Pantry Diva

I’m taking a break from purging the paper from my two-drawer filing cabinet to write. Partly because I am overwhelmed at the task, and the rest of it because, well, I’m overwhelmed at the stack of papers I have already unearthed and need to make a decision about. I really haven’t gone through this file for YEARS (at least 2003) as I am finding some very old documents.

What has been purged/found so far:

• Tax records from the late 1990s (makes sense—they still would have been under the seven year retention law when they I filed them)

• Bank statements from 1998, the year I purchased a condo (now sold)

• Two copies of my birth certificate (one per drawer). I now have three of them all stashed in the same file headed eventually for a safety deposit box

• Lovely letters written to me by friends. Can’t part with them. Need to have them in a file to pick me up when I am feeling down.

• Music for the organ. I play piano, but not really the organ. Resisted the urge to keep and purged it.

• Multiple copies of articles I have written in the past. I am only keeping one copy of each. Should eventually scan.

• Receipt for the first car I bought in 1986—a brand new Hyundai for $7,700.

• Taxes from 1986

• A W-2 from 1985. Ironically, it was from a summer job I had. Last week I reunited with a roommate from that same summer job. We’re having lunch tomorrow. I’m going to show her my W-2. She’s bringing her Polaroids! Boy, just typing that word makes me feel old

• Copies of email love letters sent to me by my husband when we were courting. Need to find a good format to keep them in.

• Teaching materials, with slides, that I have written. Don’t need to keep the slides, but can I part with my writing?

• An old work ID from the 1990s. Cute picture of me. My ID number is my social security number.

• Term papers from my graduate degree.

• Old speeches I have given

• All my research and notes from my thesis (I did throw out the reference guide published by my university on how to put the thesis together)

• Two different lists of books to be read over a lifetime to make one well-read. Does that mean I should choose which life I want to live by which list I select?

• A fat file of articles that a friend gave me years ago. She couldn’t bear to throw them away. I took them. Can’t bear to throw them away. How about if I read them, then purge? The little I have read about the hoarding mentality is that people save and accumulate things because they don’t want to miss out on an opportunity to learn or to not be prepared. What will I miss if I throw away the articles without reading them? How will I know what I missed if I don’t read them? (See why I’m writing and not purging?!)

I still have a half a drawer to go through but there’s an 18-inch high stack at my feet as I type.

I wonder how overwhelmed I would feel if this were a four-drawer file? I’m glad it’s not!

My resolution to reduce the paper in my life, and to get some important papers in place, has begun. One of the first and easiest places was in the glove compartment of my car. I’ve had my car for about eight years and every repair receipt, oil change, registration, insurance statement, and tire rotation schedule was stuffed in there. There were also a few maps, the owner’s manual, random pens, a package of dried out Wet Ones, and a melted and hardened truffle. It took about fifteen minutes to sort through everything. All the expired insurance and registration documentation got tossed. I saved the receipts of car maintenance, recycled most of the maps, and only put a couple of pens that worked back into the glove compartment. I could easily toss half of the contents.

The 3” three-ring binder that holds the information for my class came next. The papers were pushing past the boundaries of the covers. This project took about 45 minutes and ultimately resulted in two binders: one for lesson plans arranged chronologically, and a second binder for syllabi, exams, class handouts, and teaching resources. The easiest way to complete this task was to pull everything out of the binder, sort it into piles of similar documents, purge what wasn’t necessary, then punch holes and place back into the books.

The last project completed this week was attacking the stack of papers on my desk. This project took hours as many of the items had been sitting there for a year. The good thing about letting papers sit that long is that many of them could be thrown away safely because the information was no longer current. I’ve filed, purged, and stacked. There are now three piles left: four magazines that I need to read through and dispose of, birthday cards that I want to keep in a binder, and scraps of papers the list recommended books and videos. I simply need to take all those lists and combine it onto one sheet.

There was also a place where I needed to get paper out the door: thank you notes. I received some lovely cards and gifts and had been tardy about writing my thanks to the generous givers. So I spent an evening writing those notes and getting those in the mail.

It’s nice to have my desk back again and the burden of unwritten notes off my back.