Beautiful or useful, that's the rule.

This is it.  This is the last of the piles.  With my sister, I cleared out the back porch.  I've cleaned out my attic.  I sorted my books and my clothes and thrown out every piece of tupperware that doesn't have a lid.  I've burned grocery bags of old mail.  Cursèd mail, that sneaks into my house and forms piles! I can't wait until mail only arrives twice a week. Anyway, this is the last of it.
When I clear this table off, there will be no detritus in my house.  I have several empty drawers, waiting.

Karen moved out, and Ali is gone to Korea.  I've been steadily purging the house since they left.  I put load after load of give-away out on the sidewalk.  Karen likes having things around; she's good about finding uses for old pieces.  She thought my house was already spare.  My sister thought it was hopelessly cluttered.  Well, it is emptier now.  I've been leaning heavily on This American Life.  I put on a show and get back to sorting.  It mostly works.  I'd be worried about what I'll do when I'm done, but unfortunately, I got a new vision for the west bedroom.  Sadly, the new vision involves re-painting one of the colors.  I already know that the vision will nag me until it is realized; I've learned to surrender and get it done.  So I won't need friends or roommates for a few weeks or so.  I have work instead.

Karen's new cover for the rocking chair came out great.  Honestly, re-covering the rocker was nowhere on my To Do list, but she was totally right.  It was the next thing to do.

Strangest of all, I guess I'm not taking the P.E. in April.  They say my application wasn't postmarked on time, which is weird, because I took it to the Post Office my own self.  That's fine.  I don't mind pushing it back.  But it was my whole plan for March and April.  I didn't schedule anything else*.  Well, I'll still take the Seismic and Surveying classes.  It won't kill me to get started now for October.  But it is sortof anticlimactic.  There's a powerlifting meet that day that I hadn't considered, because I was supposed to take the PE.  Maybe I'll train for that instead.

*Years ago, Chris went to collect a friend of his from her seventy-two hour watch after a suicide attempt.  (She's happy now.)  They walked around for a while, and he asked if there was anything she wanted to do. " No," she said.  "I really, really had no plans for today."

Comments

[JRoth]

I'm surprised they still schedule the PE exam like that; the AREs switched to schedule-your-own at least 10 years ago - so much more sane, and with computerized testing, a no-brainer. Is the PE exam not fully computerized yet?

Anyway, enjoy your unexpected free time.

[ScottB]

Unfortunately, my rule always becomes more expansive than your lovely, simple, and powerful rule. Beautiful or useful or old-and-cool or something-I'll-get-to-soon or...sigh. But thanks for the inspirational post.

Did you freecycle any of your stuff at the curb, or just put it out with a sign?

Congrats!!

[Megan]

The give-away is pretty well established here, and I'm on a busy corner. I don't even put out a sign. Pile of stuff out to the corner, and see if anything is left when I get home from work.

The rule isn't mine. I was paraphrasing. "Have nothing in your house that you don't know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." William Morris.

Also, I don't think I've told you yet. We had your pomegranate jam with last pancake brunch. It was supremely excellent. I could taste the honey. People raved. Thank you so much.

***
Don't think the P.E. is computerized at all. Old school Scantrons, baby. Just my style.

[JRoth]

Old school Scantrons, baby. Just my style.

Are you allowed to bring your own sliderule, or do they provide those for you?

PS - Safari doesn't like "sliderule". Ha ha, old technology.

[heebie-geebie]

How do you classify sentimental stuff? That's my biggest stumbling block in sorting and purging.

[PG]

What heebie said. Except I refuse to admit that I'm being sentimental about it, so I claim that I plan to use it someday, usually by writing about it. Blogging has increased my paper clutter immensely.

[Megan]

Oooh. Sentimental stuff is the huge danger zone. You're right. That's where it gets hard.

[doctorpat]

With that title I thought you were back to looking for boys.

I have this large storage area under my house. Every time I go into it, the rule is that I have to take at least one thing out and put it in the bin/charity/compost/ebay.

I think I'm gaining on it. Well I'm gaining in terms of numbers, I think I'm losing in terms of mass.

(The other entry rule is at least one one-arm-chinup with each arm on the rafters there. Complicated by the fact that I can't do a one-arm chin at my current weight, so I have to do a partial or a negative.)

[Megan]

I need a chin-up bar. I haven't been working on them, and lost them from last summer. Otoh, my squats are getting heavy these days.

[Alli]

I already had a purge/clean weekend planned for this weekend. Thanks for extra motivation. My biggest step now is paper shredding - I know it all has to go, it's just time consuming. Maybe a fire in the grill outside?

[Megan]

I personally loved bringing my grocery bags of old paper over to the fireplace. Soon as the decision is made, in it goes. Very satisfying to burn each paper bags as it is emptied.