What to do when…..

OK, I know, that’s a weird title for a blog, but stick around, it’s not just a title…..It’s an excuse!! Why do I need an excuse? have a quick look at the post dates. You noticed? Yeah, that’s right, it’s been a while.
I know, I know, you’ve been checking back to my page every half hour or so for the last month, wondering where I’ve been, wondering when the next spellbinding installment was going to magically appear. I’m guessing you turned to tranquilisers to get you through? Did you find yourself wandering the streets aimlessly, lacking my guidance. (Oh c’mon, I’m trying to feed my ego here). Please accept my humble apologies. (no really, I’m not kidding)
OK, here it is, my ‘Excuse’
My Mother came to stay!
No, not my mother in law, my actual, legal, biological Mother.
What’s that? So what? OK, a little background for you; My mother decided, some time ago, that swapping her three bedroom home and independent life for a resort style community, complete with pool, apartment, three square meals and drugs on tap was not for her. So she did what many retirees do and joined the ranks of the ‘Grey Nomads’. So far I think she has done the equivalent mileage of to the moon and back four or five times (in a Winnebago, the Apollo command module was taken)
Good for her!
Now, when she drops in on us (I think she actually calls in to see the dog, but maybe I’m just jealous) she normally dosses down in her mobile home. All good, no fuss, minimum disruption, we get our ironing done, not to mention the washing up, and my partner gets to show off his culinary skills to someone else (Did I mention that he loves to cook? Yeah, I know, lucky old me)
So what went wrong? What brought about the long hiatus between the all important blogs?
In a word ‘Transmission’. The Winnebago decided to take a holiday as well. Long story short, the mobile home wound up very un-mobile in the repair shop, and I had to find room for my mother in a dwelling that was now utterly without a spare room!
Yeah, clever me!
How did I achieve this? Did I achieve this? Did my poor old Mum have to sleep with the dog? (Well, yes, but that’s not how this story ends)
I’ll tell you next time.

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All I Wanna Doo……….

Is have some fun. Or so the song goes. In Partner’s case, all he wanted to do was write a book. Another book. He’s already written one (no, not published, but thanks for showing interest, which, apparently was more than the lonely two publishers he sent the manuscript to did) Any-way, all Partner wanted to do, he said, was write.
Easy, I thought. Dead easy. We’ve cleaned out the computer room, providing the perfect space (that was the other spare room, if you’re keeping up – and why wouldn’t you be?) Hell, I’ll even let him chose the colour, as long as it’s not screaming scarlet or some form of khaki drab. No worries there, we agreed on a cosy mossy-green, that blended superbly with the existing carpet (lucky break!) Partner insisted that all he needed was a small corner desk, large enough to accommodate his laptop, so corner desk it was. We chose a really cool frosted glass circular segment (if you get my drift), which, by happy coincidence, happened to match my desk next-door (Partner referred to Witch-Craft, but he’s wrong, I left the coven months ago)
So there I was, mission accomplished, two redundant disaster areas, transformed, via my genius into integrated, de-cluttered, uber-cool work spaces.
I had a day. A whole day. 24 hours. ‘Twas but a short time to bask in the general well-being of a job well done. Then Partner (who, I might add, had not written a skerrick (ancient Aussie word meaning Nix, Nada, Zilch) in that time announces that he now feels the need to re-visit his bloody childhood. He wants a ‘hobby’. And what hobby does he want? Are you ready for this?
Radio Controlled Aircraft.
Not a video camera. Not gardening. Not even restoring old furniture. RC aircraft (I’ve been told never to call them ‘toys’ ……………..O………..kay)
Well, there goes my uncluttered space.
Well maybe
I have a plan!!
See ya next time, when I will reveal all!!!!
SorterSuzy.

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..’We Fade To Grey……’

Or, in this case (recycling the opening line from the last post – after all, we are apparently in a recession) blue. I like blue, I’ve always wanted a blue room, so the choice of colour for my new minimalist office was……blue.
For those that came in late, this entry is going to focus our attention back on the original spare room. (The bedroom backwater of the first post)
So, the walls are now blue (did I mention that I like blue – I even like the sound of the word.) I know, I know, I can see you flipping back to the other posts, I can see you scratching your head, wondering why I jumped from cruddy spare bedroom to cool blue walls. How did she do that? Where’s all the detail?
OK, detail. Gut the room, trash the hideous cheep sofa-bed/other stuff we don’t want, store the stuff we do want, prep the walls.
There, it’s in nice bold font, all the detail you could want. (I guess you see why I was going to miss it out altogether now, hunh?)
The room is blue (there I go again) for those readers that like specs, the colour is ……….. Now I need a desk/workspace/station. A place to contemplate my plans for world domination. (sorry, watched an old James Bond movie last night, you know, the one where the bad guy/mastermind is on the point of ridding the globe of Roger Moore, and he just has to stop and detail all of his hitherto secret plans. I’m sorry, but don’t you wish that once – just once – the bad guy would just pull the @#$$%^$#@# trigger?)
The desk, the desk! OK, what I wanted was a functional unit that would blend into the cool minimalist look I was going for. After all, why go to all that trouble creating a genuine wireless office if the furniture just cluttered it up again? So I chose a really funky frosted glass surface with slender charcoal legs that blend into the background. I teamed this with two matching shelves to give me an oh-so-chic return for that little extra space. And finally, I tracked down an office chair to die for. Cool, pale white leather (yes, I’m calling it pale white, you had to be there) and chrome, a triumph of modern engineering. (I mean, c’mon gas-strut height adjust? I know it’s been around for over a decade, but it’s still a bloody miracle)
There you have it; A gorgeous, minimal and above all clutter-free space, that just happens to be my office.
I’m loving it.

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Or, in this case, into a convenient cupboard/closet/wardrobe, that I just happened to have handy.
Please stop screaming. I know that you’re screaming. I even know what you’re screaming. You’re screaming something along the lies of
“Why in the name of (insert preferred deity here) does this

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Don’t you just love mixing up metaphors? (or in this case putting them through the blender)
I know the question on all of those lips out there, out in my vast arena of   Suzy fans. (OK ego trip over now) But I do hope you still want to know. What do you want to know? Well, of course, you want to know the answer to the last blogs cliffhanger ending. The subject of endless discussions around office water coolers and on building sites around the globe. How did she do it? How does she bring such order to such chaos? How is such genius contained within one person? (Sorry again, ego under control now. Promise)
So how did we do it? How did I manage to clear the up the space in those unused bedrooms, and still get to use most of what had been hermetically sealed into plastic crates and stored?
iTunes (and no, this is not an advert for any particular brand of software,  it’s simply a tool, please feel free to choose your own) solved the major problems. The files are stored, catalogued, and then accessed through the computer interface, and then played through the appropriate stereo/surround sound equipment, whether we are playing music, or watching a movie/TV series.
Just a note here, about copy-write or DRM (digital rights management) You are permitted, and always have been permitted, to make one backup copy of any movie/piece of music/TV show that you own, and have purchased. In other words, if (in your past life) you saved your pocket money up, and then raced down to your local record store to buy the latest single by*********** (insert name of favored teen idol here) then you were entitled to make a copy of said single. (if you had a cassette recorder, yes, I’m going back a ways here to make the point) You can do the same today (using easier more digital methods) What you cannot do is sell/give/or otherwise distribute the said copy. OK? ‘nuff said.
So, we used iTunes. But…..you may ask, what about the books? How do we access them? Surely iTunes can’t help out there?
Well, yes it can, it can deal with eBooks, but reading 365 books of varying lengths into a computer wasn’t a job that my partner was going to attempt (although he does have a great voice, and I did beg) So we did the next best thing. We used a great program that allowed us to catalogue every single one of them and log exactly where each one had been stored. If we need a book, we know where it is. (Again, the software is just a tool, you can use whichever suits you).
Now, if we want to listen/watch/read, all we have to do is click a mouse button. We have the space cleared, and we still get to enjoy what used to be clutter.
I think that’s neat.

Next blog, we’ll move onto more sweaty, practical stuff. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to clear the old computer room/office. Its going to get messy!

Cheers for now

SorterSuzy

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Here it is people, the blog you’ve all been waiting for, (you have been waiting haven’t you? You have been checking your RSS feed every day, if not hour/minute for the next installment? C’mon, ‘course you have! Oh, just go with it and humor me for now.) Anyhoo, Day ONE; Ground ZERO; Spare Bedroom Alpha, or, if you prefer, the previously mentioned Backwater.
So what do I tackle first? Ha! easy one, I’m an organiser; I organise things. This space is about to be organised to within an inch of it’s life.
Just to put you in the picture, like most typical spare bedrooms this one has long since ceased to perform the function of peaceful dormitory. Oh, there is a bed housed within it’s cube-like dimensions, but since we have few freinds/family that feel the need to stay with us (my once-a-year-visit from my US girlfriend excepted) and, my partner, being possessed of incredible good taste and discernment, still finds joy in sleeping alongside me, it rarely gets used.
So, like most spare rooms, it has become a storage space for THINGS. What are THINGS? Well in my case, THINGS are Compact Discs, (CDs) Digital Versatile Discs, (DVDs – bet you didn’t know what that  stood for) Large discs of Black Plastic (or LPs, or vinyl, or records, you know, the things you used to buy in record shops last century) and last but not least, row, upon row of Books (or, to make the tie-in with the title complete; long dead trees) Now, before you start to picture a chaotic disc and book induced wasteland, please remember; I’m an organiser. These objects were (for the most part) neatly stacked into and onto racks, shelves and cases. But, they were still taking up space. Not what I want. This is going to be my office. I want minimalist. I want order. I want these THINGS out!
Time to enlist the help of Partner. You see, he’s something of a problem solver. He sometimes manages to think laterally. So, I hit him with my dilemma.
It took him five minutes to solve it. It took him two weeks to fix it.

So, what was the great idea? Simply, technology.
All the CDs went onto a purpose bought hard drive, (Via iTunes) and then into a large container, sealed, and then stored.
All the DVDs went onto the same hard drive, via an extracting software, and then into iTunes. The physical discs came out of the cases, and into multi leaf wallets.
The LPs took a little longer (most of the two weeks) First they were digitised (played into the computer, then imported into; you guessed it; iTunes) LPs have to played in real time, and seeing as my partner has collected around 300 of them, you start to get an idea of the time involved.
Books; Ah, the books. the one thing out of the list that couldn’t fit onto the hard drive, well OK, they could, but not many people have the technology/patience to do this. So we had a good look at all the books we had. Then had a good think about how many of these books we had read – recently. Then we decided, that most of them could go into sealed containers (really sealed) and stored.
The really clever part of all this was that, although all of these items are now neatly stored away/digitised/sealed up, we know exactly where any one particular item is, and, what’s more, we can go to the right container and retrieve it.
And how we do that, how we achieved that piece of brilliant organisation ………is the subject of the next blog. Bye for now.
Sorter Suzy.

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OK, so this blog finds me in the middle of a redecorating our home. What? Home decorating? Doesn’t that sound like the most un-organised/un-decluttered/ (is that a word? Oh well, it is now) un-everything-I-try-to-be? (Now I know that’s word; I just hyphenated it!)
Well, yes, and then, most definitely and resoundingly

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We all have a junk drawer (or ‘the bottom drawer’ as I refer to them with a notorious tone) and personally I can’t really see anyway around them. They serve a purpose and are rather handy and useful. The trouble is keeping control of them…

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This is just a quick update post for those lovely people who actually read the last blog post and enquired about my health. The ultrasound scan was basically clear – phew! and there was nothing to be concerned about. It is suggested that I have a mammagram but I’m afraid I’ve been totally put off them by the concept of having my boobs squashed and the apparent pain (my mum said so!). I know that’s the wrong attitude but that’s a fear that is greater than many others – I would rerather jump out of an aeroplane (and I have) than have my tits crushed for science so if anyone can think of a way around that please let me know. Meantime I’ve had  some blood tests too and they were all good so I figure everything is just fine!

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Thinking about clutter from the viewpoint of the end of your life puts a different twist on things. Just before xmas I came up with a concept for a presentation I’ll be doing in February for and old school friend Lisa Adderson who is putting together a seminar for women called “It’s All About You” . Lisa asked me to speak about Clutter and Organizing and I wanted to find a way to make what I already had more interesting.

The idea was to ask people to imagine that they were lying ‘on there deathbed’ – cheery stuff I know – and to ask themselves what would be the things they remember the most about their life. (Please comment below about what you’ll remember). My guess is that answers will predominantly be about events and experiences like, births, accidents, celebrations, adventures, happy times, das times etc etc. My bet is that it won’t be about THINGS, you know – designer toilet brushes, collections of matching crystal glasses, little plastic objects the shape of the latest movie character etc etc, am I right?

Well the whole concept of talking about ones impending doom took on a different twist when last Sunday I noticed a small lump in my left breast (is that body clutter do you think?), now I’m yet to have it scanned (haven’t figured out how to close the lid on the scanner over a 3D object yet but I’ll get there) yes I am booked in for an ultrasound next week – I went to the Doc the very next day – aren’t I a good girl? So lots of things run through ones mind with something like this and it’s hard not to think fatalistically. So I did, I indulged to see what happened and this is what I thought.

Shit! not much time and lots to do, wow life is awesome and I need to stop pigging around, heck I’m gonna have to get Mark (my partner) on track financially so he can cope when I’m gone, I can’t keep wasting my skills and talent people need me because I can help them.

Well for anyone who knows me well they’ll recognise the enormity of those statements. I can tell you right now that it’s not what I would have said a year or two ago and that change has come about due solely to my use of the holosync program which, I increasingly am a evangelist of as my internal life changes for the better, which will undoubtedly lead to great changes externally.(I had intended to blog more about this program this year so I shall endeavor to do that)

The fact that my focus was not really on myself was revelation number one and then to say I have talent I must share was equally extraordinary. So anyway back to the issue of experiences versus stuff. Even in my uncluttered house I can think of heaps of stuff that will be meaningless and also valueless to anyone but me, what should one do with these kinds of things when planning or preparing for either an impending death or just in case of a accidental one? Now I”m talking here about stuff that has meaning to me now not extra stuff as in the case of folks with a bit too much stuff or lots too much stuff.

If you’re answers to my earlier question was mostly events and experiences and you also have lots of extra stuff in your life then perhaps now is a good time to reconsider it’s importance in your life particularly if you tend to get a bit attached to things and those around you ‘cop it’ if they don’t deal with those things it ‘the right way’ according to you – how important is it really if you’re not even going to remember it at the end of your life.

In the end it’ll be all too much for someone else to deal with.

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