It's not hoarding if it's books....

I am not a minimalist.  There it is, I've said it out loud now for all the world to see.  In a world where people are making fortunes on books detailing how to fold your clothes and 'spark joy', whole websites are devoted to de-cluttering ones home and living with no excess 'stuff' laying around, I am the equivalent of the neanderthal!!  I have collections of everything from glass animals to stuffed animals, yardage and fabric scraps, everyday dishes and Christmas dishes, 2 sets of China handed down from grandmothers, enough yarn to carpet my house with crocheted rugs, files and notebooks of family history and census reports and birth certificates, beads new and vintage, and literally hundreds of books of all genres....well you get the picture.  The really horrible thing is I am not even sorry for being a packrat - I love it!  I love having stuff to make a project that pops into my head on hand, love having things that remind me of my family members who are no longer here - I guess my 'stuff' meets the 'spark joy' test!  Anyway let's be real honest, the reason Marie Kondo's clothes fold up into little packets that spark joy is because she is a little person.  Try getting the 3X sweatshirt to fold into a little stand alone packet!  I dare you!  This post was originally going to be my ode to 'clutter', but I looked up the word and it really means things that are disorganized, or disorderly. No, I don't like that.   I guess I will just share my craft room/office organizing project that has just been completed.

Understand, when I start the project and am visualizing how it will end up I see this in my head!

I go to the store and look at the prices of all of those little baskets etc. and then I come home and cover shoe boxes with contact paper!

Sigh...organizing with a cheapskate!

I took everything out of the room including the stuff in the closet, Hubby was looking a little amazed that "all that fit in the room" and then "do you think you can get it back in?"

The living room was full of my treasures and I did throw away quite a bit of trash.  The only expense was the black rack that was on sale at Lowe's for $29.00.

The rack in the corner has genealogy binders and boxes, photo albums and boxes of photos that still need to be scanned.  I have all of hubby's parents older photo albums circa 1950's that I am scanning as well as our own photos before digital cameras.

My craft table is a big metal table we bought at the company garage sale from hubby's work.  They built rocket engine parts on them!

Craft books and patterns and boxes of fabric. 

Gotta love the shoe boxes!

The other half of the closet looks the same, at least it is all organized and labeled...so it is not technically clutter.   It could still be junk...eye of the beholder and all that.  ;)

And everything did fit back in the room!

 Spring is here outside as well as inside.  The grass is greening up and the willows have that little hint of green in their branches when you look at them from here....

I am so excited about my garlic crop!  I made a map of all the bulbs so I would know what kind were where and all but one of the cloves I planted came up.  There are over 40 plants and 3 different types.....

The chives are coming up as well....

The corkscrew willow has leaves too.  The willows seem to be the first to put their leaves out...

Another exciting moment as 2 of the peonies that I planted last fall have started to come up...

 A group of us 'girls' (more like golden girls!) took a day trip to Twin Falls to see the Shoshone Falls. With all the snow and rain we are at flood stage and above on all of our rivers but it sure makes a gorgeous waterfall.  They say it is half again as much water coming over as usual. 

We had lunch and stopped at historical markers and had an altogether lovely time.  Nice after a rough winter to get out and do something again!

Hope you are enjoying the seasons changing wherever you are...

Fall is here - I think.

You can feel it in the air, the coolness in the breeze, the need for a little extra on the bed at night - I think fall is here or at least close.  Why aren't I sure?  Because every year about the time I predict the demise of summer it comes roaring back for a week or so and I am depressed.  I love fall!  I am ready for fall, I want the trees to start turning, I want to break out light jackets, use my oven again, watch football and work on my winter hobbies.  I have enjoyed my summer and I think we have accomplished a lot this year on the property, but I am done. 

I have celebrated this Labor day weekend by contracting some kind of gastrointestinal bug, so we didn't get to church this morning (limits to things we try to share!) and I just have no energy this afternoon so I'm working on cleaning out my computer files.  This involves me going through every folder one at a time and organizing the files, making new files for things that have built up, separating folders if they have become overused or unwieldy.  I do this fairly often and have really been pleased over the past 2 years with the results. (saving time spent looking and searching through files and folders) Instead of a 'recipe' folder with a lot of saved documents or a bookmark folder with a lot of blogs and web pages that I can't remember why, I made internal folders so I have the equivalent of tabs like the recipe books.  Divided my Genealogy files on the computer into ever smaller family units (this one grows by leaps and bounds sometimes!)  I have been scanning over 30 years of photos (mine), and 50+ years of photos (relatives, in-laws, grandmas) onto my computer so I went through and grouped them by activity, so I have a file of 'Christmas' and within the folder are the years and whose house we were at.  This has helped keep it in control and made it easier to find things.  When someone asks for pictures of some event (like my cousin did for Grandmas 100th birthday party) I can go to the file labeled 'trips to Missouri' and then go through the individual years, rather than having to ask (or remember) what year it happened!  This is an ongoing project but at the end of it (hopefully this winter) I will have handed each of the kids a set of CD's with all the family photos on them and not have to worry about being fair (who got that picture - I wanted one of those!) or how much it will cost.  It will make a nice gift in a notebook with CD sleeves!  This also insures that they won't end up with a box of photos of folks they don't know or remember, labeling on the computer is a snap.  I have a few photos of Hubby's family that I don't know, he doesn't remember and his folks have passed away!

The other plus to this will be the 'what do I grab' issue, I will have all my photos and genealogy information (which I think is Terribly important!) on a set of CD's in my emergency bag that includes birth certificates, passports, insurance policy copies etc.  I also  have a CD in that bag with pictures of everything in my house including pictures of my drawers!  From an insurance standpoint it is a great thing to have in case of fire or flood or hurricane, you can prove you had all that stuff and there is no arguing about it!  Insurance adjusters love people who can prove their stuff existed, it makes the job so much easier!  I cannot tell you how many claims interviews I did where I would have to remind someone "of course you owned underwear?"  It is hard to remember things after a disaster - as you read this try to do a mental inventory of one of your kitchen drawers, then go an check - how many things did you forget were there?  If you can't remember/list them you won't get compensated after a fire etc.

This organizing chore takes several hours about once a year and I divide it up usually into smaller bits by doing 'bookmarks' one night and 'documents' another, but since my office is near the bathroom and I don't feel like moving around much I may get the whole thing done today!

This is also allowing me to stay inactive and not be too bored!!!
The kids will be here a week from tomorrow - I'm so excited!  I have so much to do!

Somehow this turned into a sort of 'brag and nag' thing - sorry, blame it on the stomach ache!