Clumps #146, 147 & 148:  Clear three piles of paper clutter from study floor.

I’ve been out of communication for three days!  We had a bad ice and freezing rain storm Tuesday night, causing a power outage that lasted until this afternoon, Friday.  It was like living in a snow globe … a beautiful but lonely winter scene.  And here I had made such a big to-do about my Flippin February Paper Pile Purge, wherein I honor my younger daughter’s gift of having sorted all our problem papers into what, miraculously, turned into 28 piles. One for each day in the month of February.

But I did clear the promised three clumps.  I have to resist chastising myself for how small they are.  I’m beginning to realize that this is the point:  small clumps, confronted and cleared every day, make for non-dreadful tasks. What’s more, they actually go away.  Here’s the before:

And after, what wasn’t shredded or filed ready to go out in the recycling bag (a corner turned!):

In a recent post about our last big snow storm, I included this photo of river birches, taken from our house:

Here was the same view Wednesday morning of the poor, stressed trees:

We were actually quite lucky that our trees didn’t suffer as badly as many in the area.  Even the ones pictured above look much better now.

As heavy as the ice was, it was also beautiful.

And we were lucky to have a gas stove in the basement to keep us cozy.  I was able to make tea, thank the Lord.  Here is my husband mixing up some hot chocolate for us, with cell phone in hand, one of his must-haves:

I also had two new good books that, with all the time in the world, I was able to finish, each in a day.  What a luxury.

My three little clumps were easy to dispatch.  I found I could keep to the program without disturbing a quiet time that I still got to devote to tea and reading by the fire.