Looking Ahead

The de-junking continues. My house is not very neat at the moment. There are boxes everywhere. A narrow aisle winds from the front door to the back bedrooms. The guest bed is piled high with miscellaneous junk to sift through, box up, and organize. The porch is stacked with items to go either to the storage shed, or the dumpster.

The kitchen is relatively clear, but the counter where junk collects is quite filled. The dining room and rec room are equally full of boxes - the dining room with things to go to charity, the rec room with empty boxes waiting to be filled. If you were just to walk in, you would think; "Wow, these people are either moving or pigs."

However, it looks better than it did a week ago. While some piles are higher, most are smaller. I'm down to three rooms left; dining room, rec room, and the dreaded kitchen. The kitchen is the worst. Even though I went through a few years ago, and got rid of 25 extra spatulas, at least 15 large wooden spoons, there is still enough kitchen ware to set up an extra kitchen.

In spite of all this, I feel by next weekend, or maybe the weekend after I will be able to see real, concrete progress. Shelves will be up. I think my room will be finished and the Saint's room will be cleaned out, and ready for organization. Anyone who saw the Saint's room in the not too distant past would gasp in amazement, even with quite a bit left to do there.

At first I thought I would be de-junking until Memorial Day, but I actually think it will be done sometime in April, even if we do take a weekend off.

The things I am keeping in mind;

The things we own, or were given by loved ones are not the people. It's the memory we want to keep. I have personally followed the good advice of taking pictures of something I don't want to keep, but have fond memories of.

Beware of redundancy. Two staplers - okay - 15 staplers - why?

If it's worth something - get rid of it anyway, unless it holds more than slight sentimental value.

I can see the end of the road ahead, and while it goes up a mountain, it's still - finished. I will have my house back. A neater, more organized house. Useable, loved, and wanted items will all still be here . We'll just be able to find them.

Something Smells Funny in Our House.

So far it's been four days of hunting for the source.

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It's not coming from the "Dead Zone"; an area under our headboard difficult to reach for humans, absolutely perfect for cats to take, well, prey. Usually verminous in nature. The smell is also not anything which escaped "The Zone" only to expire elsewhere. Anyone who has ever smelled rotten flesh knows exactly what I mean; it is utterly gagsome and unmistakable, even from the smallest critters.

A common phrase on a warm summer day "There is something dead in here."

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This smell is possibly vegetable in nature, however the turtle tank shouldn't have anything in it too smelly - it's turtle hibernation season, and we feed her lightly. However, just for the sake of elimination I am cleaning it this weekend.

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The garbage is emptied often, and I make sure really odiferous items go straight to the outside garbage. Lessons learned the hard way.

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No, this is a kind of musty, moldering smell that catches in my nose every time I get a whiff. Not quite as stinky as wet cat, but a little worse than dog breath. Not a poop smell (thank goodness) or the acrid stench of cat pee. More similar to wet gym socks left in a bag. Or smelly cheese.

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Since I am de-junking, I am highly suspicious of boxes recently packed for charity, and the garbage bag which should have nothing organic inside to create such a stench.

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Wish me luck on my hunt, and hopefully I will track it down before it gets utterly unbearable.

Just a quick note....I've added my new blogs. Don't hold your breath on when I will be posting to them. Have a lot of work left to do....

Successful Blogs

I've been looking at other people's blogs, determining makes a blog "successful" in my opinion. I think the act of publishing a blog is one success. However, to be truly successful, a blog needs readers. I think the blogs with many hits are those that focus on one subject. One interesting blog I came across was Vegan Lunchbox. It's a featured blog, and also one with really lovely pictures. Even though I am not a vegan, I found it interesting.

Another one I like is If Flat's Come Back in, We're Screwed. Also very funny. Both of them make me think I need more pictures in my blog. Pictures can make a big difference.

There are very successful blogs that are well-known. I'm not going to link to them here, because I don't know them.

I'm contemplating the construction of three additional blogs. That sounds like a lot, I know.

However, I am going to virtually abandon my homepage, perhaps updating every quarter. It's going to contain links to this blog, and two of my three new sites.

My first blog will be book reviews. I wrote them on my homepage for years, and I would like them to be archived. There are 10,000 book review pages online, but I don't care.

The second will be a blog for my fiction. I want to get it out there. This one will be difficult, because it's my most emotionally risky act; putting my own writing out in the world.

The third blog is going to be completely separate from these, and that's about all I'm going to say about it here. Ever.

I will make VGRandomized a little more like my home page, with a weekly report as well as my random ramblings.

I suppose my personal idea of a successful blog is one that gets visits; but also I want to look more interesting. So, stay tuned. Big changes may be in store here.

Winning the Lottery.....

I can spend days contemplating the dispersal and management of the vast fortune I will win with my 1$ lottery ticket.

Right now, February 16, 2006 the Powerball Lottery is up to 365 million dollars. Say it out loud. Three hundred and sixty-five million dollars.

I even do math when I calculate the vastness of my winnings. Even if you take a half-payment, and pay the horrific 30 percent taxes you still end up with 119,000,000.00. Approximately.

What would one really do with THAT much money? Of course, all the usuals. Pay off bills, make home improvements. Quit working, unless one is in a field one doesn't do only for money.

I have this fantasy of sending a letter to all my friends and relatives, stating we will pay all their bills up to some certain amount. All done through lawyers, so we don't know how much they owe. All done with the agreement that they won't ask for more money down the road. But I remember younger, leaner days when it would have been so great just to pay off the bills, and start fresh.

Of course, an amount of money to the close family - parents, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews.

Yes, there are a few things I would buy for fun. Guitars - my T5, Luna Moth and Martin EC. The four or five tarot decks that are out of my price range. Some kind of fun car. But, including the new car, I bet it wouldn't be over 75,00 dollars. (And the car would be a good chunk of that. I'm a car girl.)

For The Saint, he has stated he would immediately rent a warehouse to begin housing his car and motorcycle collection and restoration projects. Buy a fun car.

Eventually we would build our dream house. Our dream house is actually not so extravagant - enough land so even if the area started to be developed we wouldn't have to see it. Well-made, not cheapo. Enough storage.

My most extravagant purchases might be a condo in New Orleans (yes, even post-Katrina) and a small house on the ocean; probably the Oregon Coast.

More interesting is the experiences that kind of money could give. No longer working 9-5 and spending as much time together as we want. Actually having the time to accomplish what can now only be squeezed in between 50 hour work weeks (including commute) and 15-20 hours of home maintenance. Traveling. Helping interesting new businesses get started. Being able to give enough money to a charity to actually help.

Winning the lottery would be cool. The only people who don't think money matters have never been poor. But - it's true that it isn't EVERYTHING. Figuring out how to accomplish what you want without winning the lottery - now that would be a challenge.

I'm still going to keep my 1$ lottery ticket and my dreams. But, maybe it's time to start thinking about how to slice a little more time out of a busy day to work on other things.