Finally unpacking

[tlc]

Spring cleanup (free roadside pickup of unwanted items) should be toward the end of this month. And the weather is finally getting warmer, at least above freezing. So I'm finally getting to go through all the things I have packed in the garage. I packed up the old house I was in for 17 years, and early 2016 I moved it here so I could fix up the old house and sell it. But my gf at the time had filled this house so full that there was barely room to move in anything of mine. So all my stuff sat in the garage until she moved out last fall. I did get my furniture into the house after that, but just over a week later I ended up in the hospital and by the time I was up and around, winter was in full force.

So I'm finally getting to sort through all my things. I kept the boxes covered with plastic, but unfortunately most of it smells like mold. Anything I really want I'll keep and clean up. It's sort of like the last 3 years of my life got erased, which all things considered isn't a bad thing at all. It's sort of like I'm starting over where I left off after selling the old house, where I was alone for several years. I'm finding a lot of things that I had been looking for for a long time, even some things I couldn't find before I moved, like a dish of spare car keys. Finally I can get into the trunk of my other car. I also found tools that I had made at work that would have come in handy lately. Repair manuals and computer software I've been looking for. A custom built subwoofer system I saved from my first wagon (like over 20 years ago when I was doing well), which I'd like to put in the new wagon.

Now that my daughter is 18, I'm doing better financially for a change. For so many years I had to live on whatever I could find or piece together for free, and still couldn't afford food or furnace fuel or much of anything. Looking back, there were mixed feelings about it. I got to do unconventional things, which is what I am all about. But the fact that I HAD to all the time, was very consuming and stressful. For example my car got rearended in 2008. I saved what was left of the old broken taillight, and put in the taillights from the previous car I stripped before sending it to the scrapyard. In 2011 it got rearended again. Didn't have any more spare taillights, and I was already being sued for $1600 of child support that I had already paid. It happened only 3 miles from home, so I went back out the scene at midnight before the snowplow came through, and spent an hour picking up every little piece of it from the road. I got a tube of epoxy from the dollar store and spent 2 nights next to the woodstove piecing it back together. 2 little missing bits I was able to craft from the previously saved taillight I'd been saving for 3 years. And I saved the lights again when I scrapped that car after there was so much rust it was beyond welding, yes I had to weld things on my cars back together to keep them usable. I came across the taillights in a box today. They will fit in the new wagon if something ever happens to it, until I can find nice looking ones. Back then I kept them because I couldn't afford replacements. Now I'll keep them for a different reason, I have a beautiful antique and replacements are difficult to find.

Lot of things I've found from the old times. Money could have very well bought happiness back then. We had a few good years but my wife at the time got tired of living on the bottom and I don't blame her. My life sort of stopped after that. My house just felt like a holdover of everything that ever failed. Fixing it up made me love it again, and I still miss it, but the location was a lost cause and that could never change. It had to go. The new house is so much better, but I was basically living in a corner of the basement with my stuff in storage for 3 years. I didn't really get to experience the house fully until just this winter. For months it was weird just going upstairs.

So it's going to be quite a trip this month. Lots of things are going to cleanup, but lots of things worth saving so I have to go through it all. My old kitchen chairs are going (one of which I welded on a new spindle from a boat seat I found in a spring cleanup pile, and the wife had sewed with fishing line after I accidentally cut through it with a saw). One of the other chairs needed it done too and I had another free spindle but never got to it, I found that spindle today. Unfinished business like that really messes with me but I'll get over it. Mattresses, stinky books and puzzles and games, most of the old computer parts, all going. Already found some war medals and stuff my grandpa had given me before he died, which I'm keeping. Some Hammond organ parts which I'm keeping. I had wanted to use that half of the garage for car related things but it was full of my stuff and I couldn't bring it into the house. What's difficult is that it's been so long that those dreams are fading and I'll have to figure it all out again. But it will be a good thing. Only way to have good memories is to make them to start with.

 

[Gracey]

I'm sure you will figure it all out again.

How exciting to have the opportunity to start some shiny, new memories

Are you looking forward to your clear-out?

I have a tendency to hoard.
Not your usual keepsakes and useful items but sometimes bordering on the extremes.

Mr Gracey mounted a whole bank of wall cupboards for me to squirrel away my treasures (in the absence of a garage, basement, shed and other)

Occasionally, I will throw almost everything out.
Clear the cupboards.
It isn't easy to do but after a day or two of empty cupboards, it can feel like a load has been lifted.

I'd go so far as saying it's a relief, cathartic.

Rationale dictates I have to let this stuff go. It serves no real functional purpose in the present moment. Most of it is kept just in case.
Rationale doesn't make letting go any easier though.

I wish you the best of luck in your new place

 

[oregano]

You sound like my grandfather. He grew up during the 1930s Great Depression and back then everybody kept what they had bought during the good times in the Roaring 20s and repaired and resewed it over and over and over. My biological father was certifiably nuts (the aforementioned grandfather was my mom's dad) so I was raised by grandpa and his wife a good bit of the time, and picked up a lot of his habits.

I would wear clothes until they were threadbare and my mom would have to step in and buy me new ones. I kept almost everything because it might be useful someday. I had boxes full of random junk. I finally got rid of most of it when I was in college.

A big reason for my being bullied in junior high and high school was that I acted like a poor person, my parents were more or less "working poor", and the other kids had parents who were affluent and they had all the latest fashions and etc.

I hope to move to a completely different area in a year or two and hopefully it will be a positive change.

 

[tlc]

My mom had just graduated school when I was born, my dad had a year of school left to go. Both of them grew up having next to nothing. Neither of them went to college, but my mom was naturally good at management and food service so she did ok. My dad did what he could at factory jobs. We never had much of anything, the only difference from me was that my dad wasn't good at fixing things. My mom learned to sew and made my clothes. And eventually my mom left because she was tired of it all. History repeated itself exactly with both me and my sister, the wife left because the husband didn't make enough money. Hence after everything that's happened I've sometimes doubted my self worth even with an engineering degree/job.

I was never bullied (for that anyway) because most everybody we knew and associated with was the same way. We were all part of the working poor. Rich was a walk of life that we only heard about or saw on TV, those people were totally out of touch to us. Well we finally got our first (used) color TV in 1985.

I didn't used to save everything, but I got burned. I paid off my first car loan, a 4 year loan paid off in 2 years. I got my clear title, celebrated and I figured what do I need this for anymore, I chucked the old loan papers. Well later on I learned the bank didn't close my loan properly and it ruined my credit and I had no longer had proof that I paid it off. That's all it took. Since then I've saved all my old papers. 17 years later those papers came in very useful to get my house sold, as I had to prove several things that no longer could be found anywhere else.

Old car parts I saved from 20 years ago have come in very handy when fixing up this new wagon, as I can't find them at the local junkyard anymore. Some things I got rid of haunt me, like the memory of throwing a rare leather wrapped steering wheel into the dumpster and seeing it hit the bottom. Never been able to find another one like it, and Ive wanted one on more than one occassion.

I too use things until they can't be used anymore. I hate wasting things, even food. I hate getting rid of things only to rebuy them later. I can always find time, but can't always find money. So I keep things longer than most people, but only as long as they have a service life. I still have clothes from high school and they all still fit, but I only keep the ones that are in good shape. I keep cars as long as they will still drive and be safe (I'm a good welder and know the car's limits), but once they're past that point they go for scrap. I still have my bicycle I got new in 1988 but it still rides good and isn't a pile of rust.

All the stuff in the garage in boxes (aside from some things at the bottom of totes which I forgot about) wasn't necessarily a hoard, but it was my life which I had to abandon when I moved and put it in a 12' x 12' space. What really saddens me is that its service life got depleted without me being able to finish using it. Moldy smelling stuff that can't easily be wiped down needs to go, I don't want that in the house for any reason.

But other things are going because I don't want them now. When I moved into the old house, I bought all new white small appliances which all still worked when I moved out so I brought them with me. They are now 20 years old and they no longer match the black/stainless kitchen I've been piecing together so I have no use for them. That's been a positive step, being able to work toward something I actually want, rather than keeping the old stuff because I can't afford anything else.

And many of the puzzles and games my daughter and I enjoyed together up until I moved, but in these 3 years she grew up and moved out, so they have no use anymore even if they didn't get moldy. That makes me sad that the only life she ever knew was boxed up during these years, and it's part of the reason she told me she wasn't coming back. But those years don't come back and I'm moving on. Not like a car where I can seek out another near identical classic. And no, I can't have and won't raise any more kids, she's an amazing kid but after all the momma drama I won't do it again.

So thank you and yes I have been looking forward to getting the side of the garage cleaned out. Have been wanting to most of the winter, and I was able to make enough room to shoehorn my Jeep in there. But this thrifty part of me says if this stuff isn't worth keeping, it's certainly not worth paying a bunch of money to get rid of. I wanted to start sorting this winter but it was just too cold. But I wanted to wait till spring cleanup to get rid of it because it's free. If it wasn't for that, I'd burn the paper and wood, scrap the metal, recycle the plastic and fabric, and put whatever's left in the trash.

I've made a few good memories by doing the engine in the wagon the last couple months. And my other vehicles I've been waiting years to do things to. But the garage is still crowded and a holdover of how it was. I'm looking forward to having the room to create a real workshop for the first time in my life, and while I'm still young enough to do things in it.

 

[tlc]

D-day was today. I guess that means dump day. All the stuff I put at the side of the road went bye-bye. And all the old computers and parts and used oil and things were accepted when I hauled the full trailer load to the free hazardous waste day this morning. Someone took my old mattress and box spring that I posted free on Craigslist. Got some sorting to do of what I'm keeping, but a huge chunk of it is out of there, and what's left should fit on shelving along one wall. Looking forward to having room to work on another car and have room for the rest of my tools.

Some bittersweet memories of my daughter's old toys and things. I got her several things she wanted for Christmas each year. But for 15 years she was only here a day and a half every 2 weeks, she never really got to play with them that much before she outgrew them. But she was the one who boxed them up and said she didn't want them anymore, so that was easier. It was also easier seeing her graduate last week. Some people cry at graduations. Not me. I was excited to see her making big steps at becoming her own person. Been seeing a nice guy for about the last 7 months, working full time and they're considering promoting her to manager, paying her own way.

I did save my kitchen chairs (and I'll put the new spindle on the one), because my matching table is already in the basement and I've wanted to have a space down there where it's cool in the summer to do puzzles and things. Now I have room, since I got rid of a bunch of things down there too.