Retirement Chores

4/292014

For the last couple of weeks I have discovered the satisfaction of some chores that, while working, never got around to.  I don't mean the regular stuff, like vacuuming and dusting and cleaning bathrooms; nope, I'm talking about seriously getting organized.

We have two filing cabinets where we obviously (duh) keep papers, of all sorts.  There are the paid bills, insurance policies, car repairs, etc.  Since I'm a lady of leisure, I decided it was time to start culling out the papers.  I mean who really needs to keep repair bills for a vehicle we owned in 2000?  Nobody, but when I opened the filing cabinet, there they were.  Because I'm a bit on the anal side, I have a separate folder for each of our vehicles.  This is a good way to store repair bills, etc., for each car.  Unfortunately, not only did I have folders for the present cars, but for any vehicle we bought since we moved here in 1986!  Think it's time to purge?  Yup.

I took a large laundry basket and while going through all the folders in the cabinets, began chucking out the old and unnecessary documents into my basket for shredding.  I saw no need to continue keeping paid Visa bills from 2005, as an example.  Yesterday, I brought down a very full laundry basket full of papers all in need of shredding.  With identity theft so prevalent these days, we don't like putting anything in the trash bearing our name.  Might be overkill, but it never hurts to be proactive.  

I filled up two large plastic bags yesterday of shred and my basket is almost empty and I'm filling pretty good about that.  I still have more cabinet drawers to go through, but after I finish shredding today, I'll take a rest from that particular chore, and move on to something else - like cleaning the fridge!

I now have time to organize my closets, especially my shoes.  I envy those women who have all their shoes sitting side-by-side; or, even better in clear plastic boxes.  The bottom of my closet is a jumble of shoes and slippers.  The only time this "system" doesn't work is when I'm looking for a mate to a particular shoe - and can't easily find it!

I have purged out my clothes that either: (a) didn't fit; or (b) just didn't like anymore.  Confession: most of the things that I set out yesterday fell into the (a) category!  Then I took retention boxes and began the boring task of putting short sleeve tops in one box, long sleeves in another, etc.  I even MARKED the front of each box (how organized is that?).  The challenge now is will I really put the right clothes in the right box after doing laundry?  Or, will I take the folded clothes and toss them on top of one of the boxes?  I'm hoping that I can continue with the organization of my "play" clothes.  My "going out" outfits are at the top of the closet, so that they will not suffer from the normal day-to-day stains.  

I also gave to my daughter-in-law several boxes of my higher end clothes so that she can take pictures (and she takes great pictures) and I'll try and sell these items on Ebay.  The hardest part of selling on Ebay is having really great pictures of each item.  The camera on my phone just doesn't take decent pictures.  I'm not expecting to ever make a bundle of money selling on Ebay, but it's definitely worth a try.

For now, I'm going back to shredding.  I will be very satisfied when the basket is empty and I can (later, much later), fill it up again!

P