Keep Plugging Along

I would love to say that the monster pile 'o' paperwork from hell has been tamed. but who am I kidding? I've been trying to zip though it all as fast as I can, but one cannot simply throw a huge wad of this into the recycling bin and have done with it.  I wouldn't say I'm paranoid...no wait, yes I would. I worry about having any personal information getting into the wrong hands. In today's world most receipts only show a few of your credit card numbers ie: XXXX-XXXX-1234, however, 15-20 years ago this wasn't the case. The entire string of numbers seemed to be on EVERYTHING, sometimes multiple times. Social Security numbers were used as ID numbers on medical bills and records. So, needless to say a ton of this nightmare needs to be destroyed, shredded, soaked in bleach and mashed to a pulp. Well, that may be overkill, but I'm not taking any chances.  
The upside of this paper game is that mixed in have been some fun things: photos I thought were long lost, the hotel receipt from our honeymoon, letters from our kids to Santa from when they were little.  I even found my first acceptance letter for some poems I wrote requesting them for publication.  How cool is that?
By the way, adding to this mess in my life is the fact that I have lost all sense of time.  I've been staying up later and sleeping in.  Doing basically the same thing every day, half the time, I can't tell you what day it is.  I need to make sure all my appointments are in my phone with alarms to alert me.
Hopefully, once finished, I'll be able to maintain the growth of "stuff" and things will get a little easier, less complicated, more free. Hey, it could happen. 

Memo to Me

Having sifted through about ten boxes full of paperwork, I cannot emphasize this point enough: go paperless! When my kids were growing up there was never enough hours in the day to efficiently organize my paperwork.  Yes, now there is online bill paying, and electronic transfers, but 20 years ago (not even that long) we received paper bills, and paid those bills by writing checks (if you ask what those are, I may have to slap you).  Then, to keep a record, we wrote the check number and the date on the bill and filed it away. Well, that's what I did. My intention was that later on, I would go through the bills and throw out/shred them once they were a few years old. Unfortunately, that part of the process failed. My files would get too full so I'd get the ones from the year before and pack them up. Then, they would magically travel to outer space where they were sucked into the Black Hole.   

Sadly, mixed in with the needless paperwork are a few important items I need to find. Space exploration is imperative.

Yay. 😑

So what have I learned? 

A. Not all receipts need to be saved. Groceries will be eaten, toilet paper used, etc. Unless the receipt had a television set or an iPad (or something else I might actually return) throw it out.

B.  All that extra correspondence that comes along with my credit card bills, you know, the special deals I can only get with that particular card...that stuff does not need to be saved either.

C. Not every item of homework or artwork that my child brought home needed to be saved. Of course I knew I couldn't just throw it away in front of them at the time. I never knew if that one work of art was their magnum opus. Even now I feel a little bad throwing out their "masterpieces". Some I take pictures of, some I offer to the one who created it. Homework? Oh, that goes. 

D. Make it a ritual to purge old paperwork at the end of each year. 

Most of these points of course, are moot at this point since so much of the billing these days is moving toward paperless.  There are some exceptions, such as medical bills, which tend to be solely on paper. Some don't even have an option to pay online. (Imagine!) I suppose once I've paid those paper bills I could scan it into my computer, store it online, and shred the original. There you go. Most credit card companies, banks, utilities and such send email payment notifications. 

Not only will I be making my future life easier, but I might manage to save a few trees in the process.  One can hope. 

Priorities

When Bill told me that he wanted to limit the things we were keeping into two small sheds, I thought he was out of his mind. Well, truth be told I knew he was out of his mind already - he married me.  As we began to sort through the Black Hole, and what seemed to be an endless plethora of boxes, bags and various containers, I realized that having a goal was a good thing, otherwise, why would you get rid of anything?  Decisions had to be made. We needed to prioritize. For example: do we need to keep every single Christmas card we ever received? Do we really need to save all those holiday decorations, most of which we bought at the 99 cent store? 
Of course Bill was quick to point out that I had collected a LOT of arts and crafts items. Those should go...whoa. Hold on there, cowboy. The main reason I haven't used them (aside from raising 4 kids) is that all of it has been BURIED under all the other junk.  Yes, I am willing to thin it out. I'm not entirely unreasonable, but get rid of it all? Um...no.  So, my dilemma was, what would be my sacrificial lamb so I could keep my stamps, scrap-booking and jewelry making goodies.

Side story: I have a degree in Theater Arts. Due to a serious chronic illness at what would have been the height of my "career", I had to give it up. Still, I always hoped that someday, I'd be able to return.  Meanwhile, once a year, on Halloween I could still dress up, wear crazy make-up, and do "me".  For this purpose I started acquiring costumes, wigs, hats, masks, etc. Some I wore once or twice, but I always knew the moment I got rid of it, I would have the opportunity to dress up as a sixties hairdresser with fairy wings. Our neighbors used to throw the best Halloween parties. We had some of the greatest outfits. As the years rolled by, however, the neighbors stopped having the parties, for one reason or another, and we were always too busy to have our own. So my costumes just sat in large storage boxes, tucked away. 
Fast forward to a few years ago. A friend convince me that I should audition for a show, and then another one. I even performed in one with one of my daughters! That was very cool. Then just a few months ago, I auditioned for My Fair Lady at the Long Beach Playhouse. I didn't really think I had much of a chance but I ended up being cast as Mrs. Eynsford Hill! It's not a huge part, but I had lines! I'd finally gotten back out of the ensemble! The show was so much fun and all the people at the theater welcomed me into the "family". It was an incredible experience! 
To make a long story short, (I know, too late) I realized what I was willing to give up: my costumes! I knew that this was a place I could trust to take care of and appreciate them! It wasn't like giving them to a thrift store, where they'd all be divided up and sold in parts like beat up cars. I could pass over my vintage hats, zombie princess dress and neon shorts and they would use them, over and over. The epiphany was divine. I must admit that after dropping everything off I felt a little knot in my stomach and a little bit of loss, but I just keep reminding myself that hopefully my costumes will be used. Who knows? Maybe I'll even get to wear them again. I'm the right size, after all.
So I know I still will have to whittle down more and more to get everything into those two small sheds, but at least we've gotten one big chunk taken care of. Whew!

The Purge

No, I'm not talking about that movie where everyone runs around killing each other.  I'm talking about "stuff".  For awhile now, my husband Bill and I decided we have way too much of it. We've heard of the "Minimalist" movement, and hey, if that works for you, awesome.  Maybe we'll eventually get there, but I think I'm just too sentimental. I believe in family heirlooms: being able to pass treasures down the generations is amazing to me. When you can hold history in your hand, it just means more. That said, I did realize that there was a whole lot of "stuff" cluttering up our home that was far from being something I'd consider valuable. Our garage was overflowing with things we hadn't used, or for that matter, even looked at, for years. We called the garage the Black Hole because things went in and never came out. It was a mystery. 
The funny thing is that I could always justify keeping something by saying I was going to use it again someday, or I'm sure I can figure out something to do with it. Before I knew it, there were so many of these "things" that even if I did have an opportunity or reason to use them, would I be able to find them? Probably not. I'd have to go out and buy something new. So what's the point? Meanwhile, maybe someone else can use it.
Now, making a decision to down-size is easy, but just as easy is procrastinating actually doing it.  There are always a million other things that are more important, and need to be finished before we could start...well, sort of. Bill and I knew that we would have to tackle this venture in stages. So...
Step 1: The Purge
We started slowly. We looked around inside the house for items we wouldn't really miss, the kind of things we didn't even have to think about: boxes for phones we didn't own anymore. clothes we hadn't worn for a year or two, gift bags I had saved from birthdays, or baby showers. We inventoried the decent-to-good stuff and photographed it so we could drop it off at a neighborhood thrift store. I believe it's important to keep good records if you want to get the tax deduction. The rest, we recycled if possible to keep the trash output to a minimum. At this point we started seeing at least a little progress. Cupboards were less packed, Closets were easier to close. 

Now as we face the Black Hole, suddenly Mount Everest seems less daunting. There are some hard decisions to come. Wish me luck.