Baby Steps: A Leap Forward

The last time I wrote in any details about my BabySteps and purging our house of stuff and getting the place organized was way back in September… back before the mold behind the microwave… which led to the remodel

We’re getting ready for Remodel Phase 3 (removing carpet and having staircase installed and trim-work up the stairs and in the loft outside the bedrooms). The loft is where the computer, printer, software, etc. has lived for 15 years…

Well, there’s more in the loft than that… the area is one MAJOR hot spot! As the FlyLady says, “A Hot Spot is an area, when left unattended will gradually take over.”

Life just interfered and the loft got ignored…

There is a lot of stuff and I just can’t deal with it all right now… not the “right way”… using the FlyLady’s BabySteps… so some of the stuff is getting packed up and I will be sorting through it as I unpack. I will not leave a bunch of boxes sitting around for years… been there done that and hated it… was a victim of C.H.A.O.S. (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome). I don’t want to live that way any more. In fact, since the remodel, even with stuff still waiting to get put away… I will let people in the house!!! Not a party, but friends… partying will come when all the remodeling is done and I can breathe a sign of relief. 😀

As a “house” rule, we recycle more than we throw in the trash. 😀 As part of the preparation I have started sorting through the years of accumulated stuff… UGH!!!

I had some stuff that I can’t put in the recycling cart… such as these…
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YES, those are 3.5” floppies! I have no flipping idea why I still have these… they’re gone now. Oh yeah… what I didn’t get a picture of was the 5.25” floppies!!! OMGosh! What the heck … I have been ignoring for who knows how long?!?!?! Oh, I’m sooooo overwhelmed. 🙁

After I tossed them I had a friend suggest I put them on Freecycle. DUH! I wish I’d thought of that?! I’ve seen a car in Seaside, Oregon that has 5.25” floppies all over it. Strange what people with do with old stuff!

I had four of those small trash cans of floppies! Other than floppies, not much ended up in the trash… 😀 😀 Most of it is getting recycled. We have a 60-gallon recycling roll-cart… well… as you can see it was full! There was more than will fit in the roll-cart… thanks to my neighbors who let us put stuff in their carts!!! 😀
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Yep magazines those are YEARS old! Ones I just hadn’t taken the time to get rid of. Oh, I’m so overwhelmed! I wasn’t following what the FlyLady says… don’t take on more than you can do in 15 minutes… I was a woman on a mission… I’m going to regret it. My back and bum/tailbone hurt, but I pushed forward…

The Leap Forward from the title comes from the fact that in THREE EVENINGS AFTER WORK I cleared out the loft! Stuff was boxed up or recycled or tossed…

I’ve seen all this stuff neatly organized on bookshelves, but didn’t want to get overwhelmed so I just ignored it… it wasn’t until I started going through it that I felt sooooo very stupid! So what better way to embarrass myself than post it on the internet!?! Oh yeah, I could have posted the “before” pictures… but I was on a mission and totally forgot… but in hindsight… I am so embarrassed that I didn’t let people see the mess. What the heck was I doing????

Oh… I know… ignoring all the crap for WAY to flipping long! 🙁

Do you have stuff you need to toss?
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