Saturday, July 25, 2009

Our Basement

What a weird few days it's been.

We have water damage in the basement, much worse than we originally thought. I have some mold issues, but they don't seem to be as bad as it looked two days ago when we started. The #1 problem is that we have so much crap down there, it's very difficult to tell what's going on. So that's been my focus the last couple of days.

I figure, I have to purge/sell/whatever about 70% of what's down there in order to make this liveable space. I have no room to move, much less to breathe down there. This is difficult.

I have emptied two of the bookcases down there, and they don't seem to have as much damage as I originally thought. I purged a lot of books. Dh has been very helpful and purged VHS tapes that have been sitting down there for years.

So far, 2 bags of books that have to be thrown because of mold damage, but this will become worse. I found out about the damage because I took one of my photo albums out of the case, and it has creeping mildew. Luckily, my mom has copies of the pics and she's planning to scan them in anyway. So much of that will need to go.

I took a carload to Goodwill today, and I"m sure there will be more to go very soon. I have piles and piles to go on ebay, which I hope I will get to tonight. Maybe this will get me to my $500 goal of sales by the end of summer. Not really how I wanted to do it, but...


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Sunday, July 19, 2009

Another thing off my summer list...and some good deals.

Yesterday, dh was feeling perky, so we were able to fix the table that I use for ebay stuff. That was awesome! It broke last summer (the leg broke out of the holder, so you couldn't stand the table up) and it's been sitting on it's side in the basement ever since. Dh made the brace and we fixed it! Yay! Now I can stop using that as an excuse for not getting ebay stuff ready -- I need to re-organize that area, and I have to figure out what's wrong with the Internet connection down there, though. But one more thing to cross off the List!

And my coupons for Electrasol came yesterday. Just in time for the last day of Target's sale -- $3.49 for the 32 pack box. That would mean $1 + tax per box -- and with 10 coupons, that's 320 loads (which would last us almost 2 years) for $13 after the cost of the coupons. That's about 4 cents a load. I'll take it. Of course, Target was out, so I had to get rainchecks. But they were substituting Cascade 32 packs for $2.19, and I had a $1 off coupon, so I was able to get one of those as well as the rainchecks for the Electrasol. I may order more coupons, I'm not sure. I can get the powder for free from Dollar General with the coupon, and we have extra hard water -- they suggest that you use both the cup and the overflow cup for hard water, so having the boxes of powder on hand might be nice...not sure yet.

My stockpile is growing again, though, which is nifty. If I can get it looking decent, maybe I'll take some pics again...it's been awhile since I showed it off. :)

Friday, July 17, 2009

Do one thing at a time

I've hit the point in the summer vacation where I'm bored just sitting around in front of the TV and computer. The good news is...this means stuff will start getting done!

I've been allowing myself to do just parts. I always do this to myself -- that I avoid doing things because I don't have the stamina to do ALL of it (like, finishing the entire bathroom remodel from a few years ago, or getting the whole basement back in order). I've given myself permission to do some. It's okay that I do part and then walk away to finish another day. The really funny thing is that stuff is getting done!

I've gotten about 6 bags of stuff to Goodwill and 3 bags of garbage out of the basement. And you know what? It's already out of the house - I already took it to Goodwill even though it wasn't an entire carfull of stuff. I did some filing, too.

Another example: I really dislike the setup I have for our shredder. It's the kind that fits over the top of a garbage can. Well, I don't have a can for it, and it doesn't fit right on the can I have in the office, so I was going to take the $30 gift card we have for Best Buy and buy a new shredder. It occurred to me -- duh...just get a new garbage can! Found one that will work at Walmart for $3. It will be set up as just a shredder, and I can keep it up there all the time. Voila!

Today, I worked on the spray painting in the bathroom. We chose a stone texture spray paint for the register and the laundry chute (this is when we remodeled the bathroom 3 summers ago and never finished). Well, I found the spray paint, and got it all set up -- and finished the spray painting for the room! I was so excited and proud of myself!

So, I'm counting this as working on money stuff, just because. This is stuff we paid for years ago, and organization and getting this done is worth a LOT to me.

Wow...I may even finish the bathroom remodeling stuff this summer! That would ROCK my WORLD! lol


As for sales: sold another book on half.com and got the deposit. I have a LOT ready to go on ebay as soon as I figure out the internet issues downstairs.



Saturday, July 04, 2009

Fruit!

I've had some good karma around fruit lately...sounds weird, hey? Well, a friend is going on vacation and asked me to pick his raspberries so the fruit doesn't go bad, and so they grow back in. I was going to go this morning, but there was rain on the radar and I didn't want to get wet (and then, it didn't even rain!). I'm hoping, fingers crossed, to go tomorrow.

But then I was at Woodman's today, and I always check out their produce "old" bins. They usually bag produce on the verge of going bad into bags marked 79 cents, and I'm usually pretty lucky as to when they get them out - which is kinda weird, but very good. Well, today they had cherries. I got two bags, and each bag was somewhere between 1-1/2 and 2 pounds. I got them home...and they are some of the BEST cherries I've ever had! They aren't your regular bing cherries, but other than that, I have no clue what they are. They're really big - about half the size of a plum - and very sweet. I actually went back to get more! I ended up with 6 bags, so probably about 10 pounds. Most of that went into the dehydrator tonight, with a chunk left for baking. I might even try some cherry cordial - we'll see how brave I am. ;)

I really love putting food up for later. Canning, dehydrating, freezing -- I really love it. Don't enjoy cooking all that much, but the putting up...yeah. I enjoy that. Weird, hey?

Well, hopefully I can get some raspberries tomorrow...