I’m alive!

Reports of my death-by-hoard-smothering were exaggerated. Reports of my incapacitation due to severe depression were not, sadly.

But, I’m back now and better than ever. Now that I’m not running in survival mode, it’s time to continue the purge. Depression is bad for purging because it robs you of your ability or even the will to make decisions.

So I’m back. I’ve turned my attention back to my office. I got a new keyboard for Christmas, which allowed me to purge 3 half-working keyboards, and gave a fourth to my mom. Yes, I was cycling between keyboards. My awesome boyfriend took pity on me and bought me one really good mechanical keyboard. It’s amazing for my typing speed and my typo count dropped dramatically. I also gave my mom a VCR, got rid of an unused TV, and am reading through my unread books.

I’ve also been purging mason jars. I don’t can as much as I used to, so it’s getting hard to justify storing lots of empties when I have about 5 boxes left to unpack. Most of my collection are re-used sauce jars. The labels never came off, making them icky-looking and unsuitable for barter. So, I’ve been recycling two a week until I clear a shelf of run out of nasty empties. (Note to self: find use for canned pumpkin.)

My goals for the rest of January for my office are:

• Continue purging mason jars
• barter two (2!) new-in-box car speakers for food/beer/tea
• File my stack of filing
• shred my box of shredding
• Gather my unused cables/electronics into one bag for recycling.

These steps will clear up an estimated 10-20% of the clutter in my office. I’m also hoping to free up a shelf so I can unpack/sort through boxes.

Other notable purges:

• A purse: A friend gave me a giant purse. I tried it out at a mentoring event I was invited to. Why yes, some people would actually consider me a good role model. I weep for our youth. It was way too big and clumsy for me, so I added it to my donation bag.
• Cat toy. As you probably guessed, Bonk had no use for that foul construct. It was a gift, but it needed to get off my floor.
• Old lava lamp insert. It was dead and just taking up space. I found a replacement at the thrift shop.

That’s all for this time. I’ll check back in soon with the results of the January office purge. I missed you guys.