Greetings from summer in South Texas with the usual humidity, but not yet 100 degrees, but getting close next week. Clay and I have been married 23 years this August, and on 3 June it will be 23 years that he contacted me to be a ‘Pen Pal’! That did not last long. So after 23 years of collecting and keeping paperwork that was required to keep (now we just keep it on a zip drive) it was time to purge unwanted things and prepare for the new carpet laying in June!
I have just completed going through all file cabinets going through all “old” paperwork and then disposing of everything that is not necessary to keep! That took me 2 full FULL days to go through 8 file cabinet drawers and then setting up file systems that were colored coded! How about that for fun. That filled 5 bags of TRASH and that is difficult to burn, and too long to shred, so it has been buried and we anticipate a tree will now sprout! LOL.
Wednesday afternoon (hearing appt during the morning) I started on the library. Oh this one took 3 hours on Wednesday and 9 hours yesterday. Yesterday was the time to start looking at pictures, letters, and documents. What a time. I reviewed pictures from my life in 1980 through current time. There are a lot of pictures and cards that Clay and I have amassed since 3 June 1996, the day he found me in Sterling, Virginia! What memories. Those memories were wonderful to look through. I filled up 2 more bags, but I shredded most of the things. Being from the old school where we had to keep paperwork to prove issues, etc., it is time now to just let the computer storage devices save all statements. There are still a lot that I saved from our past and current lives, but not near as much as I had been keeping. I do not know whether to call this ‘downsizing’ or just ‘elimination of unimportant things’.
We also have removed a computer desk, file cabinet from the computer room, and a hutch from the Den that was no longer being used and we are passing our Trundle Bed and a Glider to my cousin Kay’s daughter Kathleen, to use in her recently vacated bedroom when her older son moved to an apartment. Kay now has 2 great grandchildren that are just beautiful babies. I know that the glider will be used to sooth the baby at nap time along with the new baby blanket I made her.
Because there will be a 4 day interruption in early June for the carpet laying, I will not be starting a new quilt project. Instead, I will do the 4 applique blocks for Suzn Quilts QAL, work on Stonefields (hoping to finish it), and transfer Aunt Bea’s Parlor embroidery blocks to fabric, and continue working on my French General embroidery project.
I feel so great about this ‘cleaning out project I feel as if a burden has been lifted. Sometimes it helps to just leave the past in the past and bury some memories. I have had the best 5 nights of sleep since I started this project, so whatever I sent to Shredderville, trash, burn pile, or buried, I am very HAPPY!
A couple of years ago I took over the Music Room where we used to play our guitars together. Now Clay plays his guitar here in the Studio and I enjoy listening to the music when sewing. I still have my piano and sometimes I have been known to sit and play awhile, but not a lot. I now store fabric and yarn in this room and I want to re-arrange some things and see if I need to “downsize” anything. It will not take long to accomplish this project, it entails moving some things from the Den and rearranging things that I have let accumulate where they do not need to be.
So hopefully in a few days I will have something to show about quilting. I do hope that this has inspired you to think about how technology has taken over the old fashioned way of record keeping!
Have a wonderful week-end!
Nanette
