Catzlover’s Cooking

Organizing Wednesday!

My biggest accomplishment this week was sitting down one morning and making appointments.

This sounds simple, but for some reason I must have a telephone aversion that makes calling people a chore instead of something commonplace. I can email until the cows come home, but dialing a phone – yuck!

The call that produced some mild anxiety was canceling my appointment with the gynecologist I had been seeing and making a new appointment with a new gynecologist. Why is it that switching doctors can produce feelings of mild guilt? It shouldn’t, but it does.

Regardless of the guilt, I decided I need to keep looking until I find someone who “gets” the menopause thing. When I asked my now former ob gyn about HRT, she said I would have a stroke on hormones and prescribed an anti depressant without so much as mentioning side effects. Boo Hiss! I felt dismissed and I just don’t have the patience for that sort of thing these days.

Speaking of appointments, why is it that doctors and dentists all have the same hours? Is it a union thing? It seems to me that medical professionals would make as much money if they shook up their hours and made it convenient for more people to get there. And where I live, the new thing is for dentists to be closed on Fridays. What’s up with that?

Okay, done with mini rant.

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

First, I want to give a shout out to my congressman Tom Periello who voted yes on the Health Care Reform bill. Thank you for doing the right thing!

I really did not get much done in my home this back week. Instead, I spent the time helping some tenants get their living space in order since, unfortunately, we have to sell the house.

I did not have the time, nor was it appropriate, to go through everything. But it is amazing the difference that containerizing things makes! Baskets in the kitchen made the odds and ends look tidy. Pink containers in the little girl’s room brought some order to the toys. Canvas containers in the bedroom minimized the clothing piles. I was pleased with the result of some very small changes.

Of course, I am not completely certain that the order will be maintained. I can help some one organize, but I can’t force them to change his or her habits. Sigh.

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

Who would have thought that giving away books could be such an ordeal!

Last week I sorted children’s books and decided to give a boxful of them away on Craig’s List. Well, right away I realized I made a mistake having people contact me via email. My inbox filled with all sorts of folks wanting to pick them up. Then I found myself playing email tag and came to my senses. I revised my ad to include my address and a first come first served message.

Did the emails stop? No.

I have to confess I was the most weirded out by someone who asked me to meet them with the books. Call me hard, but I am not driving 10 miles to GIVE away books!

Finally, I took down the ad and made arrangements with one woman to pick up the books in the morning. A woman arrived, I gave her the books, and I thought my Craig’s List adventure was over. Wrong! An hour or so later a man arrived on my door step and said he had been sent by his wife to pick up something – he wasn’t sure what. I told him the books were gone. Then I got one more email from the woman to whom I had promised the books. She would be sending her husband to pick them up.

Oops! I had given the books away to the wrong person!!!

The lesson here? Always list Craig’s List giveaways first come first served and NEVER respond to emails. Or better yet, just take the stuff to the Salvation Army or some other charitable thrift store. My next batch of books will be going to the local book recycle.

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

My daughter inherited a new set of furniture for her bedroom last summer. I finally got around to clearing away some of the piles of things that were shifted around to make room for the furniture.

In order to do this, I had to clean out a few shelves of books in her room. What a painful process!

I did a major purge of my own books two summers ago. Out went the textbooks from college and some books I just knew I would never read again and the classics I could find in the book store if I just had to read them – will I really ever go hunting for Moby Dick?

But clearing out my children’s books was harder than I thought.

Okay, there were duplicates that I could purge without too much pain. And there were some non-fiction books that were probably out of date. And some books that were just written to promote a television show or movie.

But, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of Eric Carle and Dr. Suess and so many others.

I know I will have to continue peeling out these books. My younger daughter doesn’t read and my older daughter moved on to mature literature long ago. The process will just be slow and a little sad.

And I plan to give them away. No fussing around with selling and bartering. Take them and enjoy!

How was your week?

Sandra

Organizing Wednesday!

Slow progress this week, but progress nonetheless.

I tended to focus on kitchen drawer and bathroom cabinet clean up this week. The goal was not to do major upheaval, but to practice a little maintenance.

Some things just needed to be thrown out:

Expired dog shampoo
Empty medicine containers I keep to send medication to my daughter’s dad’s house – how many do I really need!
Half empty conditioner tubes
Two bottles of cologne that lost their smell
3 packages of fortune cookies
3 wine corks
rubber bands from veggies
twist ties

It’s fascinating the way these things creep into my tidy places! Why do we keep this stuff?

I also managed to take a tub of stuff to our local SPCA Rummage Store. Let’s face it, if you don’t actually get the stuff out of the house, it does not count as purging.

I once was the queen of tubs! Instead of actually getting rid of stuff, I would stick it in a tub. There! Out of sight and put away! Wrong!!!
My house soon overfloweth with tubs. Now when I send a load of stuff out the door, I send the tub along with it. You can’t rely on filling up tubs you don’t have.

My other project this week was to make a candle.

I love candles! The trouble with most candles that I buy is that they never completely burn to the bottom. I decided to try to salvage the remains by remelting them (in old clean cans over water). I had enough leftover wax to make a whole new candle – with three wicks so hopefully it will burn all the way. It felt good not to waste all that wax!

If you need any inspiration, go to Organizing Junkie and check out all the 28 Day Challenge entries.

How was your week?

Sandra