Progress

 I made another $12 today - sold some Staffordshire saucers to someone who makes wreaths with them.  We bought them at an estate sale, but upgraded to some with an actual British scene on them (Lochs of Scotland) instead of the Colonial American scenes. 

 Of course, on the way to meet the buyer, I stopped at Goodwill.  Vintage puzzles were found, for a whopping $3.11 each.  Also a trifle dish, and the loudest Hawaiian shirt that I own (so far).

 

I've also started weeding out the Hallmark ornaments and listed about a dozen.  I also got the Mickey Mouse band and Angel Choir off the basement shelf, tested them all, and listed them on a Hallmark buy/sell group.  These were a thing Hallmark came up with.  Four or five "players" in a band, they link by radio or wi-fi somehow, and they sing songs.  Each player has two songs, and if you've got the whole group, you've got 8 or 10 songs total that they sing together on.  The stores would have a different one each week, feeding into the "gotta have them all" urge. Anyway.  I've got a nibble on the Mickey band, and I hope it's not a tire-kicker.  Mickey's gang and the angels were maybe displayed once; otherwise they've been in the basement for the last ten eyars.  I'm keeping both Peanuts sets, for now.  If I can get the house decluttered to a decent state, then we'll have room to get them out at the holidays and enjoy them.   

 

 

Decluttering thoughts

 I'm working harder on decluttering recently.  With the Offspring in Europe for a semester, I'd like to have some very visible progress made by the time they get home.  

As of right now, I've got about 30 things listed on Marketplace, and half a dozen or so on the local Buy Nothing group.  Plus a few things on NextDoor, but most of those are also on MP.  I'm listing a few Hallmark ornaments right now, because I've been pondering those in the post-Christmas season.  Most of mine honestly have never been on a Christmas tree.  Some of them were gifts from Mom.  

 The ones from Mom tend to be personalized non-Hallmark ornaments, or Hallmark's "Family" series that say "Daughter" or "Mother" for example.  The ones with my name on them, I'll keep one or two that I like the best.  The rest are getting donated.  At least I've got a common name.  As I told someone, I'm not at the age yet where I forget my name, so I don't need my name painted or engraved on every-damn-thing.  (Note 1). The "Daughter" ornaments are getting the same treatment.   Keep the one or two I like the best, donate or sell the rest.  So far, I've found a "Daughter" that is a squirrel flying a plane.  That one is in the Keep pile for now, given my history with squirrels.  I've also got a Daughter bear, stocking, gingerbread cookie, snowman-on-a-cupcake, and gawd only knows how many more.  (Note 2) 

 Note 1 - we've also been given some personalized family ornaments and picture frames.  Those have all three of our names on them, and often the family name as well.  If I can paint over the names, those will be donated.  The photo frames, on the other hand, are wood, with the names engraved multiple times.  Unless we have a doppelganger family somewhere, we're stuck with those.  

 Note 2 - The Offspring is getting their choice of the Daughter ornaments and personalized ornaments.  Then we'll discuss the "Grandson" ornaments. 

 Another part of this process is that I've put two boxes near the door - one for things I'm selling, one for things I'm giving away.  Because I've spent too much time looking for stuff that I've posted online and then put "somewhere safe" which then disappeared.  Still trying to find a camera lens that someone wants.  I can't find it, and I'm 99% sure I didn't donate it.  And, to go along with the sign on the wall that says "I need the SPACE more than I need the money" - about every other week, everything in the "free" box is getting donated.  

Exhibit A - One answer to "where does this stuff come from?!?!?"  I bought these three Hagen-Renaker cats at the local auction.  (The Scottish Fold on the right was a surprise, rattling around in the bottom of the box.)  But, the cats came as a box-lot of stuff, including half a dozen trinket boxes, two wine stoppers, and assorted other bits and pieces.  Most of that has already gone to the Habitat ReStore, although there's a nice little glass sculpture that I'm going to list for sale.  But I need to get better at sorting out the keepers and non-keepers, and reducing the amount of time that everything sits around taking up space.  

 So far this year, I've made $16 on stuff, and gotten rid of about 30 things.  Yay me! 

 

20 things for 2020

A couple of blog-friends are doing a "20 things for 2020" sort of goal, so I've tried to come up with 20 goals for the year.  Mine are a combo of fun, hobby, decluttering, and just random stuff.  So, here goes:

1.  Watch 20 movies (theater or TV, doesn't matter)
2. Get on treadmill or walk outside 3 times per week
3. Declutter 20 things per month (at least)
4. Blog 20 times per month - this one might be hard
5. Post 20 times on the hobby forum I'm a member of
6. Send 20 postcards
7. Watch 20 old things (2019 or earlier) from the TiVo, with the goal of getting it to at least 20% free space
8. Listen to 20 "new" CDs ("new" being haven't heard before, not newly-purchased)
9. Check out 20 new authors (short stories count)
10. Take good showable pictures of 20 model horses
11. Hang 20 pictures or pieces of art on the walls
12. Send 20 greeting cards
13. Finish 20 coloring pages
14. Repaint 20 Stablemates (not sure on this one)
15. Try 20 new recipes
16. Read 20 magazines from the backlog every month (incoming doesn't count)
17.  Mend 20 things (clothing or not)
18.  Put together 20 jigsaw puzzles or LEGO sets
19.  Read 20 minutes per day
20.   Get pedometer count over 6,000 at least 5 days a week

I would add reading books, but I'm going to read at least 24 for the Read Harder challenge, so it's taken care of.

Christmas ughs

I do not like Christmas.  Too much stress.  Too much travel. 

Anyway.

One of my big gripes this year was that nothing matches in this house.  (The bedroom curtains?  Four curtains, 3 shades of beige.  Clearance.)  You can tell I bought most of the lights at the after-Christmas clearance, and I was even late for that, because I don't have 2 of anything for lights.  Well, I do have two strings of warm white net lights.  Except that one of them is only half-working for some reason.  So, outside I've got one blue net, one multi net, one cool white net, and one twinkling multi net.  And the twinkle is not changeable. 

So, I just spent $85 on Christmas lights, in spite of just getting the heads-up on middle school tuition for next year.  But, I'll have 4 matching LED nets, damn it.  And they can even do multi, warm white, or blink between multi and white.  But they were 30% off and buy 3 get 1 free, decent brand name (Philips), and have a 3-year warranty.  And while i was at it, I got 4 strings of purple LED sphere lights.  Only 10% off, but also buy 3 get 1 free. 

October Goals

Goals for the month:

1.  Take and post a picture every day (maybe here, maybe Facebook)
2.  Find at least one thing to get rid of/rehome/declutter every day.  And put a picture of it here.