organizing…

27 books…27 Magazines

Oh, books, magazines, you are going to be hard.

Books mean a lot to me. I have them everywhere. I even read some of them. Others, I just keep for the pictures!

But books do not stay in one location in this house. There is the pile in the bedroom—reading, about to read, finished reading.

There are similar piles in the guest room.

And shelves in the studio, and the den and the living room. All full of books.

I want a “KindleNookSonyIpad”—an E-reader. I haven’t settled on which, I am curious to hear from those who have them already about their pros and cons. But even if I own one, I don’t truly see books going away in this house. Too many of them are reference. The photos, the how-to’s, I don’t know that E-reading is the way to go (or that it’s even supported well…)

The financial difficulty of replacing all the reference of my life precludes being able to assign new roles to all the bookshelves in the house. (Although if forced, I COULD reassign them to hold fabric….)

The joy of wandering through Goodwill or yard sales or other thrift stores, and investing a quarter or a dollar in a new author and discovering something special—that too will be gone with E-reading. The idea of having anything that I might want at my fingertips on vacation? In the car? Bored on my lunch hour?? Heck, yes!

Still. The books currently in the house–27 flinging. Right, get back on target.

Do you live in an apartment but have a shelf (or more) of garden books? Do you not cook but have a shelf of cook books? Think on why you have them. Is this about who you WANT to be versus who you ARE? Is it a temporary situation?

Some may be worth keeping, because they ARE special, and do have great information. Some, well. Fling them. We live in the information age. We CAN find the information again.

Travel is a great past-time, but travel books are often out of date by the time they are printed. As reference, the internet is far better, or contact AAA just before your vacation and get up-to-date publications.

Books about crewel, or needlepoint, when you can’t remember the last time you threaded a needle?? Fling.

That small bit of shelf of children’s books that you saved? Keep’em. (No more than about a dozen really special ones, unless you currently HAVE children in the house. In that situation, you keep them all, lol!) They bring back memories, and it will tickle your child some day that they still exist. They are a great thing to have if you have unexpected small company.

Novels you read and can’t recall? Fling. Novels you enjoyed, but the TBR pile is so overwhelming you can’t imagine the time you would ever read it again? Fling. (Write down the title and author, and get it onto your E-reader eventually.) Novels you have started to read more than twice and STILL haven’t finished? Duh! Fling.

Novels that you have written in the margins of, dog-eared, bookmarked and underlined passages of? They get kept. They are old friends. (Still, you may want an E-copy eventually.)

(Let me clarify this word FLING for this topic. This should read a bit more like ––Share— Give away to friends who read the same things you do. Introduce a neighbor to your favorite author. Donate the entire pile to your library for their book sale. Sell on Ebay, Half.com, put up on PaperbackSwap.com, etc. Save the whole bag/box till your next family gathering and put it on the counter for people to take as they please.)

Magazines are an entirely different sort of animal. My first suggestion is to not allow them into your home. Barring that, weed out the titles you subscribe to, keeping only the ones you actually READ when they are still fresh. Do NOT get sucked in at the grocery store line and toss them into your cart. Really, with magazines, you need to take a firm line!

I only purchase quilting magazines. And I try not to even buy them. I am seduced by the pretty colors of the quilts, yes, but even more so by the setting the photo was taken in, the clever title they gave to a block I own the directions to already (5 times, in many of the books I own)….

What I do with magazines like this is allow them to gather. When I have a large pile, I sit on the couch, or on the floor in the studio, with a stapler and rip out the patterns I really like. Staple together all the pages, and make a pile. The rest gets flung. (This pile should be moved to a magazine holder, of which I have cleared out a few that were being used for other things, like files)

I sometimes even hole-punch and put the patterns into three-ring binders. The fact of the matter is, unless I run out of THREAD, I need not another scrap of fabric, nor another pattern purchase in order to continue quilting—unless I live to be 300!!!

Oh, and tomorrow is March 1. (Happy Birthday, Jeanine)… Go back to the blog at the end of January and REPEAT the digital photo process!!)

Sitting in Front of the TV….

…Once every two years or so, I regret that there is only one television in the house, all the way at the other end down in the den. I LOVE the Olympics, and really want to spend my free time watching them.

In order to not totally blow the next two weeks on flinging, I think that I shall endeavor to work on the following –recipes and photographs.

These two 27-thing fling projects can take place on the couch while keeping up with the latest in Vancouver.

RECIPES:

I have a two shelf area under the bar in the dining room that has scraps, clippings, binders, cards and books of recipes. The problem?? Don’t use them. For the most part, I cook from memory.

In order to Fling this area, gather all your recipe stashes (in a laundry basket maybe??) Grab a paper grocery bag (because it will stand on the floor neatly) a pair of scissors, some blank recipe cards (or index cards), another container to hold the ‘keepers’ and a good spot in front of the tube.

Some books should be easy. If you haven’t cracked the cover by now, it probably needs to go to Goodwill. If someone in the house is allergic to the main ingredient, or dietary restrictions eliminate over 50% of the recipes from contention, fling it.

If you remember there is one GREAT recipe in the book, grab a recipe card, and bookmark it for now.

The cut-out, magazine tear-outs and back of food box recipes that threaten to overtake you should be next. Have you made it? Why not? Would you make it again? Do you NEED a recipe to make it?

Fling or save, as needed.

When you have whittled down to a more reasonable pile, decide how you prefer your recipes. Do you want a box, with cards? Do you like a binder? A note book? A computer program? The transcribing, entering, creating of a new and useful to you recipe center can be done now, while you sit in front of the TV, delegate to another time, when you have the appropriate materials. (If someone gave you the recipe, remember to note it’s origin.)

PHOTOS:

This is going to be a multipart and on-going fling. Since we are in front of the TV, it’s going to be about real, hard copies of physical photos, printed on paper; not digital files.

Gather ALL your photos. The shoeboxes, the developing envelopes shoved in the bottom drawers, the photo albums that haven’t been updated, the desk drawer of stacks. Wherever and whatever state, bring them ALL together.

Paper garbage bag, of course. Manila envelopes, file folders, or plastic bins, and a Sharpie to label with family member names. You will also need a ballpoint pen.

First, as you open each envelope, DO NOT THROW OUT THE NEGATIVES. SAVE THE NEGATIVES. DO NOT FLING THEM!!! If you think you know the date/subject, write it on the envelope.

Second, DO fling any photo that is obviously out of focus, dark, blurry, or otherwise an epic fail. If it is with the subjects eyes closed, and the photo following has their eyes open. If the group shot was taken 13 times, save the 2 or 3 that are ok.

The only reason to save such poor image is—IT IS THE ONLY PHOTOGRAPH YOU HAVE OF THE EVENT OR THE PERSON. AND IT HAS GREAT HISTORIC SIGNIFANCE. See, that eliminates most of the reasons for saving the bad ones.

Next, fling the duplicates of photos that you really only need one copy of. If its a photo of your 5 year old and the neighbor boy, make a pile of the neighbor boy and give the pile to his mother when you are finished.

Other duplicates should be handled similarly. A grandma file so she can have photos. (You know she’s been asking) A long lost cousin file, a file of photos that you know have no negative but need to be scanned because other people would want a copy.

Make a Christmas pile, and a vacation pile. A school events pile, a pets pile. Whatever categories work for you. Now, give them away. If you see a relative once a year, and have for years on end, gather those photos, write a note, and ship them off to your relative. You have a copy, they have a copy, and memories will be recalled fondly. (Don’t ship the negatives and DON’T send the blurry ones!!!)

Oh, and before you give them away, or file or display? Do the genealogist a favor and DATE AND IDENTIFY the photos.

(And not as my great grandmother did. I own too many photos of 6-12 people, with notations like this on the back:

“Allison. Susie Smith’s house in Great Kills, Sunday, June 15, 1932.”)

Part two later. Don’t do anything rash with your photos while waiting. Enjoy the Games and Go, TEAM USA!

Your Great Aunt Mildred’s Bud Vase…

…And other things you can’t live without.

You are NOT flinging Aunt Mildred, ok? Let’s establish that first. Anything that belonged to her, that reminds you of her, that brings back fuzzy summer day memories as a child on her front porch….These are NOT Aunt Mildred.

They are your memories. Aunt Mildred will live on only as long as someone remembers her with love. Her bud vase may end up with someone who never knew her, never heard of her, isn’t related to her in any way, but simply loves the color or shape after you divest yourself of her vase, but she will live in your heart till you go.

That doesn’t mean you have to get rid of it. It just means that you can’t keep EVERYTHING of Aunt Mildred’s, because by doing that, these items lose their magic, their specialness.

I own (protect, am the guardian of) a broken (re-glued), rather pretty to me planter that belonged to my great-grandmother Casey. It suits my style, and it still holds a plant (unlike the planter destroyed this morning by Gandolf, one our cats, who was aggravated at a forced fasting….)

vase

It is the only thing I own of hers; I never met her, it doesn’t bring back memories of HER. But it recalls many wonderful afternoons spent in her home where her two daughters continued to live until 1980. If I had kept (been given the chance to keep) everything from that house, the memory wouldn’t be so grand.

I take that back. I also possess a glass-doored bookcase with an encyclopedia from 1926, which while I like to think belonged to my great-grandfather, but didn’t as he died in 1924. It probably got my grandfather through college; it was one of the few things he chose to keep when the house was broken up (or allowed or offered or…well it was 30 years ago, I need to let it go…)bookcase

Oh, and years later, I drove past the house and found someone finally renovating (not well, certainly, but renovating rather than tearing down) and I chatted for a few minutes as I looked around from the hallway, and I saw it as it was back when I was little, not as it was currently…. Every little wisp of sunlight spun the carpets and the furniture and the playtime into clear focus in my mind. The man gave me a piece of the ceiling- ornamental horse haired patterned- and I framed it and it hangs on my wall….

These are memories I can not pass on to my daughter. She will not have the same memory of why she might want to own this odd little framed item, except that she may treasure it because I treasured it.

So, the point is this. If you are keeping something that does give you pleasure, and it is lovely to look at and suits your space, wonderful! Surround yourself with YOUR things, not with things that were on sale as the latest and greatest decorating scheme! (Large wooden bowls filled with spheres confound me. Don’t you own anything to display that MEANS anything?)

If you own something and it does have a history, write down it’s story. Take a photo of it, put the story with it, create a journal so that your descendants can know you and your ancestors.

We live in an odd time, where every little change is recorded photographically; will photos and owning them mean the same thing; will they be as special and revered as the rare photo of my great-great-great grandfather? Every utterance we make online is filed somewhere, but are there records of your handwriting someplace?

Is everything you own color-coordinated and texture specific and themed and absolutely lacking any sentimental meaning?

Examine why you are keeping the broken toy. If it belonged to your dad, and its stuffed in a box in the back of the closet, take a photo of it and toss it. Better yet, find a spot on the mantel and clean it and display it and have your dad tell the story to your little ones about the day Santa gave him this toy, and how sad he was to have it break.

Keep things, fine. (There is no way I am going minimal without being dragged against my will, I can’t ask that of you) But keep things you LOVE.

paintbrushes (Something else that will survive the flinging. A Pringles can, circa 1982, made in high school—Miss Volpe’s art class—probably the only thing I own from high school, its a diary of who I was back then….and it is full of paint brushes that my grandfather used, and that I used in college and to this day….memories too strong, of linseed oil, of sneaking into the painting room after I should be in bed, watching Daddy Gus paint….)

Will I get to 27 things to fling?? Highly doubt it this round. But, if I do, most may end up being gifts to others, who I feel may appreciate and honor their existence.

Far better that you present these items, (complete with memories in a note card in your own handwriting,) than leaving them for someone to have to clean out in a time of emotion and sadness and depression, when time and distance cause them to be flung without regard.