What I Did On My Summer Vacation,Part 1

So... I retired from the Postal Service on June 1st, and haven't posted all that much about experiences and changes since then. Let's see if we can remedy that in the next few days.

We did some Reorganizing (that'll be Part 1, this post), went into Living Tight mode (Part 2), and I spent several months looking for Re-Employment (Part 3). Also managing an occasional bit of Relaxing (Part 4). And, at the end of August, ended up with a new job, which will be a separate post.


Part 1: Reorganizing:

The major reorganization involved clearing out our rented storage room (that also tied into Living Tight, because dropping the rented storage saved over $120 a month) and a major cleanup on the backyard sheds and yard.

Between all that, we ended up with a pile for the monthly Bulk Trash pickup that was about the size of a minivan. A lot of stuff went to the local Good Will branch, as well. And there are still other things I've meant to put on Craigslist or Freecycle, and some stuff that needs cleaning or repairs before donating or selling it somewhere.

But the backyard sheds are much better organized, the sideyards especially are much cleaner, and the back porch isn't quite as crowded as it was.

Some reorganizing and clutterwork took place inside the house, as well. Our longtime housemate Kay moved to her own apartment in May (and shortly afterward decided to move back to Michigan where her husband Ike has been living the last several years), so the living room -- which had been Kay's household territory for years -- got pretty much emptied out, then rearranged and refurnished by Tabbi, Hilde's live-in caregiver.

After Kay moved out of the front bedroom, our son Chris moved back in with us and took the bedroom over. This keeps some room-&-board money coming in, and helps Chris out with his own finances (room-&-board with your family is cheaper than an apartment, even an apartment you shared with several friends).

One of our other housemates, Holly, who'd been squeezed into a bed and a few shelves in one corner of the overstuffed craft room, also decided to move back in with family members, back in Kansas. This made room, kind of, for Tabbi's brother Paul and his friends James and Jason, to move in for a while. (James and Jason had both spent some months as crewmembers for one of the paddlewheel tourist boats operating in the Pacific Northwest, but came back to Arizona when the company went into bankruptcy.) The three guys come close to hot-bunking, with one in the craft room, one on a mattress on the floor of Tabbi's room, and one on the sofa. Paul's been doing the yardwork for his room-&-board, and Jason has taken over most of the cooking since I started working again.

There's a lot (a LOT!) of things in the house that still need to be gone thru and reorganized or gotten rid of. The biggest projects are: The "craft room", which is also supposed to serve as a guest bedroom. Currently, guests staying in that room negotiate a narrow pathway between boxes and stacks of craft stuff to reach the guest bed. And the library (which was formerly a garage); over the years, we've accumulated enough books that even four-walling the room with shelves, and with numerous free-standing shelves as well, has left us short on space. We need to go thru all the shelves and cull for duplicates and WNRTA (We'll Never Read This Again) books to make room for all the newer books presently sitting in stacks of boxes. But those two projects are probably going to still have to wait for a while (see Part 3, about Re-Employment).

This is the house we figure on spending the rest of our lives in, or until someone drags us away to a nursing home, so I really do need to try and stay on top of clutter. (That stuff adds up fast! I think there may be breeding involved.)