Chet’s Chatter

Second rule of decluttering

Posted on 18 January 2006 @ 23:27 in Personal

Never stop and look.

Otherwise, you’re gonna get sidetracked and not get any real decluttering done.

This is what happened to me this evening.

First rule of decluttering

Posted on 17 January 2006 @ 23:27 in Personal

Never do your own.

Yes, I’m packing to move this weekend. But before I can pack, I need to declutter.

It’s not easy, I tell you. Especially when the stuff goes back more than 20 years and some of them just cannot be thrown away. Stuff like…

… a couple of pop annuals from 1970 …

… certain issues of Life magazine, one with the Kennedy children on the cover, another with Meryl Streep on the cover …

… special issues of Rolling Stone magazine, one about women in rock and another with a “where are they now?” feature (featuring Mary Hopkin, Paul Revere, Mark Lindsay, etc.) …

… a copy of Visual Aid, the visual version of Live Aid, featuring the works of celebrity photographers like Annie Leibowitz and celebrity subjects such as Bob Geldof, a very young Richard Gere …

… the two issues of Newsweek and Time with their cover stories of John Lennon’s murder …

How can one throw away such keepsakes?

I was going to suggest asking a friend to declutter for you. Or to exchange decluttering tasks. But what if the friend throws away something precious?

Hey, half the stuff I’ve not opened to look at for the past decade or so. Some, like the Visual Aid book, I don’t even remember buying!

It has been said if you pack a boxful of stuff, label it with the date of the packing, seal it, put it away, and after six months, the box is not opened, you can throw (or give away) that box of stuff.

But … what if in the midst of decluttering, you stop and glance at the stuff, which is my current predicament?

The answer?

Keep. Don’t throw. Bring them to the new place.

Fortunately, amidst all that stuff are things that can be safely given or thrown away. About 50%, I think.

For Ochiya, in the aftermath of Katrina

Posted on 16 January 2006 @ 00:21 in Friends

In the JI chat room at Kyalla’s Korner, DavidUK asked if we could listen to one Janis Ian song right now, what would it be?

Ochiya replied “Heart of a City” because it fits the mood of her city (New Orleans) at the moment. I told her “Save Somebody” fits the mood, too.

Especially the second verse:

There’s a crack in the heavens
And a tear in the sky
It cuts through the shadows
Living in her eyes
And the gates of the city
are closed until dawn
When the ghosts of midnight
have come and gone
And the hearts of the weary carry on

Janis Ian/Jimmy Collins
“Save Somebody”

A “Stunned” Panda

Posted on 14 January 2006 @ 01:09 in Stress Busters

Sometimes, words are not necessary …

It’s Christmas time

Posted on 11 January 2006 @ 14:55 in Gadgets, Janis Ian

Looks like it’s still Christmas for me in January 2006.

Or maybe my packages were just late getting to me.

I’d been waiting for two packages and they both arrived today. One before lunch, and one after.

The one before lunch, postmarked 5 December 2005, is from Richard Wanderman who helped me to get the AlphaSmart neoprene case.

The case really fits my Dana like a glove. It even has the AlphaSmart name on the front, too.

I’d not been able to get a case that fits the Dana, mainly because of its odd shape, which required a bigger case to accommodate its thicker top (the area just behind the screen which has the various ports – USB, expansion, IR, etc.). As such, the Dana has been wearing a baggy case. But now it has its own form-fitting, figure-hugging protective case!

The one after lunch is my Holiday Sale package from the Janis Ian web site. Three CDs, two T-shirts and a notebook. The notebook and one of the Ts show the cover artwork of her new soon-to-be released CD.