Cleaning House

I'm officially sick. Yeay. Fortunately it doesn't seem too bad (knock on wood). I slept a lot yesterday and am heading back to the day job today.

While I was on vacation in December I cleaned out the computer room, which involved sorting all the papers on my desk. I have a giant stack of things to scan sitting next to the scanner. This week I started doing a little each night while we watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Part of me wonders why I bother. Do I really need to scan all the bills and the payment receipts, so I can keep them forever and ever?

I suppose that even if I am just transferring my pack-ratness from physical to digital, at least it doesn't take up room. It's not a mess. It's just going to be this giant file sitting on my hard drive. I'll be able to show my nieces and nephews, Look, this is what it cost to heat the house in 2008. Of course, it's hard to say whether any of them will have my bent for history. I'd find a heating bill from 1952 fascinating, myself. But I'm weird like that.

Things I Would Like to Do

As I sit here staring at my monitor, wondering what to blog about, I am struck by all the stuff I want to do that I keep pushing off.

I want to clean out the house, first off: a really thorough deep cleaning that involves getting rid of a lot of the crap I've accumulated over the years. Clothes, games, books, knick-knacks, all of it. Fine toothed comb. But that would take a good solid week, I think, to do it like I want to, and if I took a whole week off, shouldn't I be writing?

I want to weed my garden. When we first started looking at houses I couldn't wait to have a garden. But by the time I got a house, I didn't have the energy to garden. I can't even keep up with the small flower-bed that I do have, much less keep the landscaping looking the way it should.

I want to make a wiki for my world-building. Oh, that would be fun. I could spend hours cataloging, cross-referencing, researching... It might even be helpful. But it's not writing.

I want to make a new hat. I lost my old hat. It really wouldn't take more than a few hours. (I haven't made this pattern before.) I used to do a lot of sewing, but it's a lot like writing: it always takes longer than I think it will, and it's a whole lotta work while I'm doing it even if I do love the results. I'm not sure which the Husband dislikes more: me when I've started a sewing project, or me when I have a writing deadline coming up.

I sort of miss having hobbies. I get to game a little bit, but other than that, most of my "hobbies" are related to writing anymore. And I volunteer, when the writing doesn't get in the way. But I don't really consider the volunteering as a hobby. It's above hobby but below writing and day job. I miss feeling like I had time to waste. Not that I don't waste time, but I feel guilty. I should be getting something done! Even though sometimes you really just need to do nothing.

Maybe I need to come up with the envelope-method version of budgeting time. Except whenever I try to schedule my time like that I end up making myself crazy because I try to fit too much in. Hmm, ok, maybe the Husband should budget my time...

But, I Finally Had a Use for That!

I'm running out of ideas for Tuesday Tips. Not that there aren't things I could talk about, but honestly most of them are talked about elsewhere much better and with more authority, so as I encounter interesting things in my publishing adventures I will continue to Tip them, but I won't stretch your patience by summarizing Strunk and White, for example. (You writerly type have read The Elements of Style, right? Right?)

Of course, if you have a question or a subject you'd like me to blog about, leave a comment or drop me a line at mercy.loomis@gmail.com.

So right now I'm currently driving myself insane trying to find this belt. It's originally from the 80's--I know, because I bought one then, although not this exact one. The one I got in the 80's I turned into a Middle Eastern Dance coin belt, but then I found another one for cheap. I picked it up expecting it to follow the same fate as the first, but then never bothered. As I am a pack rat, I keep everything.

Ten plus years later I have a use for this belt. I want to turn it into a man's heavy neck chain for a costume. Only now I can't find the belt. It's not with my coin belts, it's not with my coin-jewelry supplies, it's not with my other jewelry, it's not in the box of miscellaneous costume bits. It's not in my I'll-stash-it-here-for-now drawer. I'm starting to think I might (gasp!) have dropped it off at St. Vinnie's during one of my rare decluttering binges.

Dammit. I had a use for that! (Which, as any pack rat or person who has lived with a pack rat knows, is the exact reasoning which results in pack-rattedness in the first place.)

Of course, I'll probably find the belt next week--after I no longer need it.