Getting Things Done! Summer 2025

 

I have been a very busy girl and I am thrilled with everything I have accomplished so far this year, especially over the spring and summer months.  Once my houseguests left I started out by printing off a fresh copy of my semiannual housekeeping checklist and in six weeks I busted my way through it and was able to completely reset my home.  Using stain I had in the garage and part of an old rag I touched up the stair treads and they look so nice now.

 

I did an amazing amount of decluttering again this year, even decluttering some of the really hard sentimental items that were filling the closets in the two extra bedrooms of my house.  I sold some of my Pyrex collection and added the proceeds to my savings account, took four loads to the thrift stores and even placed several items on the FREE table where I work.  In the process I was able to empty a ton of boxes and plastic bins.  The boxes were then decluttered and the bins were reused for organizing the items I kept.  

 

I have gotten rid of even more stuff since I took this picture

Next I moved out to the garage where the goals was to clear, clean, declutter and reorganize it for better function.  I was able to add a lot of items, mainly cardboard and boxes, to the recycle bin over a period of six weeks as well as the trash bin and my donation pile.  After a good sweep and wipe down I was ready to reorganize all of the shelves.  Now it is much easier to find the things I need whenever I do a project.  I have used up a lot of the items I already had on hand like sandpaper, a replacement dryer vent cover, some interior paint and a can of spray paint as well as some of the bubble wrap and priority mailers I had squirreled away out there.  I dropped off glass jars and bottles at the recycling collection bin located at a local supermarket parking lot and I took several items from the garage to the hazardous waste collection site.

 

The failing dryer vent cover on the exterior of the house was finally replaced.  It was a simple fifteen minute job and once it was done and marked off the list I was glad to have it completed.  I had picked up the replacement cover over a year ago and it was patiently waiting for me in the garage.  It was definitely one of those tasks that I questioned putting off for so long.  ??

 

I cleaned and reorganized my long term food storage (LTFS) area in the downstairs bedroom.  I found several items I knew I wasn’t going to use up anytime soon so I made up a couple of bags to give to two of my co-workers and brought in another bag of items to set out on the FREE table.  Once I was done I had it all clean and organized so the oldest items are in front of the newer items and will get used up appropriately.  I am now quite settled with the variety and quantity of the things I have in there.

 

Our entry way as well as the upstairs bathroom’s wainscot were in need of a refresh so I got busy with a bit of spackle I had in the garage to fill in the gouges and imperfections and then repainted those spaces using leftover paint also in the garage.  While I was at it I went through the house and touched up any places that needed it so now my walls look great and are all nicely maintained.

 

Fresh paint makes everything better!

"Hey!  I think you forgot something!"

I wasn't able to get back outside and get the deck staining project completed but I'm okay with that.  It will keep until next year, but I was able to get the living room and hallway carpet cleaned and refreshed which was a big item on the list for this summer.  This is the second time I've cleaned the carpet I was very pleased with how nice it turned out and that even after seven years the carpet is wearing well and still looks good.  Proof that a no shoes in the house policy and regular maintenance works!

 

With the deck sanded and stained I decided to give the outside of the chicken coop a refresh as well with the same stain.  Then I moved the new chickens in with the old and after a bit they all seemed to settle down and get along.  Since I have determined this is going to be my last batch of chicks I went ahead and decided to declutter the brooder and all of the chick feeders.

The pear tree in all its glory

The apple tree did not produce at all this year, but the pear tree did.  Not the bumper crop I got last year, but enough to enjoy for fresh eating and to share with others.  I had pruned both trees quite a bit in the fall so I wasn’t surprised with the smaller yield of pears and unfortunately a storm took off all the apple blossoms before any of them got pollinated.  Hopefully we’ll get apples next year.  On the other hand my garlic harvest this year was absolutely pitiful.  I bought bulbs at the feed store last fall and they were expensive!  The year before, I bought organic garlic bulbs at the grocery store.  The organic garlic did so much better and they are way more affordable so I am going to plant that again this year.  Also, my rhubarb did really great this year!  I put up four quart bags into the deep freezer to enjoy this winter.

 

Fixed some boo boos & cleaned the exterior!

Scrubbed & cleaned the interior!

I cleaned the engine bay!

Getting the Subaru maintenance finished, thoroughly cleaning its stinky interior and making some minor repairs has been an ongoing project since I bought the car in January.  Replacing the damaged driveshaft and U joints was a bigger job than I was willing to take on so I had my mechanic take care of it for me.  Now that all of this has been completed I am left with a reliable daily driver (without a lot of money out of pocket) that I hope I will get to use for a long time to come.

 

Along with all of those projects I was able to carve out a lot of time for some fun stuff too.  I’ve had a goal since retiring to really focus on using up what I already have on hand before buying anything new, particularly when it comes to craft and sewing supplies.  I was able to use up quite a bit of my stuff when I made things to fill up my gift shelf.  I like to give useful and consumable gifts so I made lots of decorated journals, note pads and some greeting cards.  I also made candle mats to go with candles I had bought on sale earlier this year as well as hanging dish towels to go with foaming hand soaps I recently picked up at Bath & Body Works with a gift card I had.  I also made myself a lot of goodies too.

I am absolutely in love with these shelf liners

And my aprons!

Santa Rosa Plum

The most surprising project, for me anyway, was to start rebuilding the area where the maple tree used to be.  In the spring my enthusiasm to get this done had waned, but by July I had found my mojo and a gorgeous Santa Rosa plum tree on clearance at my local Home Depot.  Just prior to making that purchase I realized I already had a lot of things in my yard to reinvigorate this space, I just needed to move a few things around.  I started by planting the tree and it just went from there.  It is still a work in progress, but so far I am quite pleased.

 

Looking back I’d say I was a very fulfilled and productive young lady and I am very happy with all of the progress I have made, not the least of which was, to get all of my end of life documents updated, signed and filed.  For me that was huge!  Super happy and relieved to have that all done!  So with that, I am ready to enjoy the Fall season with some downtime along with a little bit of relaxation thrown in for good measure.  It is going to be a great Fall, don't you think?

 

Decluttering The Hard Stuff

 

During the month of June I did another big declutter in my home.  Most of the items I went through and decided to let go of were ultimately the hardest decisions I have made so far in my decluttering journey.  These were the “just in case” items, the “someday I will use this” items as well as the super hard sentimental items that really can tug at our heart strings, especially when they belonged to someone you really love and they are no longer with us.

 

After watching loads of Youtube videos about minimalism and decluttering I knew when I went into this over two years ago that eventually my journey would lead me to this moment.  I started out by getting rid of the easy stuff, the stuff that I no longer wanted, needed or used.  If I wasn’t sure of something I kept that item and revisited it later.  A year later when I made my next pass through my entire house I found it much easier of a process and a lot of the items I had decided to keep but didn’t need or use, I now no longer wanted so out they went.

 

I then adopted a new routine that as I work my way through my housekeeping checklist I also declutter.  I also declutter whenever I feel the urge, as sometimes it just happens that I want to go through a drawer or a closet just to see if I’ve acquired something I don’t need to hang onto.

 

Once I had been steadily decluttering for about two and a half years I was finally ready to go through and address the hard stuff.  Because here is the thing – NO ONE ELSE WANTS OUR STUFF.  That’s the God’s honest truth about it.  Plus, we can’t take it with is when we go and whether you are a Believer or not, once we die NONE of it really matters.

 

I'm keeping only what is serving me at this point in my life

With that in the back of my mind I also had to ask myself the question of why I was keeping other people’s stuff, things my children had left behind, when they didn’t want it.  Memories and emotions of the past can be difficult because these are parts of our lives and those of the people we love most, but letting go of the stuff doesn’t mean we don’t remember or that we love less.

 

I let it go!!

Keeping it actually felt weighty, like I have had this overwhelming responsibility to keep and curate someone else’s possessions.  To what end?  When I die what will happen to all of this stuff?  Most likely it will end up in the trash.  That’s the real truth.  So I let it go and now someone else will actually have the opportunity to use it and enjoy it rather than having it in a box on a shelf collecting dust.  And I did it completely guilt free.

 

Even Jack is feeling relieved

So I encourage you to take a realistic look at your “hard stuff” and consider letting it go.  In the process you will most likely feel better and you will save your grieving loved ones the burden of doing it for you once you pass on.  I’m sure my children and grandchildren will appreciate that I did.

 

LTFS Travel & Emergency Shelf

 

When I travel I prefer to prepare my own food for most meals so I can cut down on costs.  I like to have easier to prepare meals that I can make in a hotel room or at a campsite.  I also like to have easy to prepare meal components on hand in case we have a power outage.

 

I try to choose healthier options

In my long term food storage (LTFS) I have a shelf where I keep some easy to prepare items like seasoned rice or pasta packets, instant potatoes, instant oatmeal, crackers, meat sticks, nuts and some fruit bars.  I will use these along with jars of my home canned meats or soups too as well as fruits and vegetables to make complete meals which require minimal cooking and clean up.

 

When I’m traveling it is nice to be able to have a quick snack like a meat stick or a fruit bar to hold me over until I make it to my destination rather than wasting money on a trip through the fast food line.  I think it is also much more nutritious.  Triscuits with some sliced cheese or tuna salad makes a pretty good lunch for me.

 

I don’t keep a lot of this type of stuff on hand, but I do think it is good to have a small selection of items like this as part of our prepared pantry.  A long power outage will be enough to make one happy that they did.

 

My Tireless Retirement – Week 180

 

Hello my friends!  Another week has rapidly flown right on by already.  Temperatures have changed and we even had a rainy day on Saturday that I appreciated so much.  It was gray and gloomy, but the moisture was greatly needed.  It has been quite a while since we’ve had a good day of rain.

Before

I can tell you that camping out of a car is vastly different than out of the back of my truck, or an RV for that matter, and I was quickly reminded of that fact while out camping the previous week.  I’m also older and hefting that big camp tote in and out of the car was a little hard on my lower back so I came home with the incentive to create “storage pods” instead.  I also decluttered some more gear that I don’t need or use anymore.

 

New stove!

One of the items that got the boot was the two burner campstove that decided to die on us while we were trying to cook dinner on our first night out.  I was bummed at first, but my BFF thought it was great because now he knew what to get me for my birthday – Ha!  As soon as we got home he fired off an Amazon order and a couple days later this beauty showed up on my doorstep along with enough fuel to camp for a few years as well as weather any long term power outages we might encounter in the future.

 

I had sorted my camp gear into zones and then measured my stuff so I knew what size containers I wanted to get before I headed to my least favorite store to pick up three containers.  It was a lot of fun for me to create these storage pods and I even made some super cute labels too.  They aren’t really necessary because you can see right through the containers, but it was fun!  Ideas are swirling inside of my head as plans are being made for future travel and I plan to do a lot more camping.  I’m so dang excited I can hardly stand it.

 

After

I pulled the other A/C unit out of my bedroom window and now I’m only using fresh air and box fans, which is my preference over air conditioning if given the choice.  As I was putting the freshly washed sheets back on my bed Sunday morning I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that in all likelihood I’ll be putting the flannel sheets on the bed in a few weeks.  Kind of crazy to think about, huh?

 

At Albertson’s my BFF had picked up a loaf of the Hero low carbohydrate bread for us to try and I have to say, it is very good.  I really like the ingredients list and the fact that is a very palatable low carb bread, although the price tag is rather high.  They have bagels and hamburger buns, tortillas and dinner rolls there too.  Now that we’ve tried it I was eager to try a few of  the other products and I had a $5 OFF birthday coupon to use so I stopped in while picking up my prescription and grabbed another loaf of bread, a package of bagels and some of the buns.  Initially I thought spending $8.99 for five bagels was a bit ridiculous until I was reminded I would have to spend $10 at the local bagel bakery for five bagels so this was actually a savings.  Plus, I can eat these!  Have any of you tried the Hero bread products yet?

 

Bagel with whipped cream cheese

Taco Pies - the two in the back went into the freezer

Wednesday I devoted various parts of the day to doing a bit of meal prepping while I also ran a few errands, tidied up around the house, worked on some future planning and took care of my household administrative tasks (bills, paperwork and updating my spreadsheets).  My big annual auto insurance and homeowner’s insurance renewals are fast approaching so I fired off an email to my agent/broker asking her to please make sure I am still getting the best rates and to search for ways to reduce my bill.  She got right back to me and told me she will start working on my request.  I also discovered a discrepancy on my last paycheck so I fired off an email to my supervisor and she was able to get that taken care of as well.  It really pays to stay on top of things.  Thursday was much the same as I wrapped up this week in retirement.

 

Recipe coming!

Macaroni salad

This brand new insulated lunchbox was on the FREE table at work

With continued turmoil in the world these days, the shootings in Utah and Colorado on Wednesday, political unrest and upheaval, humans being awful to one another, so much ickyness out that there, it has put us in a bit of a funk around here.  It affects us at our jobs as well as socially amongst our peers as people need or want to talk about it.  Personally, I am often finding it hard to stay motivated and keep my usual happy and positive attitude.  I am struggling, mostly because I don’t know what to do.  The entirety of the situation makes me incredibly sad.  Sad for me, sad for us and sad for our nation.  I continue to pray about this and ask God to guide me in my daily travels.

 

It holds my lunch container, a fork and my ice pack perfectly!

We can’t control the masses, we can only control ourselves so I intend to continue to live in a way that I feel Christ would approve of knowing all the while that I am far from perfect.  Regardless, I want to be kind to others, share when I can, protect what I must, stand on my principles and remain ever faithful.  I am a believer.  If there were ever a time to get closer to God I feel that time is now.  Our strength is being tested in so many ways and we must not fail.  Stay strong my friends and know that united we stand, divided we fall.  Take care and God bless all of you.