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October 4, 2015

Clean Up, Throw Out

Got back early from LI. Two days of loading a rental truck in a downpour was fun. My mom is a pack rat. We couldn't believe all the boxes and cans and packages and bags and containers and plastic bins she had. We donated loads and loads of stuff  to good will type organizations and just as much to the dumpster. We cleaned the condo real good and hope to close by the end of the year. One good thing, there were two potential buyers and they bid the price up over what we had the property listed for. Mom will get an additional ten grand.

My sister and her husband took what we could fit on the truck back to Maryland. Mom is in an efficiency apartment at the assisted living center and there is no way that all this crap will fit. My sister will have to store a lot of this in her garage. My BIL and I are both in our late sixties. Clearing out the contents of an apartment was no picnic. We both agreed that a career change into the exciting moving industry business was out of the question. I loaded up on Aleve™ in memory of the trip.

My wife and I are now filled with motivation to get rid of all the useless crap we have. No way we want to saddle our kids with that when the time comes.

Seriously. Our oldest has been married for twenty years and we still have some of her stuff. My in-laws have been gone for some time and we still have some of their stuff squirreled away in the basement. I still have a few boxes from when I moved out of my Bachelor Palace back in 1981 that remain unopened.

I started to clean out years ago but I got to get back into it. A few garage sales helped but they weren't enough.  A few bags at a time for the refuse pickup will certainly help. I 'll need a hand for the old construction materials. - got probably at least a half ton of cast iron baseboard heaters in the basement that I can get a few bucks for at the salvage yard. I have at least twenty of these four foot hot water heaters that go fifty pounds a piece if they weigh an ounce. I took them out when I refinished the first basement and was going to use them in the second basement - the house is built into the side of a hill, it looks like a one story ranch in the front and is three and a half stories tall in the back. Ergo, two basements. Full of crap.

We leave on another trip on Thursday, this time to southern Maryland. The hurricane should be well out of the picture by then so maybe we'll see sunny skies on the way. I haven't seen Mom since February so we'll have a nice visit. One of my nieces is also driving down from Queens to see her Nana so that'll be a real treat also.

I was hoping my oldest daughter and her two daughters could make the trip also, but I just found out that one of her husband's oldest and closest friends is now missing. My SIL, my grandson and JR went hunting yesterday near Inlet, NY, and JR never returned to the truck when it started to get dark. The State Police are now involved; JR is in his fifties and I fear for the worst.

2 comments:

jay son said...

went thru the same thing when my dad pasted a couple of years ago. he had saved EVERYTHING. i found ibm timeclock/check stubs going back to 1980. they were all in order, neatly bundled, and when i picked them up to throw them in a to burn pile, the rubber bands holding then together turned to dust.

the fire, he lived in the township, from just the old paperwork and yard waste, he would have burned the yard waste at the first snow, was like 50 feet in the air and lasted 5 and a half hours.

Gail said...

Yard sales are a good way to thin and with additional change in your pocket. Some Charities will come pick up things that are being donated. What we did with scrap metal was have two industrious young men come and load it. We split the proceeds and they were delighted. Easiest scrap metal recycle ever!