innocent_lex

I've been meaning to sort out my study for months. Seriously, months and months. I decided to do it today because there was an accident on the motorway so I couldn't go to the garden centre and I didn't want to waste the keenness to do something. Anyhoo...

There are two large sets of shelves in my study, plus one cupboard, plus a couple of tall sets of shelves. From that description, you'd think my study is massive but it really isn't. There's enough room for me to get to the desk, sit down, and sometimes get things done. The problem is that all of these shelves and cupboards are full of stuff but I genuinely didn't know what that stuff was and I could never find things I needed (assuming I even remembered I owned them!). So what did I discover? Bearing in mind I've so far only done one big set of shelves and the cupboard, I'm doing pretty well:

• 3 old laptops (which weigh a tonne) plus one netbook and one router
• 3 old mobile phones
• 2 palm pilots with accompanying gadgets and gidgets
• A lorryload of cables and plugs
• Two sets of speakers, three sets of earphones and two bluetooth earphones (which I don't think work)
• Two big rechargeable torches whose plugs I've been searching for for years and still can't find - bin 'em
• A bunch of multi-port USB ports
• Two spare keyboards, various mouse mats and a brand new mouse (handy!)
• Two portable CD players
• Christmas, birthday, thank you and various other cards, plus wrapping paper
• Pens, more pens and whole boatloads of other pens. Most don't work.
• Post-its. About 20 decks.
• Paper and photo paper for the printer
• Ink cartridges for the printer
• Various recovery CDs for various computers I don't use any more
• A couple of spare backup drives I'd forgotten about completely
• A lot of plastic boxes that are now empty of the crap I'd been hoarding in them

So I have divided the spoils into stuff I'm keeping due to security reasons (computers, phones, etc), stuff I'm recycling, stuff I'm chucking out, and stuff I actually need to use. I have 5 completely empty shelves so far.

And another bonus? I had been looking to buy a new set of shelves to go in the gym because I didn't have anywhere to put stuff. Turns out if you dump all the stuff you don't need any more and organise the stuff you do, you miraculously find space. Who knew?

That's enough of shifting boxes around the house. Seriously. Ouch. I see a hot bath in my future. Right now, though, I can also see a lot more floor in the conservatory and in the back bedroom, so that's a very good thing. Also, I have more empty boxes. Huzzah!

I know, anyone who reads this journal must think sorting out my house is like some kind of second career. But still, I'm making progress in small steps, and considering it probably took around 15 years to get into this position, taking months and months to get out of it is pretty good.

Today was clearing out of space in the garage. This was space to clear so that I could get at the stacks of storage boxes and the shelves, not so that I could actually get into those boxes and sort them - box sorting upstairs is a priority. So, ticky for that.

Next is burning yet more papers, but the sky has just opened. The rainfall radar is telling me it's just a shower so I'll give it five minutes and then head out. I also have upstairs boxes to sort, but I need empty boxes first for that task so that I have places to throw things while sorting: keep; burn; throw out; undecided. See, there is some kind of method in there somewhere.

Tomorrow is painting, I think. I have to finish off the hall (edges and second coat, plus woodwork) and also the last bits in the kitchen (I know, should've done that last year). Just the garage door / doorway and the windowsill to do in there and it's all finished.

In other news, the birds are going through my bird seed a massive rate. At the moment there's a swarm of sparrows out there, about 20 of them. Usually I only get swarmed by starlings, which turned up on Thursday afternoon just after I'd refilled the table and ate the lot in about 3 minutes. Quite astonishing. I've discovered I can order direct from the RSPB, though, so have a huge bag of sunflower hearts arriving next week. Should last me a few weeks at least, but the local birds really do seem to have voracious appetites.

ETA: one hour later and I'm most of one box of papers down, only three to go. Paper takes a buggering age to burn properly! Am all hot, smokey and stinky. Blech. More of that tomorrow, I guess. Time for a tea break and then upstairs boxes. Target of 2 boxes properly sorted today.

I bought a garden furnace a while ago with the plan to burn a whole load of papers that have been building up in boxes. These are things that I would ordinarily shred as they have my name and other details on them, but with so much to get through I figured burning would be faster. Wow. Never done this before, and boy do it get hot! I've managed to get through about a third of a box today, which had to be done slowly because of the flames leaping out of the top of the thingy. Hmm. I may try some more later, but I'm pretty smoked and fingers just on the edge of singed, and even so that was actually very boring. Have tipped a load of water into the thing and will keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't suddenly spring into life again.

Going back to writing - much safer and more interesting.

Feel shitty. Still, have managed to almost finish making the curtains (just the tabs to sew onto the last curtain), cleared out the last of the rubbish, and hoovered more carpets. Plus spent the afternoon with visiting friends, which was nice. Feel shitty. I hate colds. Truly. At least my expectations were right about the sewing - it's really not hard to make curtains.