Carrie Bartkowiak v. 5.0

Updated! Pics are at the bottom.

More than half of my front porch is absolutely stuffed with stuff.
Stuff that I’ve spent months purging out of my overcluttered house.
Stuff that CHKD (the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters) was supposed to come and get yesterday. Sometime between 8am and 5pm - they barely made it at 10 minutes to 5.

Here’s the kicker - they didn’t take the stuff. Not a bit of it.
There was too much.
Now, I told the lady who was handling donation pick-ups that there was a LOT of stuff. She, apparently, didn’t believe me. (She probably hears that all the time, and they get there and it’s two boxes.) I told her there was a 55-gallon fish tank, a car bed, and enough stuff to make a good-sized yard sale. When she called back to confirm on Thursday I updated her and let her know we’d added a couch and even more stuff. Heck, I was still walking around grabbing things and adding them to the pile all day yesterday. I had planned on asking the guys when their next trip through our town will be, and telling them to make plans to stop by and pick up more of our purged stuff. Because we aren’t done - not by a longshot. That’s changed, though. I won’t be calling this charity again.

Get this… the guys who were here yesterday (and who are coming back this morning) told us that they won’t take all of it.
They’re going to pick through it.
Things like the baby high chair, which has some dust on it from sitting on the porch for 3 weeks waiting for CHKD to show up, they won’t take - because it’s dirty.
“We don’t do no cleaning of items,” the man told me.
He also pointed to where one of the cushions of the couch was coming loose from the arm (a ten-minute fix-up job that I never bothered to do) and told me the couch was staying, too. “We don’t do no mending, and I can see that’s torn, so we won’t be takin’ that.”
(It’s a good thing the couch was so piled down with boxes that he couldn’t see the rest of it. One of the cushions is torn completely across the top - again another simple fix-up job that we never bothered with… but he probably would’ve run screaming.)

Now, I do realize that this is a charity and that they want to make money, but in a way it bugs me. They’re getting these donations from people -people that could just as easily (and certainly in a much more timely fashion) have thrown these items into the trash- and they’re… well… being picky.
The phrase “looking a gift horse in the mouth” keeps coming to mind.

You’re not going to convince me that they don’t have a huge dumpster right outside the door, or even inside of the facility, where they could throw stuff that they deem not worthy. To me, that would be much better than actually offending the people taking the time -not to mention valuable space- to hold these items for them for THREE FREAKING WEEKS by picking through the stuff and leaving some of it behind.

I already purged the purge pile, as I was making the darn thing. There isn’t any trash in there. There isn’t anything that can’t be sold, and matter of fact anything that’s a little “rough around the edges” could be sold for a good amount as-is and much much more if it were shown a little attention; like mending the couch or hitting the high chair with a clorox wet wipe. There’s an entire box of solid silver items in there, and now I’m wondering if they’ll turn that away because it hasn’t been polished in years and looks black. Seriously, I’m not being cheeky - that’s the impression he gave me. They’re really, REALLY going to be picky.

It’ll be interesting to see what’s left over after they’re done this morning. I’ve taken pictures of the pile; when they’re done I’ll take some more and post a “before/after” comparison. Check back and see what stays and what goes.

Update
Before: Two different pics, one took the day they were supposed to take the stuff and one taken the morning they did take it (with more stuff added)

After: They ended up leaving the couch, the crib (because it wasn’t assembled), the fish tank (because it didn’t have a lid), and some pet supplies that were open (huge bulk bag of bedding, etc).

We spun the couch around and have really enjoyed sitting on it in the evenings. We might just leave it there. It’s tacky, I know, but it fits all of us better than my papasan chair I’ve got out there (which is the same color green, btw, so at least it matches). We’ll be taking the pet supplies to the SPCA this week. They don’t care if the bags are open. As for the crib and fish tank, those will probably get Freecycled.

I was able to actually get out onto the back patio and straighten up once the stuff back there was moved up front, and god help me, I found more stuff that was supposed to go that I’d missed. Now I’m trying to think of a place to keep that stuff as we add to it for the next run - when we’ll be calling the Salvation Army.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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The past few days I’ve been really remiss on anything household-related.

My mom sent me a link to download a Harry Potter fanbook (what this particular fan thinks The Deathly Hallows will be) and I sat up reading it all night Saturday. It was a fantastic book. Really well thought-out and the characters were pretty much dead-on. There was too much “snogging” going on and the few times when the book focuses on Harry’s increasing teenage hormones were a bit uncomfortable (simply because I think JKR would’ve been more subtle about it), but all in all the book was brilliant. It was great to get back into the wizarding world of Harry Potter, it felt like being around old friends. Even though it isn’t the official book ending the series, it definitely is worth the read if you need something to tide you over for the next 66 days. (Movie comes out in 52 days, book comes out in 66.) Look for the download on Google, I misplaced the link.

Speaking of the movie, there was a new trailer snippet that was shown during Survivor. I didn’t watch the show, but did spend a lot of time at YouTube today watching all of the different trailers both for the US and international versions, and some of the cool fan videos that have been done up. The movie looks like it’s going to be AWESOME. I tried not to get my hopes up too much, because the last movie disappointed me (too much stuff cut out, the director focused on the wrong things that weren’t key to the storyline and cut out stuff that was key, etc), but it’s no use. I just love the HP books and movies so much that watching the trailers today really got me all excited to see the movie. I can’t wait.

Mike’s been spending the time since Sunday reading the book; either on my Palm or on the laptop or on his desktop computer. We’ve been doing a lot of reading aloud, for hours and hours at a time. The fanbook is 660 pages long, so it’s taking a while.

Other than that, not much going on. Mother’s Day was great; the boys got me a big beautiful Snapdragon plant. They were all excited when they found it because Snapdragon is an herb on Runescape. They also made me a couple of little mirror magnets with colored “gems” on them to go on the fridge; they’re really pretty and cute. I twisted my foot/ankle being silly Sunday afternoon over at Mom and Dad’s.

Monday evening Mike had a sudden bout of illness come on and I ended up taking over his Bear den while he stayed home. We had a lot of fun; we went out on a little nature walk around the Moose lodge property and saw lots of different kinds of bugs, flowers, leaves, and even a rogue possum. I also had the Wolf den because I’d promised the week before to take those over for their den leader (he’s been working 16-hour days lately); but he was able to come after all and we just blended the two dens together for our walkabout. Next week I get the Bears again, as Mike thinks he’ll be working second shift. That will be our last den meeting of the “year”; the Monday after that is the pack meeting and then we go on our extended summer break where we only meet once every 2 or 3 weeks for some kind of fun activity (like an ice cream get-together). Tomorrow I’m going to look over Mike’s BearTrax software and see if I can squeeze in a few different activities that will help a few of the boys finish off their badge requirements. These last few kids won’t be working on things during the summer (their parents aren’t involved in their Cub Scout stuff at all) and goodness knows things like ice cream socials isn’t going to help them get their achievements done. (Don’t get me started.)

Kelsey and Brendon have decided that this summer they want to do Cub Scout resident camp instead of the day camp. I’m both relieved and torn. The resident camp is earlier in the summer, so it won’t be so hot, and it’s in a great wooded reservation so they’ll be in the shade most of the time. The spot where they do day camp is on a coast guard base and there’s maybe 5 trees in the whole area; they had boys in the infirmary for dehydration constantly last year (including Kelsey). So it’ll be a better time for them health-wise, plus they’ll have a LOT more fun. I also get a few days “off”, since they’ll be staying there the whole time (resident camp means you actually sleep there too, like a “real” summer camp), rather than running them back and forth every day. But the cost is more than double that of day camp. I’m hoping my Dad will pitch in for that, once he gets back from Tennessee. My great aunt died on Saturday and my parents went to TN for the funeral.

Oh - strike another one off of my vision board, as well. We were gifted with a really nice couch and love seat set on Sunday from one of Dad’s neighbors. It’s not the sectional sofa that I was hoping for, but it’s nearly the same color and the throw pillows are almost identical to the picture I have of the sofa on my vision board. It’s waiting for us in Dad’s garage; we’ll be moving it in this weekend once I finish making room for it. I also called the local charity for a children’s hospital, and they’ll be coming to pick up all of our purged stuff on the 25th. What a relief that’ll be to get that stuff off of our front and back porches! Our decluttering/organizing/making space efforts have actually ground to a halt because we don’t have anywhere to put more stuff that’s being purged; nor any space to clean out a room and sort it. I do have a number of boxes in closets that are mentally earmarked to go out onto the purge pile, and I’ll get those out there before the 25th.

Other than that, we’ve just been working on getting the new badges sewn onto outfits and red jackets, Kelsey’s started working on his Webelos Craftsman badge (he’s building a bird feeder and a toolbox), Brendon built a wooden model of DaVinci’s flying machine, and we’re sadly watching our favorite tv shows (Heroes, LOST, Grey’s Anatomy, and Desperate Housewives) come to an end. With lots of read-aloud of the Harry Potter - Deathly Hallows fanbook going on the entire time. “Pottering” around.

I hope everyone else’s week is going well!

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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When temperatures here hit the mid-80’s before the first official day of spring, I had a bad feeling. I shared it with my neighbor, who was feeling pretty antsy about it too.
With temperatures that high and that early, this hurricane season is gonna be bad, we agreed.

Why bring this up today? Well folks, today we have our first named storm spinning off of the Atlantic coast. Its name is Andrea, and it’s here a full 3 weeks before the official start of hurricane season.

Atlantic’s first named storm forms early - CNN.com

Let me take this opportunity to encourage everyone to make “hurricane kits”. This is a box with all the supplies you’d need in it if a storm hit and knocked out power for a few days, and a different box that you keep in your car in case you have to evacuate. The site One Storm will help you do this. It’s completely free. They have contacts with local emergency services and can help you both before and when a storm is coming with reminders like gathering prescriptions, where shelters are located, and a full detailed list of everything you’d need to make hurricane kits.

Hold onto your hats, folks. This season’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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