It had become a Rubik’s Cube problem. Move the wastebasket to move the box of sortables to move the chair to reach the stack…
It’s a very small office for 2 people and their business records. It’s become complicated by computer bits and bobs, by research books, tax stuff, junk mail, and things that we didn’t know what else to do with, so they got stuck through the door and set on the printer, which doesn’t help the printer situation, either.
I specialize in destruction: you want a dead tree hacked up, garbage collected, I can do that just fine. I am not good on organization or furniture arranging, but shredding detritus and deciding certain things go into the “not in this room” bin—I can do that. And Jane, bless her, will proceed one thing at a time, trying to do it well, while I can chuck things into piles really fast.
So I hit the office and started making decisions. I filled 2 wastebaskets, shredded stuff, tossed a batch of things that had accumulated, and started preparing things to file. It’s a register receipt? I’ve got an overstuffed folder for that. Soon it will be in ziplock bags, so it doesn’t escape again. It’s a contract? It’s going to get its own folder. My birth certificate? Yep, I think that needs to be in the ‘personal papers’ folder.
Took me all morning and wore me out. Jane meanwhile has started sorting the ‘not here’ boxes, and has emptied one box (I am not asking where). Some of these thing have not met daylight since two moves ago. Good old 703 boxes: a style of Fellowes brand storage box that has a lid and two handles and contains a barely liftable amount of paper.
We have old manuscript versions. We have several model airplanes, from the aviation museum in Seattle. We have mouse pads. (I can’t use a mouse to save my life.) We have power supplies to unidentifiable things. We have manuscripts of articles, old birthday cards, spare posters, and artwork that is not in its proper frame. We have strange small plastic bits we do not recognize. Paper clips, various sizes. Post-it notes and post-it tabs. We have several Netflix things that should have gone back weeks ago. We have a copy of Galaxy Quest that has strayed from its sleeve, and we have photos of the Acropolis that need scanning, because they’re really fading. Though somewhere in these stacks I have the original slides. I have an outsized glass slide taken by a friend in Italy just after WWII. I have pieces of silk flowers. Erasers. Pens. Old checkbooks. Bank papers. Income tax vintage 2008. Papers for same. A squirt gun. Pictures of the tropics that I can’t identify. Pirate posters. More clam clips. Paper clips. Stray cat-shaped stapler. Stray tape dispenser. Letters that need mailing. Bills that may or may not be paid online. Tax forms that need mailing. Oops. And bank deposit slips. With several travel brochures, a map of the Cascades, and several cat-fur brushes.
It’s a lot more boring in there now, and we can actually vacuum the floor.
It all sounds horribly familiar. I think things in my garage are fossilizing. Now if they turned to diamond under the pressure………..
Wow! If you manage that, I want the secret! We’ve got a lot of charcoal in there for grilling….Hmmm….
I’ve been rearranging things in one room here, have almost got it to where I can vacuum the floor, especially now that the vacuum cleaner works. A 10 cent metal screw for plastics and another machine screw for the power nozzle, the former to hold the motor down firmly, the latter to hold the metal soleplate of the nozzle in place. Plus new bearings for the brushbar, I might have that thing running well for the next 30 years.
I hate to throw stuff out, because I’m always wondering if I’ll “need” it later on. Like, those receipts for beekeeping equipment that arrived 2 years ago, have already been uses and are in the hives, so why am I worried that the supplier would come and take them back?
Old envelopes, offers for 0% APR on balance transfers of my existing credit card(s). I have one, which is one too many, but when you need it, it’s there. I’m trying to pare down the balance, and it’s really hard, especially with having to still be paying on Ruthie’s care in June and Birdie’s in July.I think the worst papers are the ones they give me with my prescriptions. I already know what the effects, side effects, under- and over-effects are, but each time, they have to comply with the law and burn more paper and toner.
CJ good luck and congratulations on getting this far in the cleanup. I need a shredder with smaller chaff and larger capacity. This little one fills up in less than 10 minutes.
WAH!!!! Now wait a minute! you fail to mention that a month ago, that room was spotless and organized! There were a few things…like the battery-operated tea lights…that needed taking care of, but mostly that’s the accumulation of things from the work we’ve been doing in the other rooms, things that didn’t belong where we were but didn’t yet have a place, and the mail we’ve been ignoring since the last bill day!!!!! Sure, there were some weird things, including scanning I did for Carolyn’s B-day card, a student of David’s, and the cover for Harmonies. I told you, I get on a project, I run in and make the scan, then run back and get distracted by whatever I was doing the scan for and forget to put away the thing I just scanned. Most of that garbage was junk that’s come in with the mail.
OTOH why the box from the plant shipment was in there is beyond my comprehension!
And the water pistol, the posters of Johnny Depp, the bracelet, the piggy bank, and the catnip mouse?
Detritus from the party, your room, and a feline visitation!
BTW, OSG, did you drown? Did you get to launch the fleet? Did you? Ha?
The Husband and I are doing major excavation in the living room, and have struck floor. Not only struck it, but expose most of it, vacuumed the floory bits, and partially carpet-cleaned the vacuumed spots. I feel very virtuous! 😀
I feel so much better. Years back a got things to help me organize — these nice slotted things. I’d run out of room and got more slotted things. There are now 4 on a narrow part of a kitchen counter, the two tables in the living room I cleaned last spring are reaching stratigraphic overload and husband still refuses to use the folders in the desk in the den and keeps shoving God alone knows what into two drawers in my kitchen which causes receipts, bills, tax stuff and other things to ooze out the back of the drawers into the cubboard below. I watch my feet whenever I got into garage so I a) don’t notice how things have exploded and b) don’t kill myself trying to get to the car. Strangely enough, we can see the floor in all the rooms. We seem to be inordinately adept at perching things.
I’m beginning to really hate chargers. So many of my gizmos come with chargers, and they all look alike, and very seldom do they actually have product names on them. Which means that I can’t throw any of them away, because I don’t know which I need. It has also caused me to ruin one item (an electric toothbrush, I think), because the charger I used to charge it wasn’t the one that went with the product. So why do they use universal plugs on these things, if they aren’t interchangeable???
I’m not even going to open my mouth (keyboard) about what is fossilizing around hene. But, just MAYBE, I’m not the champion. Probably I am though.
Re the old manuscripts — Sharon Lee cleaned out a file cabinet, and found four manuscripts, and associated publisher correspondence, for Carpe Diem and three other early books. She asked her blog readers if she should shred or keep. With one voice we shouted, “Ebay!,” and the Lee-Miller household budget has been markedly assisted thereby. I would dearly like to have assisted in the acquisition (one had notes for a novel that didn’t happen) but other fen had much deeper pockets.
And now Sharon has a whole empty file-cabinet drawer. Well, it’s probably not empty any more.
Hey, another afficionado of all things Liaden. I watched the auctions and was really surprised at the final prices.
I’ve sold on eBay in the past, most notably my ancient IBM PC1 which I had split into components. The extra memory card, the hardcard drive, the paired 8088/8087 processors and sundry stuff including the technical manuals all went to Western Australia.
OSG reporting in, as requested!
Nope, I didn’t drown. Didn’t even leave the house all weeekend, which tells you how tired and overstimulated I’ve been.
I slept, often with cats. Read, lots. Did my own organizing, on LibraryThing.com –> entered in ~40 more books, including scanning covers because our library is a wee bit esoteric. More accurately: we’ve hung onto every book we’ve ever owned. I’ve now cataloged 1,689 books. I’m guessing there are “only” another 1,000 to go.
We need to get together & have a garage sale. All of us. Now THAT’S a scary thought!
OSG, I think Abigail had the right idea — eBay! There are many fen out there who would happily contribute to the Care and Feeding of a Favorite Author, even indirectly. You might consider making a group account, possibly connected to Closed Circle.
“We have power supplies to unidentifiable things.”
Once upon a time I was able to remember which power supply went with what. These days I label them. Immediately after opening the box is best. A little sticky label and you know forever after. Also helps when it comes to trying to find a spare socket. Can I turn this one off? or will I crash the computer in doing so.
I was going to mention labelling of power supply thingys, but ‘Fox beat me to it 😉
Since some months back we also have a dedicated drawer to hold these things. But do we REALLY need THREE identical power supplies for old Nokia mobile phones we no longer own?
We have sorted some of our superfluous “stuff” into a box labelled “flea market”. Six weeks ago we went to a flea market where you just show up with your things, pay a small fee for a spot to park in, and start selling your stuff. We did some good finds but also decided this was probably the best way to get rid of our extra stuff. But outdoors in Sweden during autumn can be risky so we decided to go for it next spring instead.
Meanwhile we got this box, full of toys, old LP’s and CD’s, books, lampshades… 😉
When I was married, the problem with taking our stuff to a flea market was that we usually came home with more than we brought, and with my ex-wife’s hobbies of:
sewing, quilting, spinning, weaving, basketmaking, knitting, crocheting, Giant German Angora rabbits, and copying everything she could find on said subjects, putting them into document protectors, and piling them wherever there was an open spot. The living room was jammed with her organ, the sofa had fleeces waiting to be processed (they were washed), rovings to be spun, reeds for baskets, 3 looms (2 of which were full sized). You did NOT want to go up to her sewing room, because in order to get to her sewing table, you practically had to have mountain gear and be ready for avalanches. When it started creeping into our bedroom, I started to get just a bit upset. She’d collect all this stuff, and never use it, or if she did, she’d do it for a while, then leave unfinished projects all over the place. We never had to vacuum because there was very little space left to vacuum. Our poor Silkies just had to find a place to lie down – well, it wasn’t that bad, but she had a lot of stuff. She STILL has a lot of stuff, and I hope she’s making good use of it.
I’ve got this room almost bearable, except for two chairs, then the living room, I need to clean off the sofa and the love seat, My computer desk is a disaster, and yes, I do use the folders for important stuff, but general grocery receipts, old bills that were paid years ago, they go out through the shredder and then out to be recycled paper.
Your story sounds familiar, Joekc6nix. DH has 7, count ’em, garages in different places full of what I call “stuff” and what he calls useful tools, spare parts, etc. This also includes welding equipment, jack hammer, chipping hammer, plumbing supplies, pipe, spare lawn mower engines ….
My “stuff” takes up a couple of filing cabinets, a closet full of philatelic supplies, albums, covers and literature, as well as bookshelves and piles of books. But still, nowhere near his 7 garages.
And out cars are parked in the driveway.
And guess what smartkitties are doing today. Yes! Cleaning! Still prepping for a dumpster….one and a half more sheds to go…I am up to needing a fifteen yarder. It continually amazes me that I can accumulate so much stuff…..and that doesn’t begin to consider the studio stuff I can’t live without….I am thinking of it as a journey of discovery.
Tulrose, you have my sympathy….as a kid we had a very large two car garage…..I don’t think I ever remember cars being parked in it…it is no wonder my mother went a little crazy once all the kids were gone and got rid of what were probably some fairly valuable things.
P.S. Have you heard anything from Lynn, CJ?
Lynn has recovered from the flu and has gone off to an Embroider’s Guild event this last weekend. I am going to get her on the phone this week and find out (1) how to make the things I am constructing on the Closed Circle site actually appear, and (2)how to make them link together. I have ideas, but I’m a little hesitant to poke buttons. I have now learned why things disappear and how to get them back, but I have no desire to blow the whole site up. I also want to find out (3) where and how we are going to put the files to be downloaded, (4) how to do it, and (5)how to connect Paypal to them.
Once I have those answers, you’re going to be able to see the site take shape.
now that’s very exciting!
Joe, my wife and your ex must have similar hobbies and habits. When one of our children moved out, she was able to move all her STUFF from the master bedroom into that bedroom. It became her sewing/craft/storage room.
She then said “There’s a lot more room in our Bedroom!” And she was right. I had room to walk in my own room again. It was nice.
LOL, I can’t see why I would need a jack hammer, but I do have a lot of electronics gear around. Being a ham radio operator, you “accumulate” stuff, I’ve got a ton of chargers, and as Reading Fox suggested, I put labels on all of them. I suppose you could also use colored tape, put a piece on the charger and another on the unit to which it belongs. I am in the process of getting some more “stuff” like an antenna I can put outside to reach the repeaters in our area.
With my upcoming surgery, I need as wide a passage as I can get around the house, so it’s best I get it done as soon as possible.
Spence, my hobbies are either in one room inside, or else they’re out in the workshop and garage. My model railroad stuff is upstairs in boxes, and I can’t set up a layout 🙁 because there’s not enough electric service to the house.
Maybe I should hire someone to come in and beat me about the head and shoulders to get rid of this stuff, tell me what I don’t have to keep, where to put the things I need. Oh wait, I can do that myself!
The jack hammer was “a good buy” at an auction. We’ve actually used it and lent it out. We got some teenage boys to pull up a patio for us. They thought it would be cool to use.
Being an incurable engineer, I feel the need to pop up here: chargers will almost invariably have a voltage/current rating plate on them (a label, or molded into the case), as does the device into which they plug. As a last resort, match ratings between converter (a friend calls them “wall warts,” which I love) and device, then if the plug fits at all you are good to go. Voltage match is a must, within tenths of a volt, while current rating match is less important (though if mismatch is unavoidable you want the wart to be rated higher than the device.
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Oh, and when trying the converter’s plug to see if it fits into the device (they are a long way from standard), be sure the wall wart is unplugged, unless you’ve already filtered for voltage match! Electronics do not work well once you have let out the smoke contained within….
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Now, as far as figuring out what random wart goes with random device, yer on yer own! 😀
Looks like this will a problem in the shiny galactic future, too:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/90978/trash_begins_to_clutter_international_space_station/
They need a mass driver. The trash de-orbits and burns up; the space station gets a free push to make up for the constant decay of orbit. (Well, not totally free, but the electricity comes from the solar panels; they don’t need to use fuel.)
ROTFLMAO! i have an office area, downstairs “family room” area and glass studio that are in various states of chaos and dissarray. if my darlin’ daughter can ever get it together to get up here and get the older furniture and stuff taht we want to offload i’ll at least have contained the breeding parts/bits/shtuff that is roaming in the family room section. the office and studio however, require stronger intervention…