Skip to main content

Retirement, One Week In

It's been good.

My house is on the road to organization. In other words, small pockets of it are cleared out. I have a LONG way to go.

Part of this, I realized after talking to my sister-in-law, whose home I'd always thought perfectly lovely, is that the modern no longer goes through this purge process once a year (Spring Cleaning). I never valued it before, but doing a regular yearly 'turn-out' is something desperately needed in American life. It might be a good plan for a small business, for someone who is mega-organized. Not a professional organizer, but just someone who can come in and nudge that person to:

  • Put away in some organized fashion
  • Give away
  • Sell
  • Throw out
This can be an overwhelming task, needing weeks of planning, moving stuff out of where it's at, cleaning the containers, and putting back ONLY what should be kept. It's not a fast process.

I'm doing it in bite-sized hunks. Much more, and I'd be facing massive back issues, as the task is hard on an aging bone structure. I'm finding some pleasure in relaxing at the end of the day, and seeing the fruits of my labor around me.

Some sites that have helped me, and may help you:

  • UnF**k Your Habitat - expressed inelegantly, but fairly - good use of before and after pictures. That's an idea I've been toying around with, and may start doing.
  • Don't know where to start? This site might give you some ideas.
  • This site really spoke to me. I decided to pare down my life to what it IS, or WILL BE, in ONE area. Not IF I changed ALL of it. I'm still working on that.
    • Just one short part of the above site: "I started to think a lot about the psychological bridge so many of seem to build in our minds over the issue of possessions equaling experience, or as snailspace so aptly phrased it, " ...our acquisitions, come from trying to furnish a fantasy.""
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One Reason to Write

This post sparked mine today. I've been writing (slowly, one anecdote at a time) my memories of my youth, and the stories that I remember being passed down from parents, grandparents, and other long-lived people. I was fortunate - in my mother's family, old age was the default - my grandparents were born in the 19th century, and passed on stories of their youth. My father's family was equally long-lived, but not as talkative (WV vs. Irish-descent). Still, I have an aunt by marriage whose passion is genealogy, and who had compiled a bookshelf of clippings, copies of newspaper stories, and charts of the family, back to pre-Colonial times. If you aren't on Ancestry.com (and, I don't blame you - the price has risen shockingly!), you might want to use a word processing program or app - Google Docs is easy to use, and can be shared with others easily - to write down your memories - personal, or what has been told to you. If you'd rather, set up a videocam, and
2 comments
Read more

Untangling the Mess That is Roadside Service

We're heading out next week to a Physics conference, and, as we are traveling via car, my husband asked me to check out Roadside Assistance. Specifically, did we still have it, or could we get it, on our cell phone plan? The short answer is no. It was discontinued in 2012. The long answer: Sprint - they don't have it AARP - I keep getting information about the WONDERFUL, heavily DISCOUNTED perks you can get for membership in AARP. I never really did join, but they keep sending their magazine each month, along with a card that says I'm a member. Most places accept it for discounts without actually checking to see if I AM a member. I checked their website. They do have a Roadside Assistance plan listed. I click on the link, which pops up a box warning me that YOU ARE LEAVING AARP FOR ANOTHER SITE! I click OK and end up on the site - Allstate. Yes, I think it is somehow affiliated with the insurance company. I check out the rates. Not that cheap, unless you are a
Post a Comment
Read more

First Days of Retirement

AWESOME! Just AWESOME - that's all I have to say about it. I made MAJOR progress on cleaning up the house - bathroom - Check! Living Room - In Process. Desk Cleared - Check! Office - In Process. My goals this month are clearing out paperwork backlog, and general cleaning and organization. So far, so good.
1 comment
Read more