Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

About scanning...there are portable hand scanners that you just move over your photos or documents or anything you want to have an image of. You can just lay everything out on a desk or table and just scan them easily and then upload them to your computer. You can even scan pictures in frames hanging on the wall or in albums, i believe without taking them out. One is call VuPoint Magic Wand and you can find it on Amazon for $63.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

If1, curleytops, feelbritish and sile,

Thank you for all the great info on photo scanning. Some good options there.

At the moment, I am going through books (I have hundreds, if not thousands :o, mostly non-fiction). I thought it was going to be really hard. I love my books. So far I have boxed up seven boxes. Of these, I have chosen the best to go to our local book shop. On Thursday mornings they will go through up to 2 boxes and give a very fair price for those they take. Last Thursday they bought some of my books and to tell you the truth, I can't even tell which they bought. Only have my bookcases of herbalism, textiles and cookbooks to go through, then I start on cds and photos.
The next step is to have a book sale at my house, hopefully before the Island's giant book sale in November where everyone will fill their book quota and more.
After that they get saved for a Spring garage sale and the left overs get donated.
The most difficult part of the job is coming across great books I really want to read and getting sidetracked.
The best part of the job is realising that I CAN part with some of my books and enjoying the decluttering process... but I am definitely bringing books with me.

Everyone will find what is truly valuable to them and this will be different for all of us.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

Hi Bandrui,
My husband and I have several hundreds of books, if not thousands like you and we need to downsize fast in order to get the house on the market. Our public library has agreed to take them in increments and will donate to a charity of their choice any they don't keep.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

Books, books and more loverly books!

I gave away a few boxes of books during one of my moves about 10 years ago and have always regretted it. Now I'm looking at my bookshelves and thinking I can't part with any of them. They all transport me to a time and place and hold a memory of where I was when I read them. I have goodness knows how many quilting and textile books and I love every one of them. There are maybe two or three I could part with. :p

And that takes me to my sewing room...... fabric stash, notions, thread. Overwhelmed just thinking about it. Think I need a nap.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

Lovely!

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

I've wondered about that - the over 50's and their longing to go 'home'. I think it's more than a geographical location. For me, it's a return to self and my true nature.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

Thank you. You never know what's coming your way so it's become even more important for me to live my life more purposefully.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

YES YES absolutely. This has often been said on this thread--one doesn't feel like one's true self living elsewhere, and the more so as time goes on.

Re books--I gave away/sold SO many when we down-sized. Agony. Every one does mean something, is like a stitch in one's life. A friend.

Tina

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

I used a diferent approach, to move all my photographs - just bought a portable hard drive, and loaded the whole drive onto it. Simple. All here! Don

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

More than a year ago before leaving Australia I gave away my books to a public library, family members and charity shops. It was all quite traumatic at the time, but now I don't miss them at all.

Decluttering should be an ongoing part of life, I now realise that the house was full of things I didn't need or use, yet I was loathe to get rid of anything. We become comfortable with so much around us, even empty boxes having some sort of significance for the future, believing that if anything is thrown away, we will need it the next day.

Apart from a few clothes, stainless steel pots and pans and a few trinkets which I mailed to myself, everything in my flat is new. It is astonishing that at my age of 74 this would happen, I expected to grow old with everything being long term familiar. It is wonderful to have new furniture, china, pictures and technology around me, and although I've experienced serious problems with my flat resulting in significant health issues, I've escaped languishing in the clutter of the past.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

Gosh Aries, great to hear from you--sorry about your health problems.

But as you say, at least you've decluttered--and you are so right, decluttering should be ongoing, but I have never learnt this.....

I like to think I'm getting just a little better at it as the years go by...

Tina

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

So true. We went to see an exhibition by the artist David Hockney last weekend. He's from East Yorkshire but spent a large part of his life in LA. But as he grew older he found the pull of home strong and in his 60s, he moved back to Bridlington where he's from.

I bet he gets people saying to him 'why on earth would you leave LA and come back here???' but I understand.

In other news, I finally found a negative about the UK. The local pharmacy shuts at 1pm on a Saturday!! Not knowing this, I went to pick up a much-needed prescription at 2pm and found it shut down. What kind of business shuts at 1pm on a Saturday???

I know it's not much of a complaint, but I feel I never say anything negative so at least now I have :lol:

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

Hi aries,
very nice to hear from you again, about , when I was getting rid of all my old stuff that has been in my life for years, just like everyone else it was a real chore, its hard to decide what to bring with you when you leave,
but I learned real fast that the only way to do it is to be very ruthless indeed,
after all I believe we are all coming home for the chance of a new life, so I really think its important to come home and surround our apartment/house with new furniture and everything, and to make the actual physical move so much more simple, and I have found that over here in UK there are so many charity thrift stores that sell (like new) quality furniture and everything else for the house and so inexpensive that it really wouldn't cost much at all to replace all the stuff you had in your place in your adopted country, and fresh new lovely things to surround you, certainly the replacement cost for everything would be a fraction of the cost to ship all your things back home,
and speaking for myself after I fully declutered all the furniture and a heap of other stuff, and shredded all the endless paperwork that you keep for decades etc etc I felt a wonderful sense of freedom, free of the past, and looking forward to the future (:
we havent heard from you for a while aries, how have you been doing?
take care,
Rodney.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

I too understand about David H. And I think he would have gone back home long before, were it not for his dogs. He was one of the main agitators for the pet passport system that exists now, I believe.

About the pharmacy, that is indeed ridiculous! Perhaps they are working along the lines of the Post Office, which has traditionally shut around noon on Saturday, I believe....still it's daft, when people work all week, and especially in UK when most shops don't stay open after 5:30...does the pharmacy (or perhaps you should say "chemist" now, as we always did before the word "pharmacy" crept back over to the UK!!) at least have some late weekday evening hours?

Tina

Re: OVER 50's & 60's Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

Hello Louise! Long time no speak! Closing on a Saturday, for their half-day, used to be mostly by Jewish Traders. If it is a private shop, rather than, say Boots, then that could explain it.
Love Don