical thing. Old network switches also have a kind of form factor that screams how old they are, and for some reason, that hold some kind of appeal too. Then there are the cables - that's the part I can't quite wrap my head around. And I've snuck small collections of cables out of the house before without him even noticing. But I have to be careful to leave enough behind for him to sort through himself.

I've made it clear to him that I'm working towards having our house tidy enough that I won't be embarrassed to have guests this summer. I'm holding out hope that the pandemic will be enough under control that I can have a proper graduation party for Nicole. He's doubtful that we'll be in the clear by then, but I choose to have hope. Therefore, the attempted purge shall continue.

Maybe he can find a museum that wants some of that old computer stuff. When we were in NZ some years ago, we went to a big museum in Dunedin and one section was all old technology and also old every day items like household appliances, toys, cars, buses. It was great and Ray recognized the computer stuff from when he started out back in the punch card era. He probably has one amongst his treasures. Even our local museum here has displays of the evolution of various household items like washing machines, toasters, etc.

[pbp908]

When I was doing all of the kitchen work last year I cleaned out 100s of pounds of items. George almost had a heart attack when I suggested we ditch 4 of the broiler pans. We can only use one at a time, right? For some reason the 40+ year old collection of cookbooks that were donated didn't bother him a bit. Several large boxes of scrap supplies were donated at the same time, along with a ton of books that I knew I'd never read.

Next is the closet. Pray for me.

[Monica]

I just pulled out a Crockpot (smaller size) and two electric griddles (one small, one large) from a cupboard and added them to the Goodwill pile, along with a couple round veggie trays with lids that I haven't used in forever. And suddenly I had space to put all the baking sheets in the same spot, and room for both the Belgian waffle maker and the nerd one that makes waffles of Captain America's shield.

I think I'm tackling another cupboard tomorrow to see what I can get rid of!

[mpizzazz]

the way things were around where lived in MD last year, I thought everyone was purging then. Obviously, it is still going on across the country.

Keep up the good work!