sell, give way or throw away 111 things I don't need any more

We had a very undependable DVD player that would start skipping at random places in random discs. A nice man took it away who wanted to try to fix it.

The clothes/toys/books went to the Kiwaniis’ huge weekly rummage sale.

Nearly done.

I got this HUGE coffee maker from a going out of business sale for a couple bucks. It was stainless steel and the size of a Chevy Truck’s grille and it took 220 volt service and a dedicated plumbed line for water. I was never going to use it but it looked so cool! A woman took it away for her church to use.

This stuff came from my Dad’s basement and I can tell why he never used it: it worked like stinky poo! I thought it would be so cool to have those old 70’s era labels on stuff, maybe even make tape down pasted up ‘zines with those labels as the titles that I could scan into a computer and…. well, there’s no point going on with my wonderful ideas because the label maker DIDN’T work at ALL. The tape didn’t advance so all the letters mushed on top of each other. I suppose I could have come up with an alternative use but I’m going to have to leave that to someone else. It’s headed out the door.

When I first married Mib7, we got a fantastic second-hand waffle iron. It was built like a battle ship and made waffles for years. Then a small wire frayed out on its inside. I was tempted to fix it but if I did it wrong I thought I might accidentally electrocute someone. Years passed and we acquired a second hand Belgian waffle maker from a restaurant that was going out of business. Let me TELL you about well made. It takes 20 minutes for the thing to warm up but once it’s hot, it’ll make waffles all day long.

So tonight I gave myself a 20 minute deadline: either figure out how to fix the old waffle iron or out it goes. Well, out it went.

I have a half dozen (working) computers hooked up to my home network but I had several more waiting in cold storage in the basement just in case I wanted to add another one (or four!) These aren’t junk machines, just computers I’ve scavenged and re-assembled over the years. But there are only so many keyboards you need! Last night I sat down and got a couple into good working condition and today, I’m donating them to a local charity that has a weekly garage sale.

I’ve lost track of how many actual items this is but I’ve got to be getting close to completing this goal

I sold Eno’s Ambient discs, The Clash’s London Calling and Sandinista on eBay. The less desirable ones went to the Kiwaniis’ weekly junk sale.

I also sorted through my records and basically cut my collection in half. I’m sure I have plenty that are silly to keep but there are some sentimental treasures in there that I’m not quite ready to see leave.

I can’t believe this really but we sold a half dozen records on eBay, and if I figure this correctly, I made more back than what I originally paid for them way back when. I admit that these are probably a little more obscure than the average record bin stuff but not really TOO obscure. I will definitely have to do much more of this.

I’ve definitely done this so I’m gonna go ahead and take it off even though I haven’t listed 111 things. I hate clutter and wish I could give more stuff away but we’re moving soon and we are going to need some of this stuff later so I just have to hang onto it for a bit longer until we have some storage space.

34. another old pair of shoes
35. two broken coffee mugs
36. old cellphone
37. new mouse I don’t need
38. random wires- I could get rid of more of these too but honestly if I find that I need them some of these would be expensive to replace so they are in a ziplock back in a box with other electronic stuff. and thus the clutter free vs frugal vs organic war continues.

When my father died, I literally inherited the clutter of his work area, all the tools, all the screws and nails, all the “what-the-heck-is-that?” It’s been very hard for me to feel like this was “my” stuff, like it was stuff that I had the right to make decisions about. But one of the things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving season is that I suddenly felt able to sort through the dozen+ boxes that we’ve had for years. I found many many wonderful and useful items… and probably dozens of things that I know I don’t need. I mean, how many screwdrivers does one really need? Or glass cutters? The extra tools will go to the Kiwannis who operate a fantastic weekly “garage sale.” I was also able to just simply discard a whole trashcan full of absolute junk. Hallelujah.