Multiversal Musing -- Deborah Harmes, Ph.D. » donations

The Purge Progress

Deborah — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:01:49 +0000

DVDs by the Dozen go Bye-Bye!

It has been an intensely busy time for the last few weeks. Out of the cabinets, bookshelves, and boxes have come dozens of movies to list online. I know I’m a movie buff, but how in the WORLD did we end up with so many of them — and some still in their cellophane wrapper?

I will be finished with the DVD listings (3 dozen so far!) this week and next week starts the really big BOOK PURGE! Our darling cottage is far to small for 850 books to be atop groaning shelves. Now they will find new homes elsewhere!

Happily, I can also report that I’ve already hauled several loads of household items off to the charity shops.

My dear friend K said to me the other day — “What’s happened to your musings? People miss it when you don’t post your musings!”

Give my poor little hand a chance to recover from the repetitive stress of holding a computer mouse whilst cropping and editing photos — and I’ll be back!

One Load Down, Many More To Go

Deborah — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:13:19 +0000

Progress HAS been made — but there is still so much more to do! Happily though, the first load of donations has filled the back of my station wagon and is ready to go off to the Salvation Army tomorrow afternoon.

Entire back of station wagon is FULL!

It has been a bit startling over the last 3 days to open up box after box and find untold amounts of clothing, shoes, bedding, and decorative items — but those are all now things that someone else will be able to use. There are dozens more boxes to go through and I plan to stay on task until I have thinned out at least 2/3 of the contents of the studio and we can actually use it for the purpose that it was built!

Baby Ginger sometimes accompanies me on these little daytime adventures, but he just gave me a look this morning when I asked him if he wanted to go to the studio. He does understand what I am talking about and knows those words well since that’s where he sleeps every night. But here is the look that he gave me…

You're kidding - right? You want me to get OUT of bed again?

and then he drifted straight off to sleep in his little bed — a recycled French wine box.

Baby Ginger asleep in his French wine-box bed

Drifting In A Sea of STUFF

Deborah — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:04:33 +0000

It was never meant to go on for this long — the procrastination about getting inside those boxes in the studio. They contained all of the items that we packed to put into storage when we left Melbourne 3 years ago and moved to the country. The cottage has been complete for awhile now — 6 and 1/2 months to be specific — and I am only just now getting around to summoning up the intestinal fortitude (and energy!) to attack the vast sea of STUFF.

The Cleanest Corner in the Whole Darned Building!

Truthfully, although there are some valid ‘excuses’ since I was heavily involved with getting my last 2 books launched into the world during all of those six months, I could have begun this process long before now.

I’m being very brave and posting photos so you can see what I am up against!

The Sea of STUFF to Sort Through!

Daunting — it was seriously, hyperventilatingly daunting to walk inside of that 54 square meter/580 square feet all-one-room building and see boxes stacked half-way up to the ceiling in places and opened boxes that had been partially unpacked and then shoved aside.

Many was the time that I had walked in there, taken a look around, and walked straight back out because i didn’t even know where to begin! Then I’d share that sensation with Mark and he would nod his head with widened eyes and say, “I know!”

So while Mark finishes the new diningroom/study addition on the back of the cottage, I have begun to take nibbles from the gargantuan task of sorting out and deciding what to keep, what to donate, what to give away to friends, and what to sell on ebay. I’m definitely in a less-is-more frame of mind because I feel that if I haven’t had any pressing need for those things over the last 3 years, I have probably forgotten well over half of what is in there and those items, for the most part, can now safely be ‘re-homed’ elsewhere.

Off to the studio to get dusty for awhile!

Lighten up!

Deborah — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:37:25 +0000

“Get the camera out of my face,Mum — I’m too hot and grumpy to cope!”

The expression on the face of Baby Ginger aka ‘Bouf Boy’ said it all. It was suddenly quite hot and, oddly for Victoria, quite sticky-humid.

Baby was still heavily furry — his winter coat hanging on a bit longer than usual since we were still having night time temps down to 8C (48F) up until a few days ago — so I spent a half an hour last night briskly brushing and brushing. The amount of fur that came off in wads was enough to spin into yarn and knit a kitten-sized sweater.

Time to lighten up in several other ways, too — need to get inside some of the those boxes that have been stored in the studio ever since we moved to the country from Melbourne 3 years ago. If I haven’t seen those things in all of these years — do I really need them?

Paperwork, artwork and clothing notwithstanding — looks like it’s time to lighten up via a big purge in the coming weeks.

And I’ll need to do it when Sweetie is off at work. I used to think I had an issue with keeping things that were long past their use-by date due to sentimental attachment, but my ‘issues with stuff’ are minor league compared to him!

So, is it ebay singing to me? A well-advertised garage sale perhaps? Donations galore to the charity shops?

Keep you posted — and I may get brave and document the process in photos!