80 Days with Judy - Part 2

Mom had her knee surgery on May 31 and after several days of goofy behavior post-operative delirium she is now progressing nicely in a Senior Rehabilitation and Physical Therapy Center. Her knee looks very good and after having three previous knee surgeries, she has declared this one "beautiful".  While Mom has been busy rehabbing her knee and relaxing, I have continued to downsize, declutter, and organize her house - preparing for the possibility of listing the house for sale in the fall.

As mentioned in a prior post, over the past few weeks we have donated boxes and boxes and bags upon bags of clothing and household items, just so we can see what is in her closets.

Simultaneous to downsizing, the community my parents live in experienced major flooding.  Thankfully we were able to donate several boxes and bags to the local church who collected items for the flood victims.

With all the cleaning and sorting we have been doing, one room began to collect the "extras", things Mom decided to keep "just in case" or that she didn't want to part with "just yet", but didn't know where to store them, so they ended up in her office. 

In here 

Office Before

You may be thinking, "How did you get in there to clean?"

I tip-toed very carefully, hoping I wouldn't trip.  

Hoping I wouldn't fall - I didn't have Mom's life line on me.

Hoping I could finish the project without hurting my back, within the limited time I allowed myself during this trip back to her house.

TaDAAAAA!!!!!

Amazing!

I hardly threw anything out!!!  Just a few more pens.

I found a "home" for most of the items by grouping and organizing office supplies, books, CD's, and pens. Now everything has a place. Including the 20 dispensers of packing tape. I created a mailing station for all the big envelopes, tape, mailing labels, etc.  There is still much work to be done in this room but for now, we can move around and find what we need.

And now for the pens............

Pencils, pens, highlighters - OH MY! - placed neatly on top of the
mailing station and children's bins of crayons

These 7 containers of pens, pencils, highlighters, extra lead and erasers are what is left over of weeks of sorting through pens and weeding out the ones that don't work. We tossed away the equivalent of 2 containers and gave away another 2 containers of pens that still worked.  This doesn't count the two BINS of crayons, markers, and pencils that are marked "Grandchildren", or the red box of crayons that are Mom's.

Or the cups of pens on the filing cabinet in the kitchen or the drawers in every room.  Like I said, we still have more to do.

 But for now - it is done.

Family Tree information

Sewing notions

Mom's red crayon box - out of the reach of little hands

Mom's puzzles - she will never be bored

I pick on my Mom for all the pens she has accumulated in the last few years (Oh believe me we have downsized and SHE has downsized her collection many times over the years) but it made me think. Just for fun - I challenge everyone who reads this to gather all your pens, pencils, erasers, highlighters, markers and crayons together in one place.  Now see how many you have and let me know.