Super Slacker...at posting that is.

I'm a posting slacker.  I visited a friend and her new baby. The boyfriend's brother came home to visit, BBQ on Saturday afternoon, movie Saturday night, family party Sunday evening for our state holiday- Pioneer Day!

I have kept up on getting an item out of the house each day.

$9.99 Bowl Set

Day 3:

[purchase info] Costco- 2009

[time in my possession] 2 years

[last used] June 2011- Popcorn party at the end of the school year. (First and only time used)

[difficulty level in getting rid of it] Easy.  I loved the color of the bowls, but didn't need them.

[destination] Good friend who recently got married.  They needed a set of matching bowls.

$1 can of paint was a bonus- they needed to paint their deck chairs. I'm a sucker for mistinted paint. This particular color didn't quite match.

 

  

 

 

Day #4

[purchase info] random buckets of mistinted paint and laminate/vinyl floor glue

 

[time in my possession] 6 months- 2 years

 

[last used] Never

 

[difficulty level in getting rid of it] Easy-Middle of the road:  Floor glue- super easy.  I didn't end up needing it with the type of flooring I used in the craft room.

Since the paint hadn't been used yet, I figured it wouldn't be used in the near future. The problem I had

was the "wasting money" part.  All were mistinted paint- so when I have to buy paint again, I'll get the actual paint color I really love.

 

[destination] Habitat for Humanity-ReStore. 1276 South 500 West, Salt Lake City, Utah  84101

 

Nuns, Shoes, and Savers...

Challenge Day #2

Today I did my first drop off at the new Millcreek Savers.  Big Brothers and Big Sisters benefit from the goods that you donate (they sell the items to Savers Thrift Store) and I get a tax donation form + a coupon.
This morning I gathered up some shoes that were piled up by my bedroom door, which meant the give away item of the day was a Pile O' Shoes!

Abbycat was very fond of these shoes- she enjoyed rubbing her chin on them. Coco buried her bones in them. I was tripping over them. They needed to go.

Minimizing Debt

Challenge Day #1

Today was my first official day to minimize and document.  From the moment I woke up I spotted items that will soon be heading out of my lovely abode. I also saw the piles of items that have been sitting for a month or more that have been ready to go to a new home (I know you’re thinking, “Why are they still sitting there?” I thought the same thing. I get distracted easily if I don’t take my Ritalin and then I forget or choose to step over it). I decided a pile counts as 1 item and anything that I've already grouped to send away.  Here are some other rules that are going around in my head: Do I have to go somewhere each day to get rid of something? What if I commit to one day/ week to drop everything off.  It will save time and gas- I'm trying to simply, right? Does listing items on amazon.com, etsy.com, or ebay.com count as getting rid of an item or is this in addition to? I'm thinking it should be in addition to since it hasn't left the house. I'm not giving this up. My shops are a secret to most of my friends, very few people know what my shops are called. I've had the ebay and amazon shops for 7 years, but just sold on ebay this past year.  Why have I kept this quiet- I don't have an good answer to this. I don't like copy cats? I was embarrassed that I had so much stuff (I was a closet hoarder)? It was a way to earn secret money that I could spend?

While I was thinking about the “rules” of the challenge I decided to take on the Credit Union.  They’ve been advertising a credit card for 7.99% all summer.  A few months back I had visited a financial planner to review my life and have had a goal to get a credit card that has a reasonable interest rate.  I had to rebuild my credit after a bankruptcy 10 years ago (yes, it was one of the hardest things I’ve been through) and I haven’t had the best relationship with credit card companies.  I didn’t have a choice in the early years in which cards I could get to establish new credit, and in the past 3 years, we’ve all had a hard time with credit cards limiting our credit because we were responsible users and paid off our debt.  There was nothing more exciting to me to get my limit slashed from $8000 to $1200 and an interest rate of 29.9% when I had a $0.00 balance.

I figured if I could qualify for this card, I could transfer the little debt that I do have, pay one bill a month at a lower interest.  It was a pipedream, but I bit the bullet, took a deep breath and went to the bank. To my surprise, I qualified and was thrilled to find out my credit rating had gone up 40 points over the past 2 months! This was one of those moments that I wanted to call my parents to tell them that I passed- but I am 32.  I called the boyfriend instead.

trashogram

While searching for a fantastic picture of Box Tops to use on my school weebly.com site, I stumbled across a very vivid and bright photo, which also included scissors (be still my teacher heart). The photo came from a site that included a little blurb, but what really caught my attention was the title:
box tops for education [trashogram]! I thought the word trashogram was fabulous and there was a word cloud/ side bar full of de-hoarding words.  I was sucked into reading more about this author's blog and her "no-retail shopping" challenge.  

She had a tidbit about Hoarders  and why she was doing the challenge, what was even more interesting to me and practical (at this point in my life) was her new challenge:

Still De-Hoarding You Ask? Why yes!

Boxes after Hoarders...

Boxes in sorting process

Hoarding can be a dangerous hobby.  De-hoarding the house can be is even more dangerous!  I had approximately one-hundred or so 8"x10" boxes that were left over from the Hoarders experience.  The second bedroom was filled with these boxes.  All of the boxes were labeled with general categories- see all the C's- that means crafts.  Over the summer, working with the personal organizer and my sister, we went through the left-over boxes, sorted and purged more "stuff".  Throughout the winter I've been working on the 50 boxes that were left from the personal organizer sort, to purge more of this super stuff and find a permanent home for it in the house. 
During this process I have injured myself cleaning! Yes, while cleaning.  (You're asking yourself if a hoarder really cleans, right? You should see my supply of cleaners and my Sargent Steamer!)

WARNING: Carrying multiple boxes of books up and down flights of stairs in one day will cause a shoulder injury- like an AC shoulder separation. It only took 7 weeks to heal.
 As I've been getting rid of my "stuff", I've been able to get rid of my weight, which is good, this is another on-going issue, and I've been walking more. Being more active is great.  Bending over and picking up items is great exercise too- it really works your abs.  You can even get in some lunges walking stuff to the trash.
Over the weekend, I just happened to squish a nerve that sends lightning hot pain down my right leg and ends at my knee.  No back pain, no numbness. Just dumb luck!
Boxes falling over/ on top of your head = short term pain.

I'm already out of my flex benefits money for the year- I'm crossing my fingers that nothing else attacks me!

Just for fun- have you seen this product before?  This Sewing Cabinet would be awesome in my craft room.  I just have to figure out how to add buttons to my blog so I can win this-ha!  One more thing to add to my list of "things to figure out"...

Embarrassing Moment #358

While out and about today I was approached by a woman who informed me that she saw me on the TV last night.   "That was you right? You had great stuff.  I have a shop at the swap meet up north on Saturdays. You're a movie star. You're famous."
 She continued to tell me that her husband thought my last name was Utah and that he wasn't going to believe that she met me.  She kept going back and forth asking me if I saw the show with the guy who had all the chickens who lived in his house and the lady with the cats.  I had to clarify that I WASN'T the lady with the cats, just to make sure she knew what she was talking about.  "I know who you are, you have the sweet boyfriend.  I've seen the show a few times.  It was just on again last night."
Yes, I have the sweet boyfriend, which we're going on 4 years at the beginning of February!
At this point I'm already feeling like I want to bolt, I can tell other people are listening, trying to figure out what show she's talking about, while "browsing" the book aisle. Damn shopping cart that I had with me was in the way.
She continues blabbering about wishing she had a book because she'd have me sign it so she could prove to her husband that she really met "Lisa Utah".  I'm just trying to think how politely cut her off and leave- I don't want to be an ungrateful "famous" person.
I continue to do my thing, search for old books for create artist trading cards (for an art workshop assignment) and as I turn around, she's back, with a book shoved in my face.  "Will you please sign this, with the network name you were on. You don't have to put your last name on it."
You got it- you couldn't pay me enough to put my last name on that 2001 journal (with a $1.00 price tag)- I couldn't put Dona, my grandmother, through that kind of embarrassment!
As she walks away, happy as a clam, she starts telling other people, she's famous, she was on a show.  Ask her about it. I felt like the biggest idiot- especially when people started asking what show it was.
Three minutes later I heard the familiar husky voice, asking me to turn around.  "Look, I brought my daughter back with me so she could see you.  She didn't believe me either."

 My hoard of books to make my cards

Did I mention I was at the D.I.? 

*I've added a link here so you can learn about Artist Trading Cards.*