Clearing out

I spent most of the weekend sorting and clearing out and throwing away. I don't know if that counts as "cleaning," but I guess it does. I washed all of the salt and pepper shakers on my shelf, dusted the shelf, and put most of them back. I don't dust them very often, but when I do, I switch them out, and put different ones out, put some of them in storage.



My grandmother--my mother's mother--collected salt and pepper shakers, and some of these were hers. She received most of them as gifts, souvenirs from relatives and friends when they returned from trips, and she tried to write the giver's name on the bottom of them. Most of them are unreadable now. When I posted the picture on Facebook yesterday, one of my cousins mentioned that my other grandmother collected them, too, an said that the picture reminded her of Grandma's house (Great-Grandma, in her case). I like that. It's a connection to another generation.

I also cleaned the glass shelves of my etagere, and the things that were on it, and a server that sits in the dining room. So many things to dust! I'm trying to put things away, and get rid of things, but it's hard. I also spent a lot of time today going through books and CDs, checking on Amazon to see if I could get a decent price for them, and if not, if Amazon wanted to buy them. They don't pay much, as a general rule, but sometimes they do, and they pay for shipping. I came up with about $40 worth of stuff that I'll send to Amazon, and they'll deposit a gift certificate in my account. It makes me feel less guilty about all those ebooks I buy . . .

I filled a big bag for one of the charities that comes through the neighborhood periodically, and I also put a few things on eBay. Oh, and I sold my Bluetooth keyboard on Amazon, about 30 minutes after I posted it. I just found that I didn't use it as much as I thought I would (not at all, really), so I priced it at 5 cents less than the lowest price, and it sold. It'll be out the door tomorrow, along with a package of rubber stamps and the box of books for Amazon.

It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something. I probably would have done more, but my back scared me this evening. I got a twinge that let me know I needed to stop, or I was going to throw my back out. I definitely don't want to do that, even more than normal, because Bob's out of town. It's happened a few more times when I move, change position (sit or stand), but I think it'll be okay as long as I quit the bending and lifting. I've got a big pile of stuff that needs to go to the basement, but I won't do it tonight. I'll leave it for another day, or maybe next weekend if my back doesn't feel better. I'll take some ibuprofen when I go to bed tonight.