I am so encouraged by other posters getting rid of 'stuff' that I put an old six-foot folding table on the curb. Admittedly the top was pretty shabby. Well, some one came along and carefully unscrewed 20 screws to remove and take the legs - leaving the shabby top behind. I nearly died laughing. I cut the top in half so that, hopefully, the garbage men will take it away this morning.

That's excellent, Bill. Well done. Just one thing at a time is fine.

We almost accidentally let go of a lot of stuff last night as our garage door didn't close. Well, DH says it's having problems and it reverses once it hits bottom. He'll work on that this week but in the mean time we'll have to watch it come down and wait a few seconds before we leave to make sure it is closed. I noticed a strange light coming from the dog door when I got up this morning. Yep, the outside lights shining in on our new, used car! All our golf equipment in plain view. The dogs could easily have just walked away, too. But everything is in fine order. We live in a safe neighborhood. It helps having a cop for a neighbor!

I'm looking forward to a cooler, drier week and hopefully three days of golf this coming weekend.

But to get through the next few days...month end is the busiest for me.

Bill What happened with your table sounds like something my DH would do. He saves all sorts of things for the possibility of using them in the future. We never use them but he refuses to throw them out.

I am going to do a purge of my stuff on the Labour Day weekend. I have several areas of the house in mind where my stuff has been collecting dust since we moved in 2 years ago. There are also several items in the storage unit - yes apparently a house and two sheds isn't enough for us - that I have been keeping with the intention to "do something" with them. That appears to be to throw them out and I will do so. I also have more stuff to go into the storage unit but it's packing boxes and leftover flooring so that IS stuff I need to keep. For now.

Dagmar

Bill-- that's hilarious! Good job getting rid of half an item!

Phew, Allison! Great you live in a safe neighborhood!!

Dh and I had a nice weekend!!

More later-- gotta go!!

Work slammed me all of a sudden...
Was going to say that dh and I had a nice and busy weekend...
Lots of walks with Ellie, went to bikram and the gym...
Put together an IKEA project (he did anyway-- now I have to fill out-- going to be like a pantry in our kitchen as we don't have one and use cabinets for a pantry)...
Did work at home...
Shopped together....

I love it when he is home on the weekends...

I'm realizing that I'm going to need to reign it in food wise as much as possible as I have several upcoming difficult situations... We booked a fancy "James Beard" dinner with multiple chefs-- very expensive but sounds very fun and foodie... We are also going to Monterey in October and planning some decadent meals, and I am going to Arizona in October to visit dd and she is planning some restaurant visits.... So... I'm thinking I REALLY need to lose 5 or so pounds if at all possible before then. Otherwise, I will gain more and then hit the holidays.... oy vey.....

Dh booked his knee replacement surgery for December 3 so we won't be traveling for the holidays. Not sure how much help he will need but I'll obviously need to be around to help him....

Bill, anyone with enough patience to apply an electric screwdriver in 20 different spots must be commended.

I just sold two blouses on eBay over the weekend, but what I've netted makes it hardly worth the time & labor of taking the photographs and getting them packaged and off to the post office. There is just a little bit of frugal smugness, that's all.

I did not want to look at the Sports section of the Sunday times when I took it out of my mailbox yesterday -- because if I didn't look, then American Pharoah would not have lost the Travers.

To distract myself from eating everything in this kitchen (we're petsitting so there are quite a few foods that I don't buy), I thought I'd post here.

We're in the process of moving and trying to get our rental fixed up for a new tenant. Today we were excited to get the key to our new place (another rental that we've owned for 5 years, but never lived in) so we drove the 1/2 hour to the next town to get the key from the property management company. They said it would be at the office today. Note on the door: "Closed for the Day." Since we'd arrived before their office hours, we hoped the note was from the day before. We decided to go have coffee, and we called the painter to tell him we weren't going to make our appointment, but we'd call once we got the key. Came back to the office and they were open--yay! The office person didn't have the key, but gave us the code to the lockbox. We drove the 1/2 hour back to the place and discovered no lockbox. Called and were told someone would get back to us. Since we can't leave the dogs for more than 3 hours, we went back to our petsit and received a call saying the key had been at the office when we were there before. Sent my DH back to get the key, called the painter who now can't come until tomorrow. Also our car is in the shop, and we're using my DD's car and have to pick her up and deliver her to work, all within the 3 hour time limit.

So by next Thursday when we leave, we have to remove carpeting, pad and tack strips at the other rental, paint, clean and make arrangements to get new carpeting and flooring installed; make arrangements for painting our house; meet the home inspectors (just want to make sure everything is okay under both houses); get our car back from the shop, and do a myriad of other small things. All within 3 hour chunks of time.

Then when we get back to Seattle, we have to finish packing, clean the apartment and make sure the movers do their thing.

I feel a bit stressed and anxious. I noticed I'm looking forward to a glass of wine every night. Coming from a family of alcoholics, that bothers me a bit. I never drink more than a glass, really seldom drink, but I don't like that I really want that one glass. A massage would be nice about now. . .

What a mess, Sheila. That's too bad about the mix-up with the key causing you with losing time. I hope the rest of your move is easier. Are you going back to Idaho?

Sheila, not such great service from the property mgmt company. Being a landlord is not always very much fun, eh? Why did you decide to move?

Michele, you can count on DH needing lots of help after knee replacement. Good idea to concentrate on losing before the holidays arrive.

Saef, I might list some things on ebay when I have more time. But we also have a "career closet" at work, and I may donate some nicer pieces to it. Our county agency helps people find jobs, and many times they own no suitable clothing for interviews or office work, hence the career closet.

I am planning to stay home for most of the Labor Day weekend and I might actually get some purging done too. I think we need an official three-day weekend for throwing things away - it might as well be Labor Day.

Alice I'm joining you for "Throwing Things Away" weekend. In my case it will be mostly paper from my office. I used to be able to do this at our two rental homes on Halloween. My files were near the front door and, while waiting for kids to trick or treat, I would go through the filing cabinet and weed out the stuff I no longer needed.

Now the cabinet is on the second floor and I haven't done anything with it for two years. It's time.

It helps that I've nothing really planned for the weekend except the usual chores and pet care, which now also involves meds and a cone for one of our two itchy pets. We were going to take the kayaks out but the beach is a mass of stinky green slime so that's not so appealing this weekend.

And one client just asked me to work - assumed I would be here. I said no. In the past I would have agreed but I figure I'm not available 24/7. I do get a bit of a life of my own, especially on the last long weekend of summer. Not going to ruin that for $30.

I'm also going to put out a lot of DVD's and CD's that have been gathering dust since we moved in. I'll have to keep an eye on DH and make sure he doesn't carry them back inside and stash them downstairs in his man cave.

Dagmar

Yup, we're moving back to Boise in two weeks.

The deal was that we would stay in Seattle four years or until I couldn't stand it. Well, I'm invoking the "couldn't stand it" clause after 2.5 years. There are a lot of wonderful things about Seattle (I'm actually a native) like the water, the neighborhoods, the walkability, and the parks. It's just gotten so big and the traffic is awful. Our youngest DD moved back to Boise a year ago, and we hope to get to know our new DIL better. My DH was going to officially retire, but the company wanted him to work full time or part time. He didn't want to do either of those, but he agreed to work on an hourly basis on projects. A nice gig for him and some extra money.

Dagmar, you've kind of mentioned a few times that you will be moving in a few years when you retire. Are you still thinking about moving to BC? Gross on the stinky slime. We've seen a lot of algae bloom in the Pacific NW, too.

This weekend we're painting our rental unit. Can't wait.

Sheila No BC is no longer an option. Kelowna's housing is now almost as expensive as that of Toronto. We want to sell the house here and have enough left over to invest and generate a modest income to complement our small old age pensions we will eventually get at 65. We both will probably have to work part-time at some sort of minimum wage jobs as well. I'm hoping to get in somewhere like Home Depot - they DO hire seniors - where I will be inside!

Dagmar

I can totally relate to the big city turnoff, Sheila. The last two weekends spent in Salt Lake were more than enough to convince me and DH that we will never live in a big city. Traffic, crowds, dirt, yuck! My SIL is from Boise and her parents still live there. I've actually never been there--DH's grandparents are from Twin Falls, so we've been there a few times. Even in our smallish valley, it is spread out enough that you rarely run into crowds except during "season."

Ah, retirement. I wonder when that will happen? We used to think we'd retire early but it probably won't happen. I would like to quit working in about 8 years and travel more before officially retiring. Being a business owner helps out in some ways with that idea.

My (retired) DH wants to move to town, but so far I'm holding out, telling him it's because I'm still working half-time. Truthfully I never want to live in town. Agreed, the property will take more work than a condo, but I've waited all my working life to be able to enjoy having acreage, so why would I want to move right away? Besides, working outside and fixing things up is good exercise. I'm not too old yet. I'll learn to do what I need to.

I've just read these two articles and thought of you all.

Why your bathroom scales are lying to you and how to find your true weight

NB Some of us do take an average, I think. Becky? Shannon?

And I must have missed the finding that the lungs are the primary excretory organ for weight loss.

This is just brilliant. It's really made me look at things differently.

OK, early night for me again. Have I told you I've got a dental abscess on one side and I think a molar is cracking up on the other. You can really feel odd if your face isn't right.