February 7, 2014February 23, 2014 by clumpaday

Power Out and On

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.

February 4, 2014February 23, 2014 by clumpaday

Cut-outs and Cut-ups

Clump #145: Clear pile of comic and quotation clippings.

Pile numero cuatro in the Flippin February Paper Pile Purge. Another relatively small one, and enjoyable to revisit … but difficult to part with. My husband or I either clipped them out of the newspaper or, in the case of the one on the top, saved the calendar page. What now?

The ones I’m responsible for were doubly funny in that they reflect the situation addressed in this here blog. The Cathy comic strip is yellowed from age (2004 or 2009 ?), and looks like it was hanging up somewhere to remind me to get rid of documents. Though they’re still dear to me, I’m ready to toss them.

I had to tape together this Zits comic strip (which my son could have written) with three quotes from the Cryptoquote puzzle in my little notebook of thoughts and inspirations. Interesting how similar the advice is from the Buddha, Charles Simmons, and Saint Francis of Assisi.

This one made the “cut,” also:

My husband wanted to bring a Dilbert comic he had cut out long ago to work . Ready to go:

In the spirit of comic relief, I was visiting my mom today and, as usual, found evidence of creative people in the town of Strasburg, PA.

The lighting on this snow-maid was not the best, but her colorful crown of flowers was something to behold. Think Spring!

And then there was a whole beach scenario in another yard. A man being hunted by sharks:

A woman screaming for help, as she watches him:

A surfer snow-dude:

Possibly a marimba-playing snow musician:

Impressing this snow-sun-goddess?

So, back to business. These are the ones I am parting with, with fond appreciation for the smiles they gave me.

Like the snow-people getting us through a long winter, they had their moment in the sun.

February 4, 2014February 23, 2014 by clumpaday

White Out

Clump # 144: Clear out little pile number 3 of 28; shovel big clumps of snow.

Okay, I admit: the clump today was laughably small for my Flippin February Paper Pile Purge. Not quite qualifying as a “pile,” it was several papers our younger daughter had sorted together as a favor to me in January; they all pertained to my husband’s credit card. He took a look at them and declared that they should all be shredded. Done.

The big clumps we cleared today were a different type of white stuff clogging our world:

Boulder-size clumps of snow.

This was our eleventh snowfall of the season … with more arriving imminently.

We haven’t gotten so sick of it yet that we take for granted the marvelous beauty it bestows on the landscape.

Even from indoors.

Right now (before we go snow-crazy), the snow is teaching me a lesson in my quest to eradicate our problem paper: small things done consistently can really add up to a big thing.

Like the clearing away of one little pile after another.

February 3, 2014February 23, 2014 by clumpaday

Super Pile II

Clump #143: Paper Pile II.

Before the big game today, my husband helped me crush the second of 28 piles of paper … in the Flippin February Paper Pile Purge.

I told him he could pick any of the 27 remaining piles. He went for a monster: the pile of insurance papers … old, new, and in-between. It took time and scrutiny to determine which papers to toss, shred, or keep.

This is just the type of sorting I dread. We had to revisit traumatic memories of water damage to our house.

Apparently our peace of mind had not been completely restored.

He even cleared out the file and signed up online for electronic records from now on. My hero!

And — what a surprise! — I have an apt magazine photo to share. According to this Feng Shui diagram from an issue of Real Simple, the study I keep shuffling paper piles back into, the relapse room, is in the area of the house representing Friends and Travel. An interesting experiment might be to notice any influx of good vibes in friendships or travel at the end of this project.

I did travel recently, to Chicago, but it was during a record cold spell. I could relate to these pigeons huddled as tightly as possible out on the train station trying to conserve heat.

It was not much better at home in Pennsylvania.

Sending warm thoughts to you to melt away your winter chills.

February 1, 2014February 23, 2014 by clumpaday

Starting Is Seventy Percent

Clump #142: Begin Flippin February Paper Pile Purge. (As in, I just want to flip the calendar page over and make it March.)

A friend described a conversation he once had with a brilliant guy who worked for NASA. One concept the guy talked about stayed with him: to launch a space ship, you are essentially lifting a sky scraper off the ground and into the air. Who would ever think such a thing possible?! It takes a tremendous amount of fuel, most of the ship’s weight, to accomplish the flight … and seventy percent of it is required for just the first three inches. Good thing to remember whenever I am starting something, especially something I’m pulling against like gravity on a sky scraper.

An example would be getting back to blogging yesterday. When I am not blogging daily, I really get to a place where I forget what it’s like; I have no confidence in my ability to put thoughts together and I realize how audacious it is to think that people might care.

Here’s the fuel I used to get moving yesterday: a timer set for fifteen minutes and People Magazine as a reward for sticking out the fifteen minutes (my version of three inches). I know I have a problem with magazines and should be in a 12-step program, but there are worse vices.

Now, an aside here: Give. Me. A. Break. Christie. Brinkley. A mom of three? Sixty? What unrealistic expectations you are inflicting upon woman-kind … this is not progress!

The article surrounding the unbelievable photos ends with Ms. Brinkley saying, “Even when I’ll be sitting here with gray hair and Georgia O’Keeffe wrinkles, people are going to say, ‘There is just something youthful about her.'” Youth above all! Let me just say that we need more pictures of beautiful older women like Georgia O’Keeffe on magazine covers. As much as it is a feat worthy of NASA to defy gravity and age, the way Christie Brinkley has ( and it’s so totally not a case of sour grapes, of course), I sense a feeling of desperation in a woman who has to forever live up to her 1979 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover.

Artist Georgia O’Keeffe had her share of sexy photos, notably ones, like this one below, taken by photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

I will be very surprised if we ever see a former super model photographed with deep wrinkles like these.

Okay, back to the point of this post. I made a claim to process, purge, expunge a pile a day of paper in our house every day in February. I took a count of the piles my younger daughter so generously sorted for me, and … (drum-roll) … there are exactly 28! I’m not kidding.

Pile number one: vanquished. I’ll leave you with a much more pleasing sight, a sample of Georgia O’Keeffe’s art:

(By the way, if you Google “Georgia O’Keefe Art Images,” be prepared for a riot of color and sexy forms, perfect for a drab Winter’s day.)

January 31, 2014January 31, 2014 by clumpaday

Why I Haven’t Been Blogging

Clump #141: Begin February Paper Pile Challenge; mine magazines for vision boards.

Loyal followers of this blog might have noticed that I’ve recently taken a sabbatical. I went through a tough time helping my mom during a health scare; she is doing better. My posts here are a sampling of my life and, though her condition does affect my life, I really don’t want to make this a forum for updates on her status. I also felt the need to quarantine myself from the world due to raging negativity.

It’s amazing how bad things breed bad things. During an almost two-week span of driving back and forth to the hospital, our washing machine broke down and the kitchen faucet was leaking into the basement. One morning I tried to turn on the radio/CD player in the kitchen and nothing happened. A minor problem, and normally I’d have taken it in stride, but I had absolutely zero reserve of good will. It was if a best friend was suddenly giving me the silent treatment. My husband said, “Well, we’ve had it for a long time …” which did not diminish my sense of betrayal. Everything made me upset or angry, or both. The music player turned out to be an easily fixed electrical snag; the bird dropping on the windshield, pictured below, was another story. (Imagine my fist shaking at the sky.) With apologies to the movie Casablanca:

Of all the windshields, in all the lots, in all the world, it poops on mine.

And then there was Steve. The night I got that first dreaded phone call about my mom, my younger daughter was still at home on winter break from college. Before I left in the middle of the night, our daughter alerted us to the fact that her pet hamster, Steve, was making funny noises and didn’t seem to be moving much. After I came back the next day in a haze of despair, she broke the news that Steve had died. Now, normally I tend to forget we even have a hamster in the house. He lived in our younger daughter’s room, and when she started college my husband had taken on the duty of hamster maintenance. Steve lived twice as long as was predicted for a hamster. But the piling on of another sadness, even if small, felt oppressive. Below, Steve in his prime, in the caring hands of my husband:

With sisters taking over watch of our mom’s condition, last week I took a previously planned trip to Chicago to visit my older daughter. The warmth of sharing good times with her more than made up for the freakishly frigid temperature (just thinking about it makes me wince).

I brought along a ridiculous pile of — heavy — magazines. Talk about excess baggage. My daughter and I had fun collecting images for vision boards while clearing away a big clump. I certainly needed a positive vision to set my mind to. And leaving the discarded remains in a hotel recycling bin was very satisfying.

I just need to figure out how a vision of a bathroom like this:

could fit in a cozy little house like this:

In the meantime, I will attempt to post every day in February. My goal, or vision, is to purge the (too-often) previously-mentioned piles of paper — a traveling blight in/on our home. Twenty-eight days. Ready, set, go!

And Happy Chinese New Year! The Year of The Horse.

(Photo taken last summer at the Montreal Botanical Garden)

January 12, 2014 by clumpaday

Mail Crawl

Clump #140: Eliminate old mail in basket.

The photo below was not taken today, but it approximates the speed with which my husband goes through a clump of mail when asked nicely. I must own up: this is the second time I’ve posted about trying to establish a basket as our method of organizing mail. I had had such visions of domestic bliss when we would finally tame the day’s (or even week’s) mail on a regular basis … no tearing the house apart for that one VIP (very important paper) … birds and bunnies frolicking around us as I sing …

Sorry, back on track. Before the big holiday clean-up, said basket got jumbled together with all the other paper clutter and fell into the dark void of our closet. Ha! I just read that over, and notice how, with the passive voice, I removed myself from the equation as though that darned basket had just gone rogue!

So this is mail focus, take two … nipping it in the bud before it turns into a clump.

So much plastic … ugh. After shredding the protect-our-identity paper, these were next. Coupons, cards … be gone!

Out of all that, just two pieces of paper were deemed worthy of filing.

Now the basket is ready for the next mail drop, as inevitable as the next poinsettia leaf drop.

I think I do hear the birds singing now!

January 11, 2014 by clumpaday

The Value of Time (and Sweaters)

Clump #139: Another half hour of paper purging.

This is proof that you can fit thirty minutes of de-clumping in a day, even while on an emotional roller coaster. Before going to visit my mom again, I felt I should honor the gift of paper-sorting my younger daughter gave me (yesterday’s post). Timer at the ready, set, go!

I keep remembering a nice, neat woman of a more advanced age who was sitting with me for a little while in the hospital lounge. She spent the time cutting and trimming sewing pattern pieces. I mentioned that her task brought back memories, as I remembered that particular job to be a tedious one (when you just want to get started sewing). She said, “Well, I just hate to waste any time. Especially when you’re my age and you know you don’t have much time left.” So, honoring my own precious time and my daughters, I got to work on a big pile of newspapers.

I cut out the Sudoku puzzles for my husband.

Getting through the newspapers has become a bigger project lately. My husband recently received a subscription to The Wall Street Journal with hotel points, adding to our usual Philadelphia Inquirer subscription. I’m amazed by the different level of spending reflected in its pages. For example, its real estate section is called “Mansions.” The lead-up to the holidays involved the usual lists of gift ideas, but with jaw-dropping prices. I’m definitely not their targeted demographic. And then there was this article on the two thousand dollar sweater. What?!? I know there is no law against charging or spending two thousand dollars for a sweater, but I find it absolutely obscene. Okay, before I start foaming at the mouth, I will let go of this issue and this paper.

The good thing about purging papers in a time of stress and worry is that everything seems so trivial. I was left with a very small pile that I might find enjoyable to peruse later … newspaper reading as a reward.

For now, it’s out again into the gloomy weather …

made brighter by the promise of a good read and a cup of tea when I return, and a small sense of accomplishment.

January 11, 2014 by clumpaday

Paper Piling Present

Clump #138: Power half-hour of paper purging.

I came home after a long day today to an amazing surprise. My younger daughter had taken all of the paper in my anxiety closet and had sorted it out into logical categories. Magazines; recipes; newspapers; charitable donations; coupons; etc.; etc. Our cat, Pumpkin, was all tired out just watching her:

This was a really, really huge job. (Sorry for the poor photos.)

I used this kitchen timer to blast through a half-hour’s worth of it.

The recycling bag below needed taping after bursting open.

This seems like the proper time to dig out a photo of an old magazine illustration I took last winter at the Brandywine River Museum. I share it with the warning that a museum docent later told me photos of the artwork were not allowed, even without flash.

Was the presence of so much paper the sign of an important man? Did the paper have anything to do with the story? In any case, I had never felt so akin to the father of our country.

Here is the description of the illustration:

The Brandywine River Museum, in Chadds Ford, PA, “Presents the work of three generations of Wyeths and a collection of American illustration, still life and landscape paintings.” It is a beautiful place.

True to the character of the area, with an artist’s sensibility.

Even the trees were painting self-portraits outside. Seeing famous Andrew Wyeth paintings up-close and original was a thrill …

But nothing like the thrill of my daughter’s gift to me today: making manageable my worst clutter nemesis.

January 9, 2014 by clumpaday

Family Tree

Clump #137: Take Christmas tree out to the curb for recycling and put away Christmas decorations.

Being at the hospital with my mom every day has been draining. I realize I am putting off the paper clumping that I wrote about in my last post. If a tree falls in a house because it is curbside pick-up day, does it still qualify as a clump? Probably not. A clump should be something I wouldn’t be doing as business as usual. I’m allowing myself a day of denial before I revisit the procrastinated paper trail tomorrow.

I’m not ready! This is what happens when you put off getting a tree until right before Christmas. Ready or not, we bid the fine specimen farewell tonight with gratitude for its beauty and stately grandeur. At least at this [too] early date, our younger daughter is here to help with the putting away of the decorations.

And out the door it goes, with a small, fake, fiber optic tree looking on. (Don’t look so smug … you’re going back in the box next.)

Then all the decorations just seemed wrong, still hanging around.

So long until next year.

Clump A Day

postcards from the clogosphere

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