Decluttering

Today I rearranged an office and it wasn’t even mine.

I didn’t break into someone else’s and randomly move things, don’t worry. My friend and I went to her school (here in the weird of Tucson, it’s Rodeo Break and schools are closed) and tried to make the tiny office in the eighty-year-old school work better. The desks have to be arranged around some huge windows, severeal doors, the built-in outdated stuff, the pipes sticking out of the floor (honestly, what?) and a square hole in the wall that looks like the one behind my washing machine, but apparently the room has always been the office so I don’t even know.

There’s also the fact that the office manager is out on sick leave. She’s been out for four months. She tells my friend and the principal that she’ll be back at the end of April, but she’s telling everyone else she’s retiring. So we wanted to make some functionality changes (with the blessings of the principal) but not totally rearrange everything. That would make it awkward for my friend if the office manager does return.

So anyway, that was my day. A lot of “what’s in there?” “I don’t know.” Some “holy cats, this form is twenty years old. Pretty sure you shouldn’t be using it.” A few “OMG, what is that?” Some “why would anyone set it up that way?” And one “why are there rusted razor blades loose in this desk’s top drawer?”

We threw those away.

I’ve been decluttering my room, too. Yesterday I decided that I’m never going to hang that bamboo curtain from the old house in this house, and if I decide to hang one in a new house years down the line, I will just purchase another. I need the closet space more than the maybe $30 five years down the line. I’m also giving up my awesome sling backpack/purse that I carried for ages until the zipper started to tear off. I’m never going to sew it. And even if I did, I wouldn’t carry it. Most of my books are on my phone now.

And filler paper, notebook filler paper. I have about thirty single-subject notebooks, seven pretty journals, and a bunch of smaller notebooks. I own two binders and both are for filing not writing. I also own a desktop computer, a netbook, a phone that can do word processing, and two Alphasmarts. Why on earth would I need 450 sheets of filler paper?

I’d much rather have shelf space in my closet to get a few more hats. I love cool hats. This is my current favorite.

So yeah. That’s what I’m up to lately, as I’m in between deadlines. Planning to jump with both feet into the Love is an Open Road event on the M/M Romance Goodreads Group this weekend, so that won’t last.

Thank goodness. Too much not-writing, and I might start breaking into random offices to arrange them more efficiently.