My Stuff

I'm staying in a single bedroom, a big one, but a single room with a bathroom attached. It has been five weeks more or less. This amount of time brings out one of my challenges. Stuff.

I don't mean to, but my stuff builds up. Now, I'm never going to be on Hoarders but I tend to feel like I need to hang on to pieces of paper in case I need them. You know, stray phone numbers, names of people we met, receipts, lists of what I need to get done. Then there's things that might be useful to me or might be able to be used again. (shopping bags, anyone?) These and other things have built up on all the flat surfaces in my room.

A desk-pseudo-cubical in one corner is having to work as the kitchen/hotpot breakfast area. I'm trying to stay mostly with food/plates in this area but it is next to the mirror so occasionally make up products migrate there. There's not enough light in the bathroom for these activities nor a plug in for the hair dryer.

On the other side of the mirror is the table with the microwave. This has caught the make up bag, hair goo products, etc. but you still need to get the microwave open and not knock all the receipts off. It's a little tricky.

The side tables by the bed have papers, books, work "stuff", pens, etc. Sadly no flat surface remains untouched.

I try to keep my "stuff" in check and I'm better than I used to be. In danger of sounding like an advertisement, I'll say something that has helped me is evernote.com. You can keep lists, webpages, and other stuff there for free. This helped me get rid of many random bits of paper I felt like I might need while we were in the USA. In Spain, I  put the info on my evernote pages and I have it without carrying it. Very good for a paper pack rat! (free too).

Another problem I've had with stuff, is the word itself. It's such an all purpose word that I discovered after writing my first (unpublished) novel that I use the word entirely too much. I think I've weeded it out of my writing mostly -- this post excepted.

And now in the next few days, I have to get all that stuff back in two suitcases. Oh boy.