Waves,
 

Yes re Japaense:

I ran across it on all the news I used to subscribe to on FB.

I did not know until I checked SNOPES that they use glass.

Also, did not know that they are hugely expensive, or at least they were when SNOPES did this in 2007. I suppose the price has come down.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/odd/watermelon.asp
The square shape certainly makes it easier to ship and easier even to cut.

Mari

Cool... I had never seen the pix of it, thank you! That looks wild! :D

organizing paperwork: progress report
 

I made a little more progress with going through stuff. I am just "weeding" right now, and organizing. It will be a while before I can get to the putting away part. That's ok. I am seeing piles and wads slowly build up and land in the recycling or shredding heaps. This is good.

-- I went through the already recycled paper, and pulled any "possible security risks" out. Moved them to shredding pile.

-- I went through a pile that was mostly pre-recycling but had staples in it. That is now gone. :yahoo:

-- I made a nice pile of freed up folder/container thingies.

-- I organzied the "finance" pile I had made. Statements of the past 4 years are in chronological order.

-- I went through the residual pile of unsorted paper from the cabinet. Most got recycled, some got distributed across the categories.

-- I discovered more banking stuff in there so I have two of those piles now, but both are ordered.

-- I went through one (of two) filing boxes and reduced some of the folders. The banking folders look messy and might have some junk but I will deal with them when I put away the banking stuff -- which I might do soon.... there is space for it in the box! :D:D:D

-- A "work/tax" category/pile gradually emerged from the sorting.

============

HITCH:

The "work/tax" pile and the "medical" pile are both large -- could occupy maybe half a filing box each. What this means is, two filing boxes may no longer be enough for everything.

PLAN:

I still have to go through the second filing box. It may be that almost everything in there can be put aside for later transfer to the cellar. If not, I will keep some of the employment stuff in multi-pocket envelopes, or similar. I need to verify how long I must keep things for tax purposes, here. By US standards, some of my stuff would already be off the radar, but here I don't know.
:Hum:

Tasks:

-- Remove archivable items from second filing box.

-- Organize medical pile.

-- Organize work/tax pile.

-- Merge the two finance piles.

-- "Graduate" to the putting away process. :D

waves

hard thing, throwing away photos
 

-- I came across some pictures, two sets. One of a vacation, and I kept a handful (most were crappy). The other set was of a person who was briefly important to me but turned out to be a problem. I threw away the crappy pictures from the vacation, and all of the ones of the problem person.

That was hard for me. It feels strangely disrespectful to throw a photo of someone away.

I also came across test prints of my uncle (different crops, color adjustments). I could not bring myself to throw those away, even though I already have the final enlargements printed.

Waves,
 

Waves,

Pictures are hard. I hang on to them longer than I should. Part of my thinking is that they are not taking up much space and can be thrown away at any time.
Good that you go rid of the photos of the problem person and kept a some good ones from a vacation. I understand keeping the pictures of the uncle even though you had better shots.

Wow. Doing paper work means you have already made enough progress such that you have more room to work. Is that the case?

You have skills!!

That is an accomplishment.

The paperwork is in good shape.

This is a good sign. That means that you are at the place where you 1) have things together/know where they are/know what they are and 2) are prepared to ditch unneeded things.

You have five tasks left . Awesome. :Bow: :Bow: :Bow:
You can see the finish.

This is impressive: :icon_mrgreen:

Mari

Thanks, Mari
 

I am only sorting/tossing/organizing papers/paperwork. Didn't mean to give the impression I had moved on. As for space... I'm still very crowded, but as I get rid of stupidshit, space emerges. :)
Things are a lot less chaotic, even if there is plenty mess and confusion about still. I am mssing some things and other things are "somewhere" very vaguely, but I have a better clue about many things. :)

Oh, YEAH! :D
This is the big reason things are getting better. The total volume of stuff I tossed would fill a filing box, if not a bit more. Some of that is still here, because it will need to be shredded and we can't do it all at once, but it is parked and marked, hehe. :D

fruits of the night's labor
 

fruits of a night's labor...
Thanks. Yes. I was busy this past night. :) I chipped away some more at those five tasks. Significantly.

TO DO.

Quote:

-- Organize medical pile.

DONE! :D

Quote:

-- Organize work/tax pile.

TO DO.
(Fearfully avoided. I built this pile up under the desk, didn't really look. Then I did... it is as large as all of the mass of stuff that I took out from under the desk before I started. :eek:)

Quote:

-- Merge the two finance piles.

DONE...ish.
Things exist which were not in those piles. Maybe two or three folders/piles of other banking documents. :o I don't know where, but one I know is messy and might have junk in it.

Quote:

-- "Graduate" to the putting away process. :D

IN PROGRESS!
I already put away much of the banking stuff from the two piles. There is more... I don't know where.

I put the medical stuff, some of which is recent/still relevant, in portable folder/document carriers. I will probably keep it this way, and add an empty document carrier I can fill ad hoc for doctor's appointments. This might help me put off the cellar operation, provided I wind up with enough actual cabinet space.

Of note: At this point, if I suddenly wanted to bail on everything, I could shove some things back into the cabinet and end up with a tidier cabinet, tidier desk area, and more organized files, so I no longer feel enslaved by the mess. And... were I to stop now, my progress couldn't be completely reversed by spontaneous pile amalgamation.

Thanks, Mari. It is helpful to be able to think these things out here. And I really appreciate your encouragement. :) You're a great cheerleader. :)

waves

done... ish
 

Last night I pretty much finished what I listed.

There are a ton of medical folders which need to be reorganized, but they are passable as-is, and I've managed to cram all of those into one of the filing boxes. No space for new stuff in either box though.

In general, I got to the bulk of stuff that could be trashed. Found only one folder that could be archived, so cellar movements are pointless. Bottom line is I must resign myself to keeping more than I wanted to in the cubby hole under the desk, just in a neater form.

================

I have another problem which is rather upsetting. An important medical folder that has been missing for some time failed to "turn up" as I expected, during this process. I can't think where it could have got to! I don't know what to do. There are test results in it that I need to see.

I did find my nail file though... ha. Pesky thing, hiding amongst my files.

waves

Great work
 

Waves,

I am commenting on the last two posts in order they were posted.

You got a lot done and you are specific about what is left.
You are posting with see "glee" it seems.

Ugh. But not a set back. It's another branch on the tree that has to be cut / trimmed.

Sometimes these are the hardest ones for me. It depends.


I really like this one. Especially the possibility of putting off the cellar operation.

Yes. Yes. Yes. And Yes. YES!!
THat's how it goes. Even if you did bail here which I am guessing you did not, you have gone down many roads and many lanes (mixed metaphors with the tree branches but will let it go for now.)

This is stuff is so hard because you are dealign with the
~present
~the past which is hard to see while in the middle of this and this is a jumble,
~the future which you want to get to more easily

Thanks for the poetry in "spontaneous pile amalgamation." :D:D:D

Mari

Finished what you set out to do! And have trash to throw out.
 

Waves,

:You-Rock:

That works. Neater is good.
:winner_first_h4h:

Not good.
Did you already sent things out to trash or shredder.
I would probably check in that stuff again and I am sure that you did that too.

This is going to sound odd, but it is "going to turn up."
It is around. You just can't see it right now.

I really hope it turns up.


That is the same as finding gold.

How do you feel? :Halo:

Mari