Getting rid of stuff!!!

So I realize I have taken quite a hiatus from updating - sorry about that.  After the semester ended, I just really ramped up my "going through crap" mode and have gotten SO MUCH done.  I'll give some examples of what I've managed to do and what I plan to do.

1. Scientific journals - I had at least 20 of these laying around and of course never went through them *sigh*.  Signing up for them was well intentioned but we all now what happens to good intentions - "Of Mice And Men" right?  So with the power of the internet I was able to save pdfs of the articles I was most interested in and recycle the paper copies.  Talk about freeing up space!  Plus, I now have a much more streamlined way to find articles that may be useful in my future classroom :-)

2. Home magazines - Old editions of BHG, Country Living, and more had begun to accumulate.  I'd actually gone through some of them in the past but the pretty pictures had my packrat tendencies in a strangle-hold.  I set out this time around to tear out the pictures that were the most inspiring and cut out any good tips.  The next step is to tape the cut outs onto colorful pieces of paper so they take up less space and are all in one place.  I bought a 50-pack of page protectors which will eventually be filled with these pages of inspiration and ideas.  Also, I noticed that articles in these magazines fell into several specific categories: crafting, gardening, cooking, organizing, home decorating, personal care (hygiene and spiritual/emotional), and cleaning.  Now I can easily find information rather than just stare at a pretty cover with the different categories all mixed up behind it :-)



3. Scientific articles from college - Yes, I keep everything.  I had an accordion file full of scientific articles from my Sewanee days and because most of them contained hi-lighting and notes I couldn't imagine recycling them!  Well there is this fabulous FREE software program called "Mendeley Desktop" that's like a digital file storage system.  You can hi-light, write notes, and organize pdfs into collections.  Because I have fantastic access to a number of journals through UA libraries, I have been able to save the majority of these articles as pdfs and just add the notes on Mendeley.  What a space saver!!  I decided most of my hi-lights could just go by the wayside - there's only so much a person can do.  I'm still working on these but hope to finish them in the next couple of days.

4. Newspapers - I just finally caught myself up lol.

Those were the 4 biggies and I have to say that I feel quite proud of myself at this point, what with 5 full paper grocery bags of magazines and newspapers and 2 super full plastic grocery bags of papers to recycle!!

So while I have not managed to follow through on 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home this month, I do believe that I took care of what I personally needed to take care of.  *Smile*

Happy Organizing :-)
Oh, and book reviews are forthcoming!!