Keeping Busy, All Right

For an unemployed person, I've certainly been busy this week! Not just Monday and Tuesday, but all the way through.

Wednesday I went swimming in the morning, then stopped by my old office in the afternoon to pick up a few things (they have a lot of random office supplies to clear out, and since I'm going to be working from home, I could use some desk organization). In the evening I went to the "other" knitting group that I sometimes go to. I've been bringing the blanket for stitch and bitching lately: although it is big and somewhat unwieldy, it also needs to be worked on, and while I'm trying to get it done at home, more time is better.

Thursday I dropped off some knives to be sharpened on my way to the Y, swam, and came home to shower and eat before a doctor's appointment. Then an errand after, and home to watch the hockey rerun I mentioned last night. (They won in overtime; it wasn't the greatest game, but so good to see hockey.)

Today I had to take the car in for a few small things, then ran some other errands before picking up the sharpened knives. By the way, I did not buy any shoes today, including these:

Gosh, I wonder why they were on clearance (marked DOWN to $70!).

It's not that any of it has been earth-shattering, really, just lots of small things adding up to being out a lot, as Carlos can attest. And there are still things on the list! Petsmart, Costco, Target, gas for the car, and if all else fails, one of the places on this list of the best ice cream in the country is in Rhode Island. Road trip! Or is that a Rhode trip?

I've been doing things around the house, too, though looking at my kitchen you would never guess (that's still on the list). The office is much better than it was, though we were starting from a pretty low standard:

I've always found it easier to have an organized desk at work than at home, so working from home might be interesting! Anyway, I took everything off and did some moving and tidying. Interim shot:

My vague idea involves putting a small table/desk to the right, and putting my personal computer on that, leaving most of the space for working, but I want to see how it plays out, first. How much space am I actually going to want/need? In what configuration? It's one of those things that Only Time Will Tell.

I've also spent a fair bit of time this week digging things out of my file cabinet, which you can see in the lower right of the "before" photo. It was crammed full, to the point where putting a piece of paper in was challenging, and I knew that there were things to clean out. I estimate I recycled about 5-6 inches of paper, plus all the stuff that had to be shredded due to having my SSN or other info on it (I have a full grocery bag of shreds to recycle). Some things were moved to more appropriate locations (I may not be ready to ditch all my old school reports, or grade-school class photos, but they don't belong there). As a result of all this, I have 20+ empty folders now, and inches of spare room. It feels grand. I also tidied up some of what's in there, such as separating which records belonged to which old 401(k), and putting all the jury duty summonses in one spot (god, I hope I don't get called again any time soon). The files aren't completely clean, but I will take Vastly Improved for now. It feels good.