Days 79 – 85: Clearing Out the Attic Closet

Last Thursday I tore the attic closet apart looking for my box of recipes in which I’d hoped to find Jeremy’s Aunt’s parkin recipe. I was unable to find it but did end up with a huge mess in the typically messy, but rarely this messy side of the study.

After the weekend I decided that since half of the things in the closet were out of the closet, I might as well pull everything out and start organizing it.

I went through a 2000 square-inch box, a large grocery bag and a smaller gift bag-sized bag of DVDs/CDs — sorting them into piles (after often inserting them into my DVD player to see what they were, if unlabeled or labeled inadequately): Music other than Dan Bern, Dan Bern music, disks holding data files of photos, documents, and blank. These are all now in their own boxes awaiting further action. Note that there were many delights found on the unlabeled CDs and DVDs.

I also went through a shoebox size and 6x6x6 inch boxes of cassette tapes and divided them into piles as well (after often playing them on a cassette player if they were unlabeled): Dan Bern, music other than Dan Bern, people talking, and trash. These are also now in their own boxes in the closet ready for further action. Note there was a small delight found on a cassette tape that my brother must have recorded in secret. Hearing my family’s voices again was bittersweet but delightful.

I moved shelves around in the closet, puting things I rarely use in the very back and things I use more often in the front. The CDs/DVDs/Cassettes are on the back wall and my two “things to blog about” boxes are in front of them. Anyone looking in the closet would not realize that I’d just sorted it out, but they hadn’t seen it before.

I also moved a tacky three-drawer cabinet from the closet to under my desk and moved the paper to be turned into lists into that and moved the shelf the paper was on into the closet.

My next step is to organize the dozens of cables and put them into boxes that fit on the shelf that used to hold paper.

The often messy side of the study is nearly as tidy as the never messy side of the study and that is a delight!

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There was a delightful sunset today. The image at the top of this post is how the sunset looked on the wall of the study (you can see some of the mess in that photo). The image below is the sunset through our tulip tree.