What is this, you ask? That’s a stack of payroll envelopes. We are a business and we run payroll just like any other business, to make sure we pay our taxes. For a while we used a payroll service and they would send us these envelopes. The stack is about two feet tall.
Each envelope must be opened, then another envelope inside removed, the printed pages extracted, and that leave two pay stubs, which are held together with a rubber band.
Why? Why is there a rubber band? If there was no rubber band, I could’ve shredded the softer envelope whole. As is, I spent an hour last night opening envelopes.
Moving is making me cranky. We are viewing it as a chance to severely pair down our belongings. I want to go in with the least amount of things possible. We rented a dumpster and stuff is going into it. Unfortunately, before I can get all ruthless, we have to conquer the office. Every piece of paper has to be looked at. Ugh. In Kate’s words: Why me? Why? I know why, there is nobody else. But why me?
The floor dude hasn’t started and we really need him to start. If there is no progress by the end of the week, we might as well just tell him to refund and walk away, because we are moving before Christmas if I can at all help it.
Kate 10 is drawing to a close, so we need to have several days of mad productivity to get it all done. Read a book last night. It started out with a lot of promise, but fell short, so I’m not recommending it. Everything was going swimmingly, good worldbuilding, then we get to the relationship, and the heroine massively drops the ball. I have a feeling the writer wanted to have a naturally antagonistic relationship, but those are difficult to do. That kind of relationship only works if the two parties involved each have valid points of view that I, as a reader, can understand. Instead of building on real conflict, she made the heroine screech at the hero for not wanting to abandon his home and go help her. Keep in mind, he doesn’t know her at all. She just shows up on his doorstep. So this woman invades his house, demands assistance, and when he tells her no, turns nasty.
Then we have plot holes. At one point it’s literally the evil king who hates the hero summons her to his palace. Not explained how everyone knows that she is being summoned, she is just sort of told this. No grounding. And she is like, okay. She goes there, but there is really no reason for her to be there. And the evil king is like, “Hey, I know you are with this dude I hate, whom I exiled and desperately want to kill still, and here you are in my clutches, but I’m not going to take this opportunity to torment him. You can just go home.” The second one is out, but I’m not picking it up.
Also, here is this cool trailer. Batman is a Ninja. Happy Monday!
One of the good things about moving is it does give you the opportunity to pair down. I’m with you on that. Stuff just weighs me down.
Sorry but in this case the word should be spelled pare (verb: to trim, peel, strip) not pair.
Anyway, here’s hoping the flooring guy comes through – it’s nice to start off a new place with shiny floors.
Catherine, please do not correct typos on the blog or in the comments. Thank you.
I did the same thing when I moved a few years ago — pared down all the stuff. Lots and lots of stuff went to goodwill or in the dumpster. It was amazing how many things were in boxes that I had forgotten I had. It felt great to lighten the load.
I feel your pain with the getting the floor tile down and taking forever. We went through four tile subcontractors in 6 months before it was done-and it was still done incorrectly with grout line that is too wide, so we had to hire a professional cleaner to come and clean off the grout haze to the tune of $4K. Yes, it was that bad-there was cement and grout on the tile itself.
That sounds like a really boring way to spend an evening, but hopefully all will be settled with the house before Christmas.
Have you tried reading ‘Perilous Waif’ by E. William Brown?? A sci-fi extravaganza with robots, cyborgs, and robot dragons!! It is one of my favorite books at the moment and is also increadibly funny!!
Have an amazing Christmas and a grand new year. Xx
Have you read the book by Marie Kondo about the Japanese art of tidying up? It will make the cleaning-to-move process much easier and more pleasant.
Happy sorting and shredding day! It’s hard to shred reams of paper work and to file as you go, but so worth doing. The lightness you’ll feel when it’s done and the knowledge that you don’t ever have to do that again (until next time) is sublime.
I’m sorry the book you read was a disappointment. Reading is such a immersive experience that it can be hard to let go of a promising, yet poorly paved journey.
I’ve done a lot of home improvements and in my experience when I’ve had to beg a contractor or remind them to come to work it never magically get better. In fact, those have been the worst contractors ever. Drama and financial trauma -who needs it? After 2 equally bad experiences, I learned they are showing you how they will treat you and your home. It me cost double to undo their mistakes just to create a clean palate for the work to be done properly by qualified and caring professionals.
Good luck with all! I’ve got to go paint my garage door 😉
We moved from Cincinnati to Arlington, Tx in 2015. I had 5 boxes of paperwork that we dragged along with us. I decided when I unpacked that I was going to try and take us more “paperless”. So I bought a Fujitsu Scansnap scanner (very compact does B&W in 1200 dpi and color in 600 dpi) and scanned/shredded 4/5 boxes of paper. Then we moved to Houston about two months ago. I’m down to 1 box of paperwork and now i’m starting to look at the last box and considering if we can’t get rid of most of it too. And I might take the bindings off my old yearbooks and scan those in as well, although it is kinda nice to look back thru them. I’m wondering if my kids would ever be interested in flipping those pages themselves someday or if I should just pull the trigger on it and make them digital only as well. Paper clutter is insidious. I’m planning on going thru old photos and scanning/shredding any that aren’t meaningful like pictures of places/animals without any people in them. And since we don’t plan on staying in Houston, it’ll just be one more heavy box of stuff in the next/upcoming move :/
Good luck with the sorting and purging. We’ve lived in our house and I quake at the thought of what it will be like when we move . . . .
I am overwhelmed with the amount of stuff we have. I’ve taken 5 giant plastic bags filled with old clothes and other things to the charity bins by the mall, but it seems like more stuff has just filled in those gaps.
Nawww, the gaps aren’t being filled, the remaining stuff is just relaxing now that there is room to exhale -lol. Keep up the good work!
Don’t be like that, at least tell us the title. We don’t want to read it either.
Good luck with the move!
Exactly, lol. Consider it today’s public service announcement.
You sound like me when I was going through yarn, fabric and book boxes when I moved. In order to make room in my new place for a work space, I went through all the book boxes and sold the books I didn’t want to Half Price books. I did the same thing with movies I didn’t want any more. The yarn I either got rid of since it was not good to use or I gave it away. Before I knew it, half of the room was cleared up.
If possible when I’m off for Christmas, I want to consolidate more to get more room. This time is going to be rough since I’ll be going through my mom’s stuff.
I cried when I gave all of my books to the public library. It was like losing old friends. But I just could not move them.
I am not moving but committed myself to reducing our stuff by 30% in 2018. My husband is tentatively on board but not enthusiastic about the process. Hmmmm….. wonder why? ? I wish you all the best of luck with all of this. I don’t envy you the stress!
If he isn’t enthusiastic, then perhaps you should do your stuff first. After you’ve shown him the masses of yours you got rid of, you can volunteer to do his for him, or at least organize it enough that it will be easier for him to see what should be kept and what can be got rid of. I have an artist friend, and periodically I organize her art supply closet, doing basic things like grouping oil paints, brushes, craft materials, etc. together in transparent bins, and pulling out dried out tubes of paint and broken brushes as things she might want to get rid of. And then she notices that she has four partially used tubes of the same colour because she kept losing them in there… 😉
I do realize that she is inspired by the unexpected juxtapositions of disorganized things, so would not function well if forced to always be as organized as I need to be, but every two to three years seems to be about right.
So with you all the way around. Still feeling moody and started new book that started with graphic description of end of the world. Nope. Not right now. Sending you peace and an energy bunny.
Trust me and do it BEFORE you make the move. I have unpacked all the big and necessary stuff and am now bogged by boxes of still necessary, but not right now, stuff. And stuff I literally have no room for. And stuff I had put in the get rid of pile that still mysteriously made it’s way here. Oh, and everything in my old office, as somehow my new office has been pared down to a 3 drawer desk and a two drawer file cabinet, with a wonderful view of a pea green wall…Not even a spring pea, but an old pea, an old faded pea….from a can maybe pea.. Thank GOD my BFF is driving down to help me paint soon…LOL
We are going through a similar paring-down, not because of moving but because of renovations. We got new floors in the basement, we have finally chosen a color to paint the walls (the worst part) and in January, the kitchen is undergoing a full renovation combined with new floors upstairs. Great time to get rid of stuff. We also got a dumpster and filled it up in three days (we could have kept it up to a week). Called them and they came and got it. They were worried about stuff falling off during the loading process, but we had stuff wedged in so tight it couldn’t move. We STUFFED it.
Since then, it’s just moving things out as we come across them or re-homing them. A friend lost most of his things to a house fire that gutted his home, so we are letting him have first pick of anything we aren’t keeping so he’ll have some furniture and kitchen things when he finally gets rebuilt. He’s happily claimed some end tables, the sofa sleeper, and two recliners so far! I am also looking at renting a storage unit for January and February to keep the kitchen things we keep in. We SHOULD be done by the end of February. ::fingers crossed::
When we were sorting before our remodel, my husband would shred every night for about 15 minutes to help reduce paper we didn’t need like old bills from years ago. I know it is hard now but you will be happy when it is done.
It sucks when books can’t handle relationships well and have holes. I hate when you get No, No, No, then Yes, Yes, Yes, with nothing showing how they get there. I also hate when they make the heroine do stupid things so the hero can rescue her.
Last week, I had a similar experience with a book that I thought I might recommend to you. It had hilarious passages such as when the son knocks unconscious his misbehaving werewolf father, shaves him (leaving a fur bikini) and brings the fur to his mom to make into yarn for her knitting! Then the mom starts to wonder how much money they could make shaving him on a daily basis and if it would be enough to buy the son a better glass eye.
However, as the story progressed, the plot became more complicated with more interesting but unnecessary sub plots. It’s so disappointing when you see the potential and then the author did not use an editor, or maybe the wrong editor.
I agree with the get-rid-of the-useless before moving, BUT be careful: After a while EVERYTHING starts to look expendable. Tired and frustrated with the process can lead to getting rid of stuff that should be saved – I know this to my sorrow.
I have to say I’m enjoying your travails of purging and packing. That is because you write it in such a funny manner. But, I know my time will come. I look around at stacks of books on just about every surface in my office. I can’t imagine parting with any of it. So, I will tame my thoughts and project understanding. I hope you make it by Christmas. Even with boxes everywhere, I think it will be glorious.
I did the purging the opposite way. I had to move quickly, so I hired packers to pack everything, then I purged box by box. I got rid of so much stuff!!! But it is amazing how much stuff you end up with after a few years of living in a location.
We had to organize my mother-in-law’s office. She has a bit of ADD so everything was everywhere, multiple copies of the same thing. We had a couple of large tubs of shredding so we took it to a professional shredding company. Well worth the money
Hope all goes well with the sorting and the floors and, of course, Kate 10 🙂
I empathize and sympathize with with disgust at unreasonable/as if/bull***t/are you kidding me happenings in stories.
10 Days ago I finally got hold of the critically acclaimed, commercially successful, adored by everyone Wonder Woman dvd only to be shocked and depressed by all the unreasonable happenings. After the German invasion I literally had to pause the dvd and work out my fury and disappointment. I continued watching to be constantly hit between the eyes with ridiculous happenings. It is shoddy rather than superb film making and humanity should be ashamed by the acclaim it has been given.
4 days ago I was near the end of Daniel Polansky’s Those Below. The book was getting close to landing on my to be reread pile until an utterly unreasonable betrayal. I won’t finish the book and won’t read Low Town despite Those Above (the prequel) having the greatest volume of highlights of any book I have read in living memory (I am a sucker for self aware characters with a cynical insight into human nature).
If you want something different to read,try Scott Pratt’s Joe Dilliard series. It’s definitely in my re-read pile. You can start with book 1″An Innocent Client”. I read all the Ilona Andrews books in order. In both I love the family and the main character. Some books I will start with number 3 to get a sense of will I love them or not. Then I go to number 1 and read forward. I just finished his series in less than a week.
Thanks Teresa.
I like to start from the beginning 🙂 The sample of An Innocent Client didn’t catch me, which was disappointing after eliciting a snort of laughter in the second sentence.
I think moving makes everyone cranky. Our move is now tentative, so that’s one stress. I’ve decided to keep pairing down for our now ‘potential’ move because we do have a weight limit. But I’ve had to stop because the base trash contractor lost its license, so we have had one trash pick up in the last 14 days. And no bulk/big items will be taken.
Good luck and godspeed with everything.
Pare not pair. I liked the WW movie.
You are done with making snide comments. You go through this every year around the holidays, where you just can’t help yourself. I let the first couple go, this is your third. The next one and you will be held in moderation. You know the typo rule, do try to follow it.
Incorrect spelling is worth comment, but the absurdity of Wonder Woman, a trained warrior since childhood, charging the German lines with her bulletproof shield on her back is not?
To each there own.
(I am easily amused)
Be brave and ruthless. If all else fails use my method of getting rid of half. Half of a drawer or half of a cabinet or half of a shelf.
We moved the summer before last, in July 2016. I spent the 3 months prior to moving sorting, packing and purging. I got rid of half of our stuff. It wasn’t easy. My kids were 6 & 9 and they didn’t want to let go of anything. It paid off on moving day. We had less stuff to move. Everything had a place to go in the new house and unpacking was easy. We had family in from out of town and had a big party 3 and a half weeks after moving. Put the time in now and move in to your new place with less stress. It’s worth it.
If your pairing down and have a ton of paper with info you don’t want to share. You should see about having a commercial shredding company come by with their mobile truck and make sure it’s done properly. I have a shredder that take paper and makes confetti out of it. I dump at least one large white plastic garbage bag a month into the recycle area of my building.
I’m glad I’m not moving or remodeling. A bright spot, I was visited by Nell Ingram last night her tales of the fang heads, weres etc is right there.
That looks like a huge waste of paper, postage, and time to me. I shall never again complain about everything going digital.
It’s been a while since I we last spoke, but I hope you guys are doing great. I fully intend spending my Christmas break catching up on Kate novels. 🙂
Ilona – you and Gordon have spoiled me, in the best possible way! I am so much more critical of books that lack character development, have major plot holes, and are sadly lacking dimension. I absolutely appreciate that you do it right. So, thank you. 🙂
And yes, moving (particularly the packing) sucks. Hope your excitement for the new house gets you through. Hang in there!