Spenserism

C has recently started wearing Spice bomb cologne.  S  has been very enamored of it, commenting frequently about how good Daddy smells.  The other night,  he said, "If you wear that cologne, you can still attract girls, even if you are old and hairy."  Listen up, Victor&Rolf, my kid just thought of your next ad campaign!

Final Payment

Woohoo!  Just sent the final payment for my student loans.  It was supposed to take 30 years and I got it done in 13.  Proud of myself for having the fortitude and happy to have the burden of that monthly payment off my back!  If it's anything like my home loan, it will take the company about a year to send me my payoff statement and release letter.

Sibling love

My heart flutters when I see them like this.

Final days

I had a lot of stuff crammed into the past few days.  We held a baby shower at the house, S had picture day and back to school night, we bought a new car (it's been in the works for about 5 months, but suddenly became available).

So the end of the time frame count is:

Donate - 51 items of kid clothing, 11 pairs of shoes, 2 pool toys, 21 books.

Total - 85 items

Grand total - 314 items.

Wow - considering the initial challenge floating around is 365 items in 365 days, I did nearly that amount in two weeks.  Lesson learned is that a small amount frequently is quickly evident in the neatness and appearance of the house.  Also, digging into infrequently ventured corners will quickly reveal built up dust and grime that you don't seem to notice on a day to day basis.

Now that the weather is starting to cool off, I would like to work on the garage and the basement storage closet.  I also have some chores around the yard, like digging up an oversize bush and pruning all the perennials back.

Day 12 and 13

I worked overnight last night, so yesterday was taken up with resting and napping before being awake all night.  Today, I managed to work on the upstairs hall bookcase.  I had books and items there that I hadn't touched since I moved in 10 years ago as well as C's books that haven't been looked at since he moved in.  Everything was taken down and sorted then the shelves were wiped down and items were replaced.  It's much nicer looking.

Trash - 1 old binder full of really horrid knitting patterns, mostly freebies or ripped out of magazines, 1 worn out cat scratcher, 10 old magazines

Donate - 15 books, 1 note pad, 2 beer steins, 4 knick knacks, 2 board games,  2 canvas beach bags

Immediately took everything to Goodwill and dropped it off.  I'm having a house full of guests tomorrow for a baby shower, so I can't have piles lingering.

Total - 38 items

Grand Total - 229 items

Day 9, 10, and 11

Day 9 was C's birthday, so I took the day off so we could spend all our time together.  We had a lovely indulgent breakfast at Mercantile, drove through the country, and just loafed around the house enjoying our time together.

Day 10 was busy with lots of errands and driving.  I scrubbed the front porch clean and redecorated for fall.

Trash - 1 used up doormat, 2 faded pillows, 1 rusty lantern

Total - 4 items

Day 11 - The morning was taken up by work related jobs - got my flu shot, fit tested for a respirator and learned how to properly don and doff protective gear in case of a potential ebola patient.  I worked on a dresser drawer and part of my closet.  Also have a large "donate" basket I keep in the closet to toss things into as I go that needs to be emptied.

Donate - 10 pairs of pants/shorts and 1 large basket full of other clothing items.

Total - 11

Grand total - 191 items

Contemplating if it's possible to get a total of 365 items out of the house in the next 3 days.  Means I would have to find 174 items in the next two days.  Wonder how much I can dig into the kids' toys before they notice?

Day 8

I'm more than half way through my project and still going strong.  Yay for me.

Last day of work on this block, so headed back to the office and worked on two small drawers.  Tossed several large handfuls of wrinkled paper as well as dried up, no longer sticky mailing labels and a mostly used up note pad.  Most of the drawers need more organization, but it's nice to get the junk and excess out ahead of time.

Donate - 3 packs of sticky labels in various sizes, 1 pack of sticky back velcro, 1 pack of reinforcement labels,  a small blank book, a UV light used to look for secret cat pee, 1 pack of Martha Stewart tags, and 2 small kid toys. ( If I sneak them out gradually, they won't notice, right?)

Trash - as noted above.  It's hard to quantify random bits of paper, so I'll ignore it for now and consider it trash that needed to be trashed anyway.

Total - 10 items

Grand total - 176