Comments on: CONVERTING CHAOS INTO ORDER Part Three

By: Essie Feldhacher

Essie Feldhacher — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:19:21 +0000

My late mother-in-law had a son like that, constantly surprising her with nifty pre-owned items cast away by others that made life easier for a brood of 13. I had the wisdom to marry the fellow. One man’s trash, is, indeed, another man’s tresure. Years ago when my youngest girls were teenagers, and I drove a huge Lincoln with a 3-body trunk (a story behind that, LOL) I did dumpster diving and salvaged stuff from garbage piles at street side. My beloved girls hunkered down in the back of the care to make it look like Essier Rides Alone. SO I would stand in the middle of the street, before God ‘N EVERYone and holler loud enough to get the block’s dawgs yapping and yell out “S— and S—– are in the car with their Mama!!” That cured them. After they reached their “majority” they learned the wonders of apartment complex dumpsters and what is found as people hastily move out, and as they career down the boulevards and sidestreets they keep their eyes peeled for some “treasures” in other peoples’ “trash”.

I see many young’uns scrape leftovers into the trash can, while a disappointed housedog stands nearby, helplessly licking his/her lips and is denied (while they guy ready-made dog food from China that’ll kill their beloved critter) and I have wondered how much and how badly they will rue the past days when they threw out perfectly good food rather than make hash, vegetable soup, or other “everything but the kitchen sink” one-dish meal.

By: Tex Norton

Tex Norton — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:05:20 +0000

You have correctly identified my number-one law: “The junk acquired expands to fill the space allocated.” As a child in the 30s and early 40s, I learned to “dumpster-dive” although we didn’t have dumpsters per se back then. My mom was always amazed at the “good stuff” I found and brought home. That is a habit I’ve never been able to break. LBT can attest, having recently seen the inside of my garage. That’s the garage that was supposed to last me for the rest of my life, but was filled to the ceiling within 6 months. Thanks for the great organizational ideas.
Cheers, Tex

By: Essie Feldhacher

Essie Feldhacher — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:22:00 +0000

That’s kind of how I started years ago, too, but used tugs big enough it took six-men-and-a-boy to move ‘em like pallbearers. Then I figured out smaller is better and it isolates things into like items and saves a lotta hefting and searching. I agree – great material here on TTR. I dicovered it when I googled Linda Brady Traynham to see if I could find more wit and wisdom.

By: Bob Town

Bob Town — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:25:27 +0000

Essie,
Great article series. I started my tub experience to store christmas items. And quickly learned that it can apply to a whole gamut of other items that need stored. Tools, clothing etc.
Keep up the good work in spreading the word.

Also thanks to the Texas Ring.
Good info here.

Bob.

By: Essie Feldhacher

Essie Feldhacher — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:38:06 +0000

Glad it appealed to you, Carp. It IS a winner. My bro in North Dakota is now bracing for flooding. He spent all of last year this time workin’ himself into a nubbin putting in 18 hour days fighting floods – at age 68. This year could be worse. I asked if he’d made any Get Out of Dodge plans. Nary a one. I inquired if he had mentally made a list of MUST have items if they hafta flee. No. Then he said he’d be toooooo busy helping fight flood waters. Some “stuff” he badly needs to put in quick-grab tubs to fetch on the run. They get twisters and stuff in the Midwest aside from yearly floods. So he needs to prepare; perhaps his wife can do it…. So I need to get on their cases via email…!

By: Essie Feldhacher

Essie Feldhacher — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:35:11 +0000

Thanks, Skinner! Glad you could “feel the love” – for as long as you’ve known me…you are aware I’m a people person and DO CARE. YOU, my dear friend, could offer a lot to this sight as we’re bro and sis of the heart in soooo many ways!

By: Carp

Carp — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:23:41 +0000

Essie, your tub system is second to none! It’s a MUST for anyone who has a lot of miscellaneous items. Thanks for sharing.

By: SkinnerVic

SkinnerVic — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:01:03 +0000

Feel’n the luv with the content of your blog posts. Keep up the good work!

By: Essie Feldhacher

Essie Feldhacher — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:48:27 +0000

I think we have all used banana boxes (apple boxes at one time were excellent also). We have a problem with humidity so I had to line these boxes with decent mil garbage bags to fight against THAT.

One reason why I have eschewed the tubs you describe (although I have plenty of those, too) is for exactly the reason you described. Weight bearing capacity (more appropriately the lack thereof) that can become a problem. The smaller tubs I specialize in are easier to heft around, and due to size the weight issue isn’t as severe. (Still can happen) so I really pay attention to positioning. Also on the snap-together shelving which WILL sag if a person doesn’t spread the dead-weight of tubs out effectively.

We’ve probably all had the “help” of which you spoke, LOL. Even well meaning adults who want to “help” can be as pesky and ineffective as toddlers. It takes “training” to do it right. One year I helped three kids move – two into houses, one into a college dorm – and the next year helped the 4th kid move into a new home.

I sketched in the importance as they got a jump on packing before I arrived the importance of permanent markers on boxes to note contents, and also to label by what room they came from were destined for (i.e. bathroom/bedroom/kitchen, etc.) so boxes could be offloaded into the correct room as the move was in progress.

I about had a coronary when I arrived in KY to help a kid move from an apartment into a house and she had tubs that required PALL BEARERS to life them – AND not only that but she had fallen on her face while labeling them. Myriad boxes and tubs – all with “MISC.” carefully inked on each and every one…

There was NOT a redux of THAT when we moved her beauty shop into a large Civil War building for a two story salon. I never see the world “MISC.” nowadays but what I don’t think of what a horror it came to mean to me. It’s one of those words I got so ‘turned off’ over that it’s never been the same, LOL.

Do you have any of those hard plastic-type fold up tables? I find them handy as a pocket on an apron,and if you are left a situation like you described when they’d have better invested their time cleaning bathrooms and cooking, having a table to lay it out on and sort can be a slow-but-sure journey to sanity. Even plywood or planks on sawhorses helps.

If YOUR mama ’saved’ to the capacity my own mother did…God Be With You Girlfriend, LOL!

By: Linda Brady Traynham

Linda Brady Traynham — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:40:25 +0000

Essie…wonderful! I have been addicted to banana boxes for many years. They are very sturdy, stack beautifully, last at least 15 years if they don’t get wet, and are free. Write what is in on on one side, the top, and the end, along with the date with your magic marker. A couple of years ago I found an incredible sale at Walmart and cleaned out two stores while they were available for $4.50 instead of three times that much. Two problems. First, in theory the giant tubs stacked beautifully, with a smaller bottom fitting into a depression of the lid of another. In practice, that sturdy-feeling lid collapsed under the weight of the tub stacked on top of it. Uh-oh. Worse, one of the hands got “helpful” and filled all 90 of them without my knowledge! No organization, no labels, just acares of tubs probably 30 x 22 x 20 full of who knows what? I will never have any chance of straightening it out until I have an empty building with at least 36 feet of counter space and good lighting. Someone else got “helpful” and cleaned out the mess mother had left in the laundry room before she died…and now my big breezeway is covered with piles of things I will have to handle one by one. The moral, I think, is that the best way others can “help” is to go cook dinner and clean the bathrooms!