Clump #171:  FINAL sorting, filing, shredding, and recycling of household paper.

Okay, folks … this is the last call.  All hidden piles of paper secretly stashed away during bouts of insecurity before guests arrive — come out into the light of day!

This is big … really, really big.  My darling younger daughter (who, you might remember, made this job manageable by sorting through the mammoth paper-glacier on her winter break) is now home for spring break and, fittingly, helped me finish the project.

In an effort to give each piece of paper a home, these were new file folder titles that my papers fell into: How-To; Possible Purchases; Spiritual/Mental First Aid; Travel; and Writing.  I have separate accordion folders for Recipes, Sheet Music, and Instruction Manuals, plus a box in the basement for “Posterity.” (I know, a deferred clump for a future day.)

Once again, the “Do” pile received some more entries.  I won’t need to wonder what to “do” for my next clumps.

Funny and ironic findings kept us laughing, like the to-do list with “bedroom piles” on the top (not crossed off, I might add) …

And a book I had ordered from Chinaberry called Clutter Busting.  I even read it, to the end.  I am much more apt to read about a problem than do something about it … until now, that is!

Another note about the egocentric sense I’ve had that my slow paper-clearing project has been synced with the insufferably long winter we’ve been enduring.  As of yesterday, I am calling that winter finished.  I say this not only because my piles of white have been eradicated or tamed into submission, but because nature is telling me spring is really coming. I drove by a small herd of cattle on the way to see my mom, and they were definitely feisty:

I couldn’t get a shot of one doing a skip and a hop, which happened several times while I watched.

I was also hearing lots of birdsong.  The animals know.

Poor, salt-sprayed roadsides are finally giving way to brown.

An old gentleman with whom my mom and I dined yesterday started a conversation, in a soft, Georgia accent, with: “Did any of you ladies ever go possum hunting when you were in high school?”  It was that kind of a spriny, spunky day.

Sorry for my (even imagined) part in prolonging this way-long white season.  We might get April-fooled by another snow, but it won’t stand a chance.  The living forces have been stirred, and there’s no turning back.