A good family clean up

Living in a house with 3 other adults, two of whom are your adult children takes a bit of getting used to. Gone are the days when I could 'order' them to clean up their room and they would obey. Not that they 'obeyed' very much bit at least a token amount.
But joy of joys, my house got a good clean out this week owing to several fortuitous events.
Youngest and messiest son had a week off work so had time to completely eviscerate his wardrobe as well as to pick everything off the floor of his bedroom.

The 'Mad Scientist' managed to pick his papers off the floor and 'hide' them somewhere in the roof space!

The weather was fine and windy so I could wash and dry three loads of clothing, bedding etc on the Thursday Anzac day holiday.



And lastly, I asked a real estate agent for a valuation on the house, so we all cleaned up those annoying piles of paperwork, advertising and bits of information we must file at some stage.
So the filing ( ie move to rubbish/recycle bin) went on apace.

For the first time in a year we actually have a full rubbish bin and a full recycle bin.

I'll just have to wait for a week to empty the recycle bin (only happens each fortnight).
The house was looking lovely, clean and tidy in the warm (25 degree C ) autumn sunshine yesterday.
The next job is to weed the garden again, all the autumn rain ( not much but some) has helped the weeds grow strongly. My garden waste bin is nearly full but so are my compost bins.
On the bright side, my spring bulbs are sprouting and the camellia's are flowering.

New Toy & Recycling the Old

As a Librarian I feel I need to keep up to date with some of modern technology. So this year  I have updated a number of  objects. I'm now the proud user of an Android based Smartphone and am having fun learning how to use it.
My old mobile phone will get passed down to another member of the family, so it won't need recycling as yet. The "old" Motorola is >4 years old now - a whole generation of phones has been and gone while I've had it. But the dilemma of discontinuing a perfectly good piece of technology for something new has always been a problem with me.
"Waste not, want not" was my Grandma's watchword. My mother lives without mobile phone or computer. But as I am exposed to the effects of the digital age, I feel I have to keep up with the new. Each time I've thrown out an old piece of technology, I look for some recycling service.
At least now there is a Mobile Phone recycling box in all the libraries I work in. And occasionally, someone actually deposits an old phone there. I hope the materials do get reused as the amount of eWaste is now enormous.
I have had at least 4 computers at home since starting to use them more than 20 years ago. Each time I've managed to hold onto the old technology for a bit longer than I would have at work, by adding extra RAM and other devices. My current PC is 5 years old - it has taken me that long to fill it up with 5 years of Digital Photos, applications and games from the kids. The last time I bought a new PC, I couldn't find anyone close by willing to take the old one. So I dismembered the CPU and put it out in the hard rubbish, where even the scavengers thought it too old to take. I gave the old bits leftover (RAM, CD, PI cards) to a young teen just starting to experiment with computers. He now has his bedroom filled with my stuff as well as ebay second hand stuff. Good luck to him and I hope he passes his stuff to someone else again!