Between one thing and another

[JLR2]

It's been a while since I was last posting, apart from my earlier message there, but between one thing and another I've been up to so many wee things one of which has been my doing an oil painting in part to make use of the oil paints and the canvasses I had lying about the hoose and as a favour to a local woman who had asked me if I was still painting when I was passing through her checkout till in the nearest Lidl store. If I knew just how much trouble/bother I was going to have in doing this I wouldn't have started, water colours would have been so much easier for me    And then there's the other things such as building a sort of seat attacked to a small two drawer cabinet thing, it's sort of like a telephone table but I just wanted to make use of some of the clutter I have gathered over the years.


One thing I come to realise about myself is that I'm hopeless at finishing things, sure I have my bright ideas and so often start things but no sooner have I start one thing and I'm having another bright idea. Another problem with me is just how untidy I am, everything is left at my backside. I mean I have like a 2/3 seater settee and trust me there's only space on it for me to sit. The number of times I've had to sift through all the junk I have to my right is pure daft. Another thing that bugs me is wherever there is a flat surface in the house it's covered in this or that and then even when I decide, for example, that I'd like to see the colour of the coffee table again by the time I've moved the stuff on it all I end up with is it piled up somewhere else to be move yet again. The numbers for boxes hidden under my bed or in the numerous drawers around the house that are filled with all sorts of things is unreal. I've bank statements scattered here and there. Shortly I will be completing the BF5 form for the DWP telling them of my being out of the country for a few weeks, I hope it is where I think it is.


The last wee thing I was doing just before logging in was buying a 9euro ticket for me to use when I get over to Berlin. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to buy it from Scotland but following the on screen instructions on the BVG website it was simple enough and I've now printed off my ticket which will allow me to use the local trains, busses and Berlin's U-Bahn till the end of my visit. It's a strange feeling for me to attempt to do some thing like that and it work without a hitch or see me ranting and raving at the world.


No doubt I'll find something else that'll see me reduced to a toddler's temper tantrum in the not too distant future

[Sunshine Meadows]

 

[Sunny Clouds]

Nah, not a toddler's temper tantrum.  You're going to be in Germany, so everything has to be expressed in umpteen-syllable words carefully constructed into sentences with the verbs in the right places (or, if you're anglophone, the wrong places).  A toddler can't do that.  It needs to be at least a teenager strop!

[Sunny Clouds]

I noticed something about myself not long after I finished my first postgrad and set up in my own home.  I realised that I like to organise paperwork horizontally.  I can cope with hanging files, but ideally I want them next to me.  But when I'm struggling in terms of getting paperwork done, anyone looking through my windows would see piles of paper arranged all round the floor.  Sometimes in grids, sometimes in rainbows.

My mother used to cover every available surface with paperwork...until my parents retired and moved to a house and finally turfed out their offspring and she got an office.  Yes, before that, Dad had a filing cabinet and a desk but Mother didn't.  So she had chairs, tables, sofas, shelves...oh dear.

Personally, I don't think it matters how we arrange our personal effects on the spectrum from rigidly organised to near-chaos so long as we're comfortable and functional with it.

And for everyone here that reaches their limit of not being organised the way that works for them - big, big, carefully weeded and catalogued and filed away hugs.

[Sunny Clouds]

I forgot - for me personally, one of the best habits I ever picked up based on someone else's recommendation (I'm not saying it'll be best for anyone else) was to develop a habit of chanting to myself "Put it away, not down!"

It helps.  Not a cure for my 'leaving it where it is' but I'm doing better than I was.

[Sunshine Meadows]

I dont know about you but I find the longer I have an object or pieces of paperwork the harder it is to get rid of it or throw it away. Have a decent sized shredder helps on the does a lot of sheets of paper and has a big bin in it. I used to have a lot of old family photos but once I had them scanned I created new albums and gave them to family members and the dross when it the shredder.


I bought a new long handled hand fork because it looked swish and comfortable to use. Problem is is does n ot have the heft of the old one so now I have two.

[Sunny Clouds]

I oscillate between hoarding and clearing out.

Very difficult to get the  balance.

[JLR2]

Hi Sunny, know me as I do no doubt I'd find myself copying the details of whichever old letter/receipt whatever before I shredded the original


Re that oil painting I mentioned earlier, I've decided it is finished as I'm just going round in circles with it. So now I'll let it dry, at least touch dry and get it off to the local woman I did it for. I can only hope it is something along the lines she was looking for.

[Sunny Clouds]

It sounds lovely to have a skill you can share like that. 

I recently had a new card sent to me by a bank and the letter says "Make sure to shred your card receipts and statements once you have finished with them."  What's 'finished with'?  Taken a quick look or stored them for fifty years or what?  And how many people actually do shred their receipts?

What I've done for years, given that I don't buy a lot by card, is to staple my ATM and shop receipts and printouts of online purchase receipts to the back of my monthly statement.

All horribly out of date, I suppose.