katydid's Profile

Reading this is depressing me because we are dying to buy a house to get away from crazy landlords, but can't afford the high prices here in So Cal.

I've had good and bad landlords; our current guy is not my favorite, but OK. He's a cheapskate, and every time he comes to repair things, his first assumption is that we've broken it. But once he sees it's not our fault (it never is!), he fixes it without complaint. He lets us paint the rooms any color we like, and our rent is very low for our area (great schools, great yard, we can have a dog). But the nicest part is that he has NEVER raised our rent, and we've lived here for four years. So that keeps us pretty happy :-)

I agree with everything everybody above said! I think one thing that has helped me is I only allow real friends on my FB - I don't let work colleagues on there, and I don't let acquaintances on there.

What astonished me recently is that during election season, I had to hide a bunch of my friends who are on my side, politically. I found a lot of their posts rude and offensive to anyone who didn't agree with them. (I'm sure this happened on the other side, too). And that made me like them less. It's still a free country, and just because someone has opposing views (unless they're racist, etc), doesn't make them a bad person. I got so tired of it, I hid all those people and actually don't think I'll unhide them. What's astounding is, a lot of them are entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, etc., who have a TON of people reading their posts, including potential clients. Aren't they afraid of turning off these people, and impacting their business?

I agree with every single person who posted above me! Thanks SO much. I was feeling down about our rental house, and it already looks so much better. I love having people over anyway, but it will be even more fun when they see the changes we've made!

The master list was one of the biggest helps - thanks for everything! PLEASE can we do a mini-Cure in the summer?

Ditto to marivigi's comment!

My bedroom was THE project for the month. So far, we got the closet, my dresser and husband's beside table cleaned out. Then we both got sick :-(. But this week, my husband promises to clean out his dresser and then - da DAH - we made the big decision to get rid of both of our dressers and install Pax Wardrobes on either side of our bed instead! We have a tiny bedroom (gave the kids the big one, since they play in there), and I think this will free up space. Right now, both dressers are on "my" wall and I have to squeeze by them to get to bed. We don't plan on staying in this rental for much longer, but it's been 3 years already and still no house that we can afford (L.A.!), so might as well make this one nice.

And re: all the people writing about presents, whenever I've decluttered, two-thirds of the stuff I give away is presents. I finally started doing what an earlier poster said - the second I get something I don't like, I write a gracious thank you note for it, and then give it away IMMEDIATELY so it doesn't make a home in my house. Luckily, most of our relatives live out of state, and if they come to visit and inquire, I can always say "It broke during our last earthquake :-(."

And, so I don't do the same to them, I only give food or floral gifts from now on!

We do this quite a bit in our house (no cable helps!) but will do again tonight for sure!

Luckily for me, I went crazy cleaning and organizing my kitchen before my Mom visited at Thanksgiving! But I still have some holiday things I need to move out of there (silver platters and stuff that I only use at Thanskgiving and Xmas), and the fridge and under counter storage could definitely use a cleanup! Thanks for the motivation!