Worked most of the morning cleaning out a file cabinet. Well, reorganizing it and pitching stuff, that is. It struck me, as I worked, that I actually go into my file cabinet less and less frequently as the years go by. Technology has perhaps changed this more than anything in my teaching life. I don't keep "paper stuff" anymore at the levels that I once did.
What are the benefits and disadvantages of this? Aside from saving a few trees, there are some things to consider as well. Going paperless means you are comfortable shifting your trust in having a tangible copy to whatever computer and storage method you have for keeping a digital copy. We are seeing the downsides of this in the move to digital photos. People have their entire lives and all their memories on their phones! Great until you drop it in the sink... and then all your stories and photos go literally down the drain. So we come up with cloud or backup storage devices for our photos... the electronic equivalent of a file cabinet (or my grandma's shoeboxes in the attic).
Today, I needed to move some files from one digital storage (computer) to another (Lacie drive) and quickly discovered that not all my classroom computers worked with an external drive that just 5 years ago was the go-to device for backing up files. How do we keep pace with this kind of change?
Do I have an answer? Not completely.
I do know that I have found myself watching for cloud storage sites and services, hoping that they will have the means and the stability to give me a place to find things many years down the road. However, and this is ironic, I have found myself actually being very aware of having photos and important documents PRINTED out as well as having digital copies. This is especially true of my photos. I won't print every adorable shot I have taken of the grandkids, but I will print enough of them that my memories of them will be able to be accessible to me wherever I am living in the future. And in the meantime, I enjoy them in their electronic format as well.
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 01, 2017
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Handbag Holdouts
The Big Pitch or week 2 of Staude Stuff Gone:
Had a lot of fun in the cellar this week. A year and a little more ago, when our kids were temporarily living with us while their house was being finished, we hurriedly stuffed a LOT of things into the classic see-through Rubbermaid containers and stacked them in the basement. Well, a lot of time has passed and I hadn't felt the need to go into those big tubs and resurrect ANY of the items in them. It occurred to me this week that they might be ripe for the pitching as part of my new project. So down into the cellar I went with an eye toward tossing.
One container was chock full of old handbags! What is it about an old purse that makes it almost impossible to pitch? These were some really beat up looking purses but for some bizarre reason I felt compelled to save them! This time, however, my momentum from last week's tossing-out carried me through. Before I knew it, I had 3 bags worth of handbags and other assorted clothing items ready for donation to Goodwill and a 4th bag full of trash! Best result? I now have TWO empty 35 gallon Rubbermaid storage tubs waiting for me to find something ELSE to stash inside them. But for now, I am just going to enjoy having two empty tubs sitting off to one side.
On a separate note, school began this week. I have some really great classes of kids... ranging from 10th to 12th grade. I get to teach ALL the seniors and a nice assortment of some underclassmen as well. The kids seemed as shocked as we teachers were that summer is over already, and they were good as gold today. I always have to laugh at how quiet they are on the first day... it's not a situation that lasts indefinitely. We will get to know one another and they will discover how much noise this old lady can tolerate before she shushes them. But today we were all new, sort of a couple on a first date, checking the other person out to see if they have anything in common. Merry New Year to all my students! (and does anybody need an old purse?)
Had a lot of fun in the cellar this week. A year and a little more ago, when our kids were temporarily living with us while their house was being finished, we hurriedly stuffed a LOT of things into the classic see-through Rubbermaid containers and stacked them in the basement. Well, a lot of time has passed and I hadn't felt the need to go into those big tubs and resurrect ANY of the items in them. It occurred to me this week that they might be ripe for the pitching as part of my new project. So down into the cellar I went with an eye toward tossing.
One container was chock full of old handbags! What is it about an old purse that makes it almost impossible to pitch? These were some really beat up looking purses but for some bizarre reason I felt compelled to save them! This time, however, my momentum from last week's tossing-out carried me through. Before I knew it, I had 3 bags worth of handbags and other assorted clothing items ready for donation to Goodwill and a 4th bag full of trash! Best result? I now have TWO empty 35 gallon Rubbermaid storage tubs waiting for me to find something ELSE to stash inside them. But for now, I am just going to enjoy having two empty tubs sitting off to one side.
On a separate note, school began this week. I have some really great classes of kids... ranging from 10th to 12th grade. I get to teach ALL the seniors and a nice assortment of some underclassmen as well. The kids seemed as shocked as we teachers were that summer is over already, and they were good as gold today. I always have to laugh at how quiet they are on the first day... it's not a situation that lasts indefinitely. We will get to know one another and they will discover how much noise this old lady can tolerate before she shushes them. But today we were all new, sort of a couple on a first date, checking the other person out to see if they have anything in common. Merry New Year to all my students! (and does anybody need an old purse?)
Sunday, August 08, 2010
My Biggest Fear - An Online Project
I have been noticing people using blogs of late to accomplish some interesting things. Surely this has been going on for some time now, but it came to my mind most obviously when I went to see Julie and Julia. Here was a young woman finding herself by setting up a cooking project and then blogging about it. Now before you get worried that I am suddenly going to go domestic and start cooking up a storm, never fear! Ed's dominance in the kitchen is TOTALLY secure!
Recently I stumbled across a new favorite blog project, this one is still ongoing and has me fascinated. There is a young 30-something in California who has pledged herself to the task of only spending $1 on 1 outfit per day for an entire year. She sews... and sews with abandon, actually. And so she goes to tag sales and thrift shops and picks up whatever dress or clothing item that $1will buy and then revamps it into something marvelous... or at least something she's willing to wear out in public. Her blog New Dress a Day is SO much fun to follow because she posts before and after photos and a lot of things in between. Try peeking at it the next time you feel like there's nothing in your closet. She also has "theme weeks" where she focuses on one particular type of cast-off clothing... "Bridesmaid Dress" Week was particularly hysterical and she got some really cool clothes out of it!
So what will my project be? Nothing quite so impressive... but nonetheless I think very worthwhile. I have known for a long time that I am a "saver" of things. In fact, I come from a long line of "save it you may one day need it" types. (Ask my kids about their grandma who collected boxes. Yup, just empty boxes!) I live in a house, that by my modest estimate might have 1700 sq. feet of space if you count the 3/4 basement underneath it. Here's where the fear comes in.... I don't want to someday have to have my daughters have to clean out my numerous stashes of "stuff". I caught an episode (actually TWO episodes) on Oprah last week that were focused on the problems faced by folks known as "hoarders"! Now I am not even the teensiest bit close to that horrific issue... in fact, I didn't even know what a hoarder was until about a year ago when I learned that one of my dearest relatives was battling the problem. I had to go look it up and find out what it was. But the TV episodes got me thinking about stuff... in the very literal sense. And all my stuff makes me feel just anxious and heavy. SO, I have made a pact with myself - I am going to try a pitch a minimum of two bags of "STUFF" each week until I can't find anything else to pitch. My ideal would be one bag to trash and one to charity... even better would be TWO to charity and keeping my stuff out of landfills. (Fits my ideal of being green and all that jazz!) When I can, I am going to post a photo of the stuff and tell where it went.... sounds good.... where the stuff is just boring to look at, all you'll get is maybe a photo of something related or prettier to look at.
So here goes.... WEEK ONE of STAUDE STUFF GONE: (ironic isn't it, considering what I named this blog several years ago!?)
This week... the first week of AUGUST: I pitched out ONE full bag of just plain trash out of my office and donated 3 bags to charity. Two of the bags were full of clothes I hadn't worn in over 3 years. The THIRD bag was the fun bag. It went to the library. It was full of computer software that I no longer have a computer to run anymore!!! Does anyone out there need a copy of "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego" for a Mac Classic? Well, go to our Library's book and AV sale next May and you can probably have my old one for $1!!! I filled an ENTIRE bag with out of date software... some of it in its original and UNOPENED packaging! Yikes! And that is the secret to how I got ONE whole empty shelf in one closet in my home; something that feels like a really good start!
Thanks for listening, dear readers, and wish me luck!
Recently I stumbled across a new favorite blog project, this one is still ongoing and has me fascinated. There is a young 30-something in California who has pledged herself to the task of only spending $1 on 1 outfit per day for an entire year. She sews... and sews with abandon, actually. And so she goes to tag sales and thrift shops and picks up whatever dress or clothing item that $1will buy and then revamps it into something marvelous... or at least something she's willing to wear out in public. Her blog New Dress a Day is SO much fun to follow because she posts before and after photos and a lot of things in between. Try peeking at it the next time you feel like there's nothing in your closet. She also has "theme weeks" where she focuses on one particular type of cast-off clothing... "Bridesmaid Dress" Week was particularly hysterical and she got some really cool clothes out of it!
So what will my project be? Nothing quite so impressive... but nonetheless I think very worthwhile. I have known for a long time that I am a "saver" of things. In fact, I come from a long line of "save it you may one day need it" types. (Ask my kids about their grandma who collected boxes. Yup, just empty boxes!) I live in a house, that by my modest estimate might have 1700 sq. feet of space if you count the 3/4 basement underneath it. Here's where the fear comes in.... I don't want to someday have to have my daughters have to clean out my numerous stashes of "stuff". I caught an episode (actually TWO episodes) on Oprah last week that were focused on the problems faced by folks known as "hoarders"! Now I am not even the teensiest bit close to that horrific issue... in fact, I didn't even know what a hoarder was until about a year ago when I learned that one of my dearest relatives was battling the problem. I had to go look it up and find out what it was. But the TV episodes got me thinking about stuff... in the very literal sense. And all my stuff makes me feel just anxious and heavy. SO, I have made a pact with myself - I am going to try a pitch a minimum of two bags of "STUFF" each week until I can't find anything else to pitch. My ideal would be one bag to trash and one to charity... even better would be TWO to charity and keeping my stuff out of landfills. (Fits my ideal of being green and all that jazz!) When I can, I am going to post a photo of the stuff and tell where it went.... sounds good.... where the stuff is just boring to look at, all you'll get is maybe a photo of something related or prettier to look at.
So here goes.... WEEK ONE of STAUDE STUFF GONE: (ironic isn't it, considering what I named this blog several years ago!?)
Thanks for listening, dear readers, and wish me luck!
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
The Joys of Clean and Clutter-free!
I don't know how you spent your Memorial Day Monday.... hopefully, with family and friends. Ed and I got bit by the "toss-it bug" and went a bit crazy in our garage. (Perfect location for a hot day's work in Missouri, right?) Anyway, we hadn't seen the surface of Ed's work bench in about 8-10 months so we got insanely curious as to whether it was still actually there. We looked and dug and (lo and behold!) we FOUND it! Three to four hours later, we even found vast amounts of the garage FLOOR!
Now I must say, we've never become like those "hoarders" you see on those cable TV shows... we've always been able to get the car into the garage and such. But we tend to let clutter just sit and then it makes us feel like we live in some kind of pre-Martha Stewart sort of cave. I firmly believe that decorating and home magazines put in those photos of rooms and homes to make folks like me feel guilty. No house in those magazines is "real" or really "lived-in". Ed and I have the "lived-in" look down to a science. But just like women who want to look a bit more like those air-brushed beauties in the fashion magazines, we covet a bit of "Better Homes and Gardens" in our house. It's all the same thing!
The mood continued into the first day of June. I attacked a second clutter spot... the kitchen sideboard/desk! Oh what a joy to toss old restaurant menus, gas receipts, and junk mail that had become firmly entrenched and to actually see the nice wood SURFACE of the desk. I even cleaned out the INSIDE and discovered I had enough rolls of tape to last me till Christmas of 2015!
I wish I had before and after shots... but I didn't think to take them.... believe me, the areas circled in yellow on these are new lands... places of clear serenity just daring someone to put down a tool or a piece of junk mail! Stay tuned... who knows what zone I'll be tempted to clear out tomorrow! I must act on this mood while it lasts! The trash man is sure going to be surprised this week!
Now I must say, we've never become like those "hoarders" you see on those cable TV shows... we've always been able to get the car into the garage and such. But we tend to let clutter just sit and then it makes us feel like we live in some kind of pre-Martha Stewart sort of cave. I firmly believe that decorating and home magazines put in those photos of rooms and homes to make folks like me feel guilty. No house in those magazines is "real" or really "lived-in". Ed and I have the "lived-in" look down to a science. But just like women who want to look a bit more like those air-brushed beauties in the fashion magazines, we covet a bit of "Better Homes and Gardens" in our house. It's all the same thing!
The mood continued into the first day of June. I attacked a second clutter spot... the kitchen sideboard/desk! Oh what a joy to toss old restaurant menus, gas receipts, and junk mail that had become firmly entrenched and to actually see the nice wood SURFACE of the desk. I even cleaned out the INSIDE and discovered I had enough rolls of tape to last me till Christmas of 2015!
I wish I had before and after shots... but I didn't think to take them.... believe me, the areas circled in yellow on these are new lands... places of clear serenity just daring someone to put down a tool or a piece of junk mail! Stay tuned... who knows what zone I'll be tempted to clear out tomorrow! I must act on this mood while it lasts! The trash man is sure going to be surprised this week!
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