This shelving unit in our dining room needs to go. There are a few tools on it that we need upstairs, but most can go in the basement. In the place of this shelf, we need to put the china cabinet, so we can finally put the china away.
Picked up this Olympus film camera for the lenses to use with my DSLR. Turns out this is the only old Oly the isn’t compatible with my camera, even with adapters. I did cannibalize the flash and lens caps that I can use. The rest is going to goodwill.
Item 2 – old bowling shoes that don’t fit well. I don’t go bowling more than once a year, and when I do, I forget to take the shoes and rent anyway.
Item number 1 – an old jacket I never wear because the pockets are too shallow and my keys fall out. New home – Goodwill.
Entering the “A Thing a Day Challenge” at Unclutterer.
We managed to get a lot done this weekend, and not kill ourselves in the process, which is pretty good for us. Saturday, I put 7 sets of Avon bottles on eBay, which was pretty huge. I have somewhat of an assembly line going on for getting this done, because there are lots of steps and detail to capture. When it comes to selling stuff on eBay, these particular items are a pretty big pain in the butt. You have to gather together several bottles that have something similar about them, unbox them, determine whether the bottles are full or empty, write down the item and information about it, photography the set, box them back up, and find a shipping box that will fit the set, which can be like playing tetris. Then you have download the pictures from the camera, write up descriptions of the set including all pertinent detail, upload the photo and write up the sales description. Then several potential bidders will ask a million questions about the items, some of which will require you to go back and unbox the items, recount them, weigh them, etc. The question they ask is always the one that I didn’t think to write down. Then when the items sell, you have to figure out how to combine shipping if required, pack the shipping box so nothing breaks, address it to the correct person, and haul it all to the post office. Yeah.
Listing items on eBay is no small task, and honestly, when you’re managing lots of different products, it can start feeling like a full-blown logistics operation. This is where container hire, or even exploring shipping containers for sale, can make a world of difference, especially if you’re dealing with larger volumes. Imagine having a dedicated space to store your inventory—somewhere that’s safe, organized, and accessible without having to rearrange your entire garage every time you need to find a specific item. By using a shipping container for storage, you can create a streamlined process, almost like having a mini-warehouse at your disposal, which makes it easier to keep track of your inventory and avoid the headache of sifting through boxes every time a buyer sends a follow-up question. Plus, it’s a lot less stressful knowing that everything is in one place, protected from the elements, and ready to be pulled out, photographed, and shipped when needed. Having a space dedicated just for your eBay operations helps keep things flowing, turning what can be a chaotic process into something a bit more manageable.
I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel on this project – which is to say, all the remaining bottles are unpacked and grouped on a table ready to start in on the process. I think I have about 10 more sets to run through the whole line, which will take perhaps one or two more weekends. I’m hoping to have it all cleaned up and finished before Halloween.
On Sunday we did a lot of organizing upstairs of the bathroom, hallway, etc. I’m very happy with what we accomplished there, too. There’s still a lot to do, but we’ve made progress. I think we’ll have cleaning and organizing most of the winter, but by spring I hope we’ll be done and ready to spend most of our free time with friends instead of around the house trying to manage our stuff.
UPDATE: I re-read this post and realized I sound like giant whiner, and that it sounds like we did nothing but work all weekend, and that I plan to do nothing but work for the rest of the winter.
When it comes to the Avon bottles – I volunteered for this project, so I’m not complaining about doing it at all. I’m just noting that there are lots more steps than I originally thought, and more steps than other eBay sales, so it’s hard to keep track of all the detail. Also, we did do fun stuff this weekend. We ate at Elbow Room and shopped at the mall, among other things. We just also managed to get a lot done, which I’m very happy about. And we’re going to be doing lots of fun stuff this winter, too.
I bought her new CD “The Awakening” last week on a whim – I actually purchased the physical CD because we still haven’t had a spare two or three hours to sit down and sort out what the hell is wrong with the terrabyte server after I killed it vacuuming. So our music situation is still in limbo at home, which is the source of endless frustration for me, because we have tons of music, but no way to get at it, and it’s a situation that’s gone on so long that it’s starting to really affect my mood a lot. And later I came to know about Cy Fair Music & Arts: guitar lessons in houston texas that they teach music at affordable price.
My desire to press “pause” on this endless merry-go-round of obligations just to have SOME TIME to work on these sorts of things hasn’t been fulfilled, and now that it’s getting colder and all the stuff we were supposed to do before winter is still waaaaaaayyyyy undone and now clearly won’t be done before winter, I’m starting to stress out again. The yard sale didn’t help much. This started out being a post about a CD and it veered off somewhere else, which is par for the course lately.
ANYWAY – I popped it into player in the car and listened to most of it on the way to work. Some of the songs at the beginning are a bit cheesy, but I still sang along with “message to myself” anyway, because it’s catchy and I can see it being played a lot on the radio. “Threesome” is pretty funny, although (this sounds strange, I know) I think it needs to be even more twangy country than it is. It’s intended to be a comedic country song (which are my favorite kind of country music songs- the absolute best being “I’m going to hire a wino to decorate our home”) but she needed to paint the broad strokes just a little broader on that one. Several songs, notably “I’ve loved you before” really make me think of my sweetheart, which is my favoritest thing to do on the way to work, so this is a great car CD for me. The later songs on the CD I need to listen to again – but they’re more overtly political, which I like, of course.
In all, I’m glad I bought it. Over the years my musical tastes have grown quite a bit away from female folk/rock songwriters, but there’s lots to enjoy about this CD.
The signs are all strategically placed around the neighborhood. We’ve got the tables set up, and the items out and priced. We’re not too worried about people stealing stuff in the middle of the night; the porch is pretty enclosed and dark so I doubt people will wander up and take stuff. We have 15 lamps for sale. (I’m including some small lights and a light-up sign in the total.) Yep, we like the lighting. I made one last pass through my books and added some more, so there’s lots of fun stuff in there. There are a couple of last minute boxes I want to go through, but it’s not really necessary, since we have a full porch worth of stuff.
But we’re ready for any early birds.
Remaining to-dos:
We managed to get a lot done on Sunday to the house. We spent the morning sorting through some of the garage sale pile. Our friend Jen came by with baby Sam to help us sort some clothes in the early afternoon. Later we hung a bunch of pictures that we just haven’t gotten to yet, and in the evening I sorted lots of our tools in the basement. We don’t really need to get rid of any of those; they’re all useful items that I bought for my old house or that Stephanie’s dad has given her, and we have plenty of storage for them. We just need them to not all be in a jumbled pile when we need to find them for use.
I think we have plenty of stuff together for the yard sale. That’s not to say we have the house organized; there’s still tons to do. We’re maybe 25% done. But I’m excited by how much stuff we’ve pulled together.
We accomplished a lot of sorting and organizing yesterday. In the morning, we cleaned out and reorganized the coat closet in the dining room and identified stuff that either needed to go in the garage sale or needs to be relocated downstairs in the space we liberated last weekend in the basement. At the end it felt like we did Pressure Washing in Roseville CA ! However, the result was satisfying.
Stephanie’s dad came down and helped us get a chunk of the garage cleaned out yesterday, too. There’s lots more to do; we only got about a fourth of it done. But it’s a start. We inherited a lot of “it came with the house” stuff in the garage that we need to discard, but some of it needs to be sold. That will have to happen after the garage sale. We hired #1 Junk Removal in Staten Island NY | Demolitions Rubbish Cleanouts to help us with the junk removal. Some of it will be freecycle, and some will be craigslist. At the same time, he helped us with another garage problem we had; part of the soffit on the south side of the garage was rotting and falling down. I hadn’t noticed it at all. So we need to hire someone to rebuild some of the trim on the garage. For cleaning services in the garage, Top Stockton, California Junk Removal Service | Debris & Rubbish Removal can be checked out! Visit sites like https://www.ozoneskips.com.au/skip-bins-morphett-vale/ if you are planning a major cleaning or decluttering project to help with the collection of trash.
In the evening, we ordered Chinese food, opened a bottle of Shiraz, watched part of the first season of Maude from Netflix, and sorted out and organized Stephanie’s cassette tapes. (She still has tape players in both cars.)
We have lots to do today, too. Our friend Jen is coming over to help do some more sorting.
Yesterday we settled on a date for a yard sale at our house. 2 weeks from now on Saturday, September 22nd. We sorted out lots of stuff to put into the sale this weekend. It’s a very small dent in the scheme of things, but it’s a dent, and I certainly feel better.
I’m not sure I’ve entirely cured the problem of “maybe there’s something I can do with this…” I sorted through lots of small throw rugs, but kept a couple that I love but just don’t have a good place for. Yet. Yeah. I probably need to go through that sorting again.
We had pulled quite a few things out to sell last week, with the intention of joining a friend’s garage sale, but we got scared off by the threat of rain on Saturday morning. That worked out okay, because we had a lot going on this weekend anyway, and loading up and taking stuff to a sale was cutting things pretty tight.