Sorting, Filing and Shredding, Shredding, Shredding

The quest to Let Go of all this drek and clutter that have filled my life for the past 9 years continues after a weeks hiatus in which I was pounding out tiles from my shower and in search of coordinating tiles to replace them with. The task was not as easy as it sounds and, amazingly, tile stores are not very cooperative. All of the tiles are stuck to boards so that you can only look at them. You cannot take them off and put them next to each other to see how they look. This makes trying to match and coordinate a rather daunting task. I finally found one store that had a few samples so that I could "build" a shower on the floor and see how everything looked together. This helped to find some nice coordinating tiles. Unfortunately, they were the wrong size so the search continues.

But, back to the task at hand. The rain today made it perfect to stay in and re-address my study and the continuing stacks of filing and sorting. Just when I think I have finally come into this century, I find another stack that puts me back into the '90s. At least it seems as if the '80s are done but, who knows? There may still be some lurking in the remaining bags that I have yet to go through. As you may have guessed, I have done a lot of shredding. Would have loved to just shove everything through the shredder but, unfortunately, there are many things I need to keep and file. The amount shoved through so far has been significant and I thank my Aurora 10 sheet/credit card/cd crosscut shredder from Bed, Bath and Beyond for all of its hard work. It has chugged along with never a pause unlike my 6 sheet/credit card/crosscut shredder I got from Office Max that continued to overheat and soon bent or crushed all the blades so that I had to replace it. But I digress again. The shredded matter has now filled up my paper bin which will not be emptied until Wed morning. However, Jeannette across the street has offered up her been so now I am hard at work seeing if I can manage to fill hers as well.

Today took on a rather pensive note when I hit the stack of Kaiser stuff that held the reports and appointments from the early days of my diagnosis - the office visit, mammogram, biopsy and first surgeon's appt. It really took me back and made me think.

Other than that, I learned something about myself as I went through receipts and envelopes. I sure did like to give gifts - to everyone! That was such a joy for me and something that I am really missing now that I am in such dire straits financially. I hope one day to be able to buy and give gifts again. Until then, I hope that my paintings, jewelry and other handiwork will suffice.

Well, back to the grind (literally). :)