A list of all the stuff we found in the bonus room

...mainly in the stuff Scott's parents brought for us to go through. Though we do have an entire chest left to go through... another time. I know for a fact there's a Kids Sports Illustrated w/ Andre Agassi on the cover in there.

1. 3 Starting Lineup figures in the box. 2 Cal Ripkens (worth some serious money, but apparently he's pulling a 40-year old virgin and wants to keep them.) and a Scottie Pippen. Worth $20. Will sell that one...but that's chump change compared to Ripken.
   
2. A buttload of trophies. Including a Third Place plaque for "Computer Problem Solving". It's going beside my Third Place trophy for age 26-30 women in the Myrtle Beach 5k. Booya, nobody beats us! Except for 1st and 2nd.
   
3. Scott's elementary school writings. I particularly liked "Eagles vs Colts", which was dedicated to his uncle for "getting the tickets." It was a suspenseful, true story of the Eagles losing to the Colts. "We were so mad," Scott says. "And then they drove home and slept on the way." Another great one was "Dodgers vs Yankees", which was dedicated to the Dodgers. The dedications were the best part, another one was dedicated to "Kelly and Seven." Yes, Seven. (Sorry Steve, we figured you were just a baby so you probably didn't realize anyway.)
   
4. Right after we found a dead silverfish, we found a wrapped up bundle of sheep's wool in a "PA Agriculture Education" folder. Awesome.
   
5. An itemized list of all the baseball cards he owned and their value. I guess he thought a good place to store such valuable items was beside some gross sheep's wool? The other cool thing about the list was that it was printed on that old computer paper that stayed connected. It did have the holes ripped off though :)
   
6. A magic trick involving a disappearing coin. Very magical!
   
7. Jamie had a suitcase containing the following items: Wedding dress, photos, and teddy bears... Surprise!
8. We have a glow in the dark baseball (in a case) that is signed by.... some Harrisburg Senator. Yeah.... I snuck that one into the trash.
   
9. A kush ball! Smarty was confused about this one... she kept playing with it but then got annoyed because one of the nodes was always poking her in the eye. It was quite humorous.
10. Lisa Frank stickers. *hangs head*
    

We spent a good chunk of the weekend in there... yesterday I had a major cold issue. I hesitate to say it was anything serious or contagious just because I've been sick (sinusy... super fun stuff) for a few weeks off and on which is probably pregnancy related. But, nonetheless, it was unpleasant and put me out of commission for most of the day. And today Scott wasn't feeling so hot so I was on bonus room duty. Somehow, we finished most of it, just a few more things he has to do - like move some big/heavy things up or down and pound some nails into the wall. I'm not "authorized" to do that.

Personal achievement: I managed to consolidate all of my books to ONE bookshelf. I think I'm truly transitioning from a book owner/hoarder to a community book user. I now love the Wake County Library system and combined with the NC State lib I'm able to get much of what I want when I want it. I have about 2 dozen books to list on paperbackswap in the next few days so hopefully I'll get them out of here and get some fun new books. PBS is like library-lite. I really do love not wasting money purchasing books... when I was a big buyer I'd buy so many I ended up not really liking or wanting to even read in the first place. I'm really bad with impulse book buys... now if it's an impulse I just take it back in 2 weeks! What took me so long to get on board w/ this!?

Dollar Bills

So, in an effort to scrounge every available dollar we can find, I've been listing (and re-listing, and re-re-listing) some stuff we don't need or want on Craig's List. I have such a love/hate relationship with this site... I recently sold my old cellphone (Motorola Razr) for $40! I was SHOCKED it could bring in that kind of money, being nearly 3 years old, but who am I to say no to two crisp 20's? That's the "love" part... it's all roses once you get the cash and don't have to deal w/ the junk anymore.

But, (here's the "hate") it is such a pain, because I received "inquiry" emails from about 10 people before finding the chick who was willing to drive from Hillsborough and meet me to get the Razr. And (not to generalize, but) all of the emails I've received in response to technology related postings have been in this vein: (This is a direct copy/paste)

Do you still have this phone

(no punctuation or salutation) Wow...um... ok? But you know what? I do it, because I like money. :) I also like getting rid of stuff we don't need or like.

It's time consuming, and probably not the most efficient system, but it's what we have now. Hopefully in a few years there will be a much more efficient way of doing this! But for now, we're enjoying having a little extra (just a little) cash.

I'm currently listing the first two Twilight books for $15. I'm curious how that'll go...

Snippet of a conversation Scott and I keep having, and it continually amuses us...(we, like most people, use credit cards for EV.ERY.THING, including the $1.99 cup of coffee.)

J: (takes out a $20 and looks at it quizzically) S, what do you think this is?
S: (furrows brow and ponders) Hmmm, I'm not sure... is it some sort of paper you can write notes on it? What's with all the green ink on it? Is that a picture on it?
J: I'm not sure, I don't see these sorts of papers too often. What are we supposed to do with it?
S: (takes $20 from J and examines it) It seems old.

(and on an on.) I'm so glad we have each other to have nonesense interactions with... I'm not sure that many people would continue to humor me as well as Scott does (and vice versa, of course!)

Battle Number 2: Guest Bedroom

I declare Mission (semi) Accomplished.

It's not night and day ... this I realize. And the only reason I'm not declaring full out victory is that the I still have the very daunting project to tackle...photo organization. That's a big one, folks, and it's just plain not gonna happen this weekend!

Once again, I was shocked/impressed at the amount of stuff we had in there and the amount of stuff we were able to get rid of. I just got back from taking ANOTHER huge trunk-full to the recycling center. We have another basically full carload to take to Goodwill too. And we've made a promise to each other never to let this happen again.

Though Scott did request that I include that I found a bank statement from 2/4/01 in going through my notes from Farmers First Bank. He said "Hah! Who's getting made fun of in the blog now?!" I can take it like a man. I'd also like to point out this was my ONE box of school notes, all of which are now in the Wake County recycling center and it was only one bank statement.

Oh, and did I mention we're *exhausted* after all of this?? :)

Here are the afters:

We have a reversible comforter...so I changed it around to change the feel of the room. I was afraid it wouldn't look different enough and the blog world would judge me harshly!

We were able to grab the matching nightstand (formerly of the office) to go back with the bed. So guests, get ready! You'll now have a surface, a clock, and a LIGHT beside the bed. High style at Jamie & Scott's.
Oh, and the shelves beside the bed are totally empty now so the plan is to get rid of them...woohoo!

The light we inherited from my parents at some point, it was bronzy and weathered looking.... A can of black spray paint changed all that...wouldn't you say?

Oh, and those two boxes are our centerpiece candles from the wedding, IDK what to do w/ them, but I just can't seem to toss them. They're salvageable...just need to have the candles frozen out and soot cleaned off.

Ok, the shelves. Not worlds different, but we did manage to consolidate the books to one side, getting rid of some, and I'm hoping to fill the other semi-empty cubes with photo "stuff" once I get that in working order.

This is one of our favorite pieces - Scott's Pop-Pop caned this child's rocker for us. Well, not for *us* but for our children someday and, yeah, it doesn't get much use. So this bear seemed to fit perfectly. I think Scott got me this bear for when he went off to college or something, it's so cute and huggable, and I can't manage to make myself donate it. So he'll keep the rocking chair busy till it's needed.

Coming Up This Weekend: The Guest Bedroom

Our next battle in the War on Stuff is the Guest Bedroom, aka Smarty's room, aka where my wedding dress lives, aka "just throw it in the guest room." It's kind of a conglomeration of all of our random stuff that has never had a real place of its own. Oh, and it's where our guests sleep, in a really pitiful old bed. (Sorry 'bout that) It's pretty bad at the moment, since it's right beside the new, pristine office. We were admittedly a little lax last weekend, using the guest room to house stuff we wanted to keep but didn't know where to put it. Well, watch out, stuff...your moment of truth is coming!!

So, this weekend (hopefully just Saturday) is going to be dedicated to getting that organized, decluttered and usable. And maybe even pretty? I won't get my heart set on that last one, but who knows. Dream Big.

Some related organization projects we'll have to tackle in concert with the guest room will be:

1. Music (CD's, mp3 file organization). I'll throw DVDs in here for good measure.

2. Photos. Oooooh, photos. How do I love you and hate you all at the same time? I'm half digital, half negatives, which, am I really ever going to find the negative I need when I need it? My goal is to get the photos I have printed out in an album so we can at least look at them and enjoy them. And I want to get my photos that are older than the last four years at least in chronological order and somewhere where they won't get ruined.

And now, embarrassed, I give you The Before Shots:

In this shot, note Smarty on "her" bed. Note entire shelf full of pictures and crap like that. Note wedding dress draped over kids' rocking chair. And the rest of the stuff is from the office, and will NOT be going back into the office when we clean this room. I'm contemplating closing the door to preserve the organization in there.

Our IKEA shelves... they're cute and I think could really be functional. I think we need to get rid of some books, and better utilize these bad boys. Note extra wedding crap off to the side. I'm too cheap to throw it away but what do I do w/ it?

Stay tuned, and wish us luck.

1st Battle: The Office

We did it!! :) It only took ALL weekend, and kind of threw our home into a state of unrest...but it was so needed. I cannot believe the amount of stuff that was crammed into this teeny room. The goal was to make it less "Scott's Lair" and more "Jamie and Scott's Office". Especially with me entering school in less than a month. It feels like someone just handed me an extra room to our house...

Here's a pic from early on Saturday morning:

And here's a few minutes ago... just for effect.


Some of my favorite things we found in the office:
1. Credit card statements from Feb 04
2. Savings account statements from Farmers First Bank in Lititz, PA... good times.
3. Lots and lots of checks from Scott's 1st Raleigh apartment. Yes, this means they've been moved TWICE. :)
4. All the cords that any computer company made...ever. They're in a drawer, with the 5 mice we have "just in case". We also had a punch card, you know, from like old 1970's computers? No clue. But we have one.
5. Also, all the computers and various parts of computers from all of our friends and family.

We did an incredible amount of "downsizing"... we piled everything out into the hall into piles - Trash, Keep, Donate, Sell/Consign/Craigslist...and of course, IDK.


Some of my favorite enviro-saving/doesn't cost me a dime things we did:
1. Scott had a lot of papers printed out to read for school over the past few years. Like, a lot. So, we've saved all the one-sided sheets that were in decent condition and we're going to primarily print our stuff on the backs of those - like grocery lists, directions...whatever. And only print on "real" paper when it's 100% necessary not to have it on the back of a study of human computer interaction.
2. Recycled the paper and cardboard boxes. We took 7 or 8 bags of paper to the Wake Country convenience center.
3. Donated to Goodwill...pretty much anything we could get away with! Lots and lots of various stuff.
4. Craigslisting!! I have 4 active postings right now... fingers crossed our "junk" can be someone else's treasure. Or at least something they'd pay money for...?

So here's the gallery...

The Desk & Workspace!

OMG, was there always a WINDOW there?? :) I keep walking up the stairs and I'm like, is there a light on in that room?? Nope, just the sun. Very cool!

We do want to get a new desk chair, if I do end up using it to do schoolwork/working from home. I really love what we've done with what we have... I don't think we'd *have* to buy anything new at all to make this a very usable room.

Okay, gotta soak up the rest of the weekend...

Follow up to War on Stuff...

Some very interesting links I've found and been perusing off and on for most of the day. Good thing I'm not working from home today - I'd be very unproductive I think!

• Steps for De-Cluttering - I enjoyed the link from this page to the guy who's trying to live with only 100 personal items. A little drastic, but hey, good for him.
  
• Unclutterer...I subscribed to this blog and looove it. Good stuff.
• Good clutter destroying tips
• And... I want to do this when we clean up the office. But don't worry, Scott, we probably won't :)
  

I'm Declaring War On STUFF

Junk, Random Crap...whatever. We have too much of it, and I'm declaring war. We had the fun task of trying to remove some of the Random Crap (RC) from downstairs to try to make the terrain a little less treacherous for a 11 month old this weekend, and for the most part we succeeded. I'd blame what was left behind on the cat toys. Anyway... I'm considering the baby's visit the push we needed to just de-clutterify the place. Here's how I see it: We're young. WHY do we have so much RC??? Most of the junk we took upstairs we never even use and wouldn't miss if we'd just taken it out to the trash rather than upstairs to the guest room.

So, it's not like we live in a junkyard, I don't want to paint an unfair picture. I just get fed up with the amount of stuff we have that we don't need or use on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual...any basis at all, and the amount of time it takes us to save up for/rationalize buying stuff we really do need/want. There's something wrong there...

This is me declaring war... Scott and I are committing our entire next weekend to going through stuff and trashing the unsaveable, donating the potentially reusable, craigslisting the potentially sellable and shuffling around the underutilized. We're going to be smart and green in our approach - I don't want to just throw things away that could be recycled or used by someone else. But I'm tired of having so much more stuff than we need.

Whew, ok, so I said it. Wish me luck. :)