Random 5 for February 19, 2023 – Peaceful interlude, hairballs, taxes, furniture, consignment stores

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This is what “nothing” looks like! Find a sunspot and indulge!

Quiet peace – After weeks of running from store to store looking for furniture, carpeting and other house stuff, all the ordering is done. No weight on my shoulders. No scheduled shopping. The window treatment in the music room is done too. I had a week of blissful nothing. I love nothing!

When there is nothing, stuff fills the gap! – So true! Gracie (my cat) embarked on a busy barfing schedule this week. Every. Single. Day! This is not completely unusual but she hasn’t done this in a while. She’s back on her hairball meds.

Other stuff creeps in – I got the last of my statements to file taxes so now that’s on my shoulders. Boogers.

Donations – In prepping for the new furniture, I have some old (but very good) furniture to donate or give away. My first foray was with Habitat for Humanity. They only take perfect furniture. The first photos I sent produced a second request for more photos with close-ups of specific areas. My furniture is in excellent shape but there are some imperfections. (Note to self: See if you can remove Jake’s chin spot!) We’ll see if they take it. Salvation Army is next on my list.

Speaking of that – A long while back, after I retired, I tried to sell some of my business clothes at a consignment shop. They had the rules! You had to have at least ten pieces with nothing older than three years. I get that they don’t want someone else’s outdated worn clothes but I had a few classic pieces that defied trends. Mostly blazers and jackets. I donated to Purple Heart. It was a lot less hassle.

So how was your week?  

60 thoughts on “Random 5 for February 19, 2023 – Peaceful interlude, hairballs, taxes, furniture, consignment stores”

  1. Poor Gracie – 2022 is not her year and I hope by now, two weeks later, she is feeling like her 2021 self. Interesting about the donations. I held onto all my business attire and have not worn any of it since I last worked on site in early 2009. Like your clothing, I liked classic, timeless things like blazers, skirts, trouser-style pants … we had no dress code once my boss and I moved, so I started buying some trendy and more-casual clothes to intersperse with those above items. I would save my pantsuits – maybe had eight of them as they still fit, but who knows where I’d wear them? I have a love-hate relationship with these charities not wanting to take items of clothing. If a person has zero clothing, from a fire, or fleeing a domestic toxic relationship with the clothes on their back, then can’t a few outdated items fill the gap until new clothing can be purchased? I had no idea Habitat for Humanity wanted brand-new furniture … again, making do with furniture in good shape should be allowed. Back when the house was less cluttered, my mom had a rule that for every new item of clothing brought into the house, an old item should be given to charity. That didn’t always fly, but yes, I saw her point. She abided by that as well, though didn’t make as many clothing purchases as me. We bagged up items and went to the Salvation Army. Workers were on a break, refused to take items … we waited in the car in the alley at the door where they had their intake area while they sat in the same alley on two old chairs smoking and shooting the breeze and eating their lunch. My mother said “we look like a couple of idiots sitting here – they can’t open the door and let us make the drop?” I asked again … “nope, we are on lunch hour.” We left and drove to another Salvation Army where the treatment was not much better. I took all my mom’s clothes to St. Vincent de Paul and had nine bags (garbage bags) of clothing, neatly packed, some brand-new with tags. I was there before they opened, ready to haul it in – I was NOT going to put it in their outside bins, which looked like huge trash receptacles. One of the workers saw me through the glass door, ten minutes before they opened and pointed to his watch and walked away. I was pretty angry, but held my temper. When he opened the door, he said “take it to the bin, I’m not helping you.” I said “you’ll hold the door for me and I will put it inside the door and you can do whatever the h*ll you want to do with it or I will report you to the authorities.” That seemed to trigger a response. I will probably give my clothing to Ann Marie, a former nun, who is still very active with her church.

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    • Some of these places act like they are doing you a favor! We’ve had similar experiences with Goodwill. We have a local place where the people are all volunteers and are much nicer. They even oh and aw when they look at your things. And yes, even if it’s a few years old, isn’t there someone in need of anything that would take it gladly?

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      • I am glad I am not the only one with those experiences and it’s interesting that the volunteers are nicer than the workers. I am left shaking my head over it … we know better to give threadbare items. We have an organization for men that men can donate dress suits to a men’s clothing store and get a discount on their new suit. That’s a good idea there.

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      • Poor Hazel. Poor Kate. Yes, Perry has been pretty good but you can imagine that with two months of diarrhea going on, sometimes there are issues! And then Sloopy gets constipated sometimes and has an accident. And then Meesker once he gets going pees on the guest bed day after day until he stops for awhile. Then starts up again. ET CETERA

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  4. I found the donation of furniture stressful – so many rules! I know back in Ohio, I found a FaceBook site that you could list anything for free and someone would come for it. Even “as is” things. Couldn’t find the equivalent here in Florida and so, we ended up tossing things away. I just couldn’t deal with anymore rules at donation places. Kinda sad.

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  5. We have a church around the corner that will take clean and working anything. I’m not sure they would pick up large pieces of furniture, we have not had a need for that. I left a house full of furniture at the Tiny Ten. A young couple with hardly any furniture or kitchen items bought our house and I know they kept what they needed and liked and shared with other family members.
    I am hoping the rest of this month is filled with blissful nothing 🙂

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  7. I tend to avoid the big name donation companies and find a local charity who is happy to get donations — AND — that’s where I shop, too! I’ve also found a really nice consignment store in a higher end town, so their inventory is very nice quality and reasonable prices. I’ve sold a few things there but mostly bought.

    A week of nothing sounds like pure wonderfulness to me!!!!!!!!!!! Kitty in the window has it all figured out 🙂 ~ MJ

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    • The consignment rules were cumbersome to me. They didn’t notify you if they sold your piece. You had to call every week. If it didn’t sell in a specific time frame (like 6 weeks or so), they donated it without notifying you. I know they are small operations but a simple email or text would work.

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  9. I can’t believe how picky Habitat for Humanity is about furniture. That really annoys me. A lot of furniture can be in sturdy condition and just need a slip cover. 🙂

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  11. Every once in a while, I have something worthy of consignment but mostly I either list it on our Buy Nothing site or donate to our locale Discovery Shop (for cancer research). I used to send my better things to Discovery and the rest to Goodwill. Then, I learned that they send anything they don’t want, or doesn’t sell, to Goodwill so now, I just give everything to them. I’ve been to our local Habitat for Humanity store… it didn’t seem to have too high of standards for furniture.

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    • I haven’t been to the store so I don’t know but getting them to accept it is taking work. I don’t make vacuuming the piece (for possible cat hair) but the concern about imperfections is high. Even with all the pictures, the driver can refuse any piece when he comes to pick up.

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  12. Love the kitty photo today – excellent framing! Good luck on getting rid of furniture and clothes. I found out that Salvation Army will pick up almost any furniture. I tried a consignment shop for clothes but it was too much of a hassle. Now I just give stuff to Goodwill as it is local and easy to get to.

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  14. After a few busy weeks, a quiet week can be a delight. And a good time to catch up on a few things. Unfortunately, it’s getting close to tax season, a less pleasant thing to plug into our schedule. I’m planning to make a little start today.

    Last week I made a start on clearing out shelves and cupboards with a trip to Goodwill with some odds and ends. Finding a home for larger items is on my to-do list.

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    • I don’t know if I’m working with the wrong organizations or if they are all this fussy. I understand no holes or large wear marks or (good lord!) pee spots. Sofas have to be plain — no print or floral and I kind of get that too although I just bought a chair with a floral so to each their own. If I were going to pick up something at a resaler I would look for good structure and probably rehab it in some way. Probably reupholster. If you can pick up something for $50, the reupholstering isn’t that outrageous. The furniture I am donating is far better than what most people have in their rec room (do they still have those kid areas?).

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  19. Most of our thrift stores here will take the donation of slightly used furniture, and, to be honest, I’ve seen some pieces in thrift stores that we so worn they’d have to pay me to take them. I haven’t bought anything that can be categorized as “new” in years, preferring to do my shopping at thrift stores unless I’m in a big box store and pass by a clearance rack. Honestly, with so many still suffering from the lockdown of the pandemic and now that massive inflation rates, this is not the time to be picky about clothing being in a “current” style trend! With clothing anymore, I donate most of mine to a local church who provides a ‘free’ clothes closet to the community.

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  20. Glad you had a week of blissful nothing except cat vomit! (Well, not glad about the cat vomit.) Cleaning out the office preparing for new flooring I had success with a Facebook freebie site for our area. It was so nice to be able to just put things on the porch and folks picked them up. As we reassemble the office there’s a bit more to get rid of still.

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    • I’ve never used the FB site but should look into it. Some things we can put outside early on garbage eve and some magic pick up truck comes along and snags it! I got rid of my old deck railing flower boxes that I couldn’t use that way. It took about 20 minutes.

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  21. I was amazed at how little the auction raised and the many things they didn’t want to deal with. We have a boys’ school here with a good reputation and they have a re-sell store. They were willing to take anything and will probably make use of the books and boxes of office supplies. It was truly stressful to get things out of the house.

    I’m glad you and the cats had some sunshine to do a little nothing in. It’s nice to see the sun again.

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  22. Donating sometimes requires a lot of work–either researching a group to see if they are bigoted religious jerks (sadly, Salvation Army is one of these) or making sure your donations are acceptable. There’s one Reconciliation Methodist church in our area that literally takes anything for their Project Needs (mostly going to Indigenous folks), plus soccer groups that donate clothes to kids in refugee camps. My kids’ soccer club donates soccer gear and jerseys annually; apparently the kids in the camp now recognize their logo and think they are a big time, famous club (they are not).

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  23. Shopping in second-hand stores has become such a thing, that the organizations have started getting really picky. I’ve stopped donating to Goodwill and drive a few more miles to Savers. Habitat use to be about, well, habitat, and now when I go in there it’s all about furniture. The times they are a changing. Hairballs? This is why I don’t have cats. 🙂 I did use to have a dog that threw up at a moments notice. Been there done that, now taking a break. 🙂

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  24. When we were selling the cottage, we had a load of furniture we wouldn’t need (we didn’t know we would end up on a bat either) and gave it to Age Concern. We had enough to furnish a small apartment and the recipient was a single man in his 70s who had just been widowed.

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