TALES OF THE NEW WORLD * ORGANIZING

Tales of the New World by Sabina Murray - This book of short stories was a tough read for me. These stories are fictional accounts about explorers, but the toughness is in the writing itself. The first story about Mary, an odd Englishwoman who explores Africa even before the colonial times, and the last story about Chekhov spending three months on a Siberian prison colony island, were my favorites, and the easiest reading. The others are rather dark and gloomy. I had just enough comprehension to get through each one, but not enough to care greatly or to rave about the book. Take a pass unless you love to read about explorers and want to get into their brains and to go on their rugged dirty journeys.

I am in the middle of my third day home alone without Steve, sunny warm days that motivate me to get things accomplished. I've sold some software and crystal on Craigslist, so I have a few bucks in my pocket, but no empty space gained after all.
I cleared out the upstairs hallway, finished ironing my regular pile as well as the things I'd brought down from the attic and washed in anticipation of selling at the driveway sale. I hadn't remembered that in the old days, the seams in clothing were not serged, unless it was a tee shirt or high end clothing with finished seams. Turns out I bought a lot of low end clothing when I was young. I went back through a pile that I'd previously decided to save, and let more go. There is still so much, and May is only 6 weeks away. I cannot wait to be finished with this major purge and to get back to creating. Onward!

I am going to go in a new direction today and hit the sunroom pile of scrapbooking, photos and paper crafting materials. It's all heaped on a three shelf rolling lucite cart, and it's been there for a long long time. It's time to fill the scrapbooks and put them out into the world. Yesterday I stayed home instead of go to the Housewares Show where I would have gotten more stuff, and that was like a major step toward countering this addiction of getting things that are fun and interesting but then don't use. I'll take Before and After pictures. Stay tuned.

OK, I know what you're thinking. Or what I'm thinking. Dianne, why start on a new area before you've completed the upstairs sunroom and guestroom? And I've got an answer. All these areas are about hobbies and creating and art, but there is only so much time to do hobbies and creating and art. So if I start on the new area, I may find those supplies to be more important than some that I am indecisive on in other areas, and when I come back to the other area, it may be easier to clear out things in order to make room for things I like better. This is about x amount of space and only having x amount of stuff to put in it from now on. No more x amount of space and 3x amount of stuff. No more. 2x amount of stuff has to go. Or even 2.5x amount of stuff so that I can have cleared off shelves ready and waiting for new stuff.

Forgot to mention that I went through the papers from the attic yesterday. I have all my High School and College papers from English, as well as materials from most of my college courses. Yes, this is madness. I'll start through these in detail in front of the TV tonight. I can reduce it all by half. I love looking at my old writing though. From the looks of it, grade inflation is nothing new! There is some bad bad writing there.