I’m finding a few things overwhelming, so I need to break them down into smaller pieces. Maybe I should set myself a certain number of boxes to empty each day?
Going through the rest of the boxes that are still in the garage is one of the intimidating tasks. I did empty six small “miscellaneous” boxes yesterday. They mostly contained stuff that had been in the utility closet at the apartment and in the garage at the old house before that.
I know the garage will be much less overwhelming as soon as curiousmay9 and sambear get the bikes hung up on the walls, and the last few pieces of furniture go to their new homes.
After that, I’ll be able to get to some of the boxes that are left. I’ll still have to get someone to carry them in for me, but if I can read their labels we’ll know where they should go.
I must establish a medicine cabinet. Everything but the prescription meds was just thrown into a box. Right now, it’s a major production to find Tylenol or a BandAid. I’d like to get some of those staggered riser organizers so that we can SEE everything in the medicine cabinet without having to move the front stuff around.
I’m nearly done with sorting the mess of cables/connectors/computer “stuff.” Seven boxes are ready to go out to the garage cabinets/shelves for storage (power cables, A/V “stuff,” speaker wires, coax cables, telephone “stuff,” things that connect to a car’s cigarette lighter, and power transformers). I need to empty more small boxes so that I can sort the computer stuff by type (video, parallel, serial, USB, and network cables, then various sorts of cards, ancient drives, and speakers) and put them out there too. As soon as we have the PCs here properly set up, we’ll have a lot of stuff to give away.
You know, I seem to do this “sorting” thing at least once a year. How do all those cables get mixed together again?
Well, I need to amend that. I’ve sorted all such things that are on the first floor of the house. curiousmay9 has more upstairs, but I’ve decided to permit those to live in their SEP fields unless she requests help.
Then there’s paperwork. Gods, but it builds up quickly! I haven’t been able to get to the files easily enough since we moved, so nothing has been filed. I swear there are paper demons who do nothing but increase the number of pieces of paper around here and move them to create confusion.
For the most part, books haven’t gone onto bookshelves next. In the bedroom, that’s largely because we need to finish painting the trim and doing some touch-ups on the walls. In the sitting room, we know that we have to take down two walls to repair them, and we’ll be stripping up the carpet in the entire master suite. Bookshelves full of books are FAR more difficult to move than empty ones!
But I do want my books. I miss them. If I start going through the boxes to find the books that can be placed in the living room, I fear I won’t be able to stop.
One of the best things we’ve done is to designate a huge, bright pink tub in the garage as the spot for things that are GOING AWAY. They’re small things, mostly—not worth asking friends if they want them or offering on Freecycle. Every Tuesday, curiousmay9 takes whatever is in the bin and donates it to charity.
As for the Honey-Do list:
1) Some of the speaker or network wire needs to be secured so that it isn’t drooping down and visible (or tripping people).
2) I want the shelves formerly in the guest room remounted in our bathroom as storage that I can get to without bending over or kneeling (which HURTS).
3) Hang the bulletin board and paintings.
4) Anything that’s in the guest room must be moved out
5) The carpet steamer needs to go upstairs
6) The guest room carpet needs to be steamed
7) Then we treat the guest room and most of the rest of the house for bugs
8) The furniture in shadowkatt‘s room moves into the guest room
9) The carpet in her room gets steamed
10) Her room gets the bug spray
11) The blinds that fell need to be rehung, and the last set put in place.
12) Get rid of the hornets’ nest outside
13) Knock down the spiderwebs on the outside of the front windows
14) Clean the windows, inside and out. (I can do the lowest ones inside in small increments, but again, lifting my arms up causes a lot of pain. And we must clean the windows before applying the window film purchased for the top ones in the entryway.)
15) Apply the window film
16) Hang the bikes in the garage
17) Move the spare furniture to the Cottage
18) Replace the damaged duct in the attic
19) Put the air filter into place in the attic
20) Get the mounting hardware for the marker board
21) Hang the marker board
22) But the other blinds
23) Hang up the rest of the blinds
Obviously, this isn’t stuff that’s expected to be finished today 🙂
I know there’s more to be planted in the garden, and it all needs watering. I find it amazing how quickly the young plants wilt!
curiousmay9 is still working on finishing the quarter-round in her bedroom and office/den. She’s sick, so that’s been slowed down further.
Repair of the walls, roof, and window frame is such a big project that I’m not even putting it on the list. It’ll take up an entire weekend at the very least.
Oh, and then there’s school stuff. Right.
