Dead technology

Well after decluttering my office, and the laptop, I'm afraid to say that neither appears like the photos anymore.

Three days after the decluttering when I thought the laptop was humming along nicely, it proved me wrong by dying completely. All I would get at startup was a grey screen. So the laptop is back at the shop (hopefully whatever's wrong will be covered by the extended warranty) and I've hooked the old monster computer up to the internet, and seriously thinking of buying an LCD screen for it, because the monster takes up the whole desk.



Dorkus the cat is not impressed. He can't take up his usual position on the desk (as above) and has retreated to the desk behind me.

In moving the monster computer back out here, I've got printers on the floor and stuff all around. Hopefully, it will look better again by this afternoon.

I'm sure that Mercury is not retrograde at the moment, but I've been hearing of a lot of computers going kaput. A technical mutiny perhaps?

I can't believe its the last day of September already. I'm hurtling towards my 40th birthday and another Nanowrimo is just around the corner. Seriously, where has this year gone? It'll be 2008 before we know it.

I plan to do Nanowrimo again - I like the impetus and the momentum that being part of the Nanowrimo community gives me and my writing. I have a very vague idea about a young woman and an obsession with classified ads. That's all I have so far. In the meantime, I received my feedback from the Chick Lit competition and have been absorbing all that Jenny Crusie had to say at the RWA Conference, so I'm rewriting and reshuffling and polishing Diary of the Future for submission. Also using that story to participate in Candy Haven's Revision Hell workshop. So October will be over in a flash for me as well, because I'll be busy with work and rewriting.

What a week!

So I got through quite a bit of the decluttering/spring cleaning the office last Sunday and I've posted some before and after pictures. 11 boxes is down to 8 boxes and yesterday I also bought a paper shredder to get rid of century old bank statements and personal docs that I don't need.

Before: collage stuff, magazines, boxes and who knows what else.

After: magazines I can access, my collage box full of cutouts, scrapbooking bits and pieces in the drawer organiser. Much better.


Before: Ugh! What can I say.

After: I do have a floor, and Dorkus likes having somewhere clear to sit.

Everything was going to plan. I'd written a 'to-do' list and a lot of things were crossed off. Remaining was rewrite my synopsis (didn't happen) and watch some DVD's from Quickflix.

I started Monday with everything planned out. Take my car which was playing up to my father for repairs and do his accounts.

The universe had other ideas. My car completely carked it half an hour into the 2 hour journey. The radiator shat itself, luckily in a place where I could pull over safely. My partner was about five minutes behind me because he'd stopped for petrol, so I waved him down when I spotted him. After waiting half and hour and filling the radiator again and watching it all drain out, we realised the car was going nowhere. Suprisingly I didn't stress out and get upset. It was one of those things that happen when you drive an old car and at least I wasn't stranded.

That afternoon the universe rewarded me for my calmness, and my unconscious decision not to go against the flow. I bought a new car after Dad phoned his car dealer friends. This car was running a bit rough, so he said have a look at it, you can have it for $500. We brought it back to my father's workshop, Dad fiddled about in the engine, doing up bolts here and there, adjusting this and that, cleaning spark plugs, put it up on the hoist and checked the front end. And now she's going like a dream. And there are several firsts with this car for me: it's my first station wagon, and it's my first automatic. And I'm very happy. The breakdown was meant to be for without it we never would have found this new car!



So this weekend I've been decluttering my computer and it took a lot more than 15 minutes. When it started going at snail's pace I suspected that the load of my Chickollage graphics and Jen's photo collages, plus my snap happy digital pics were weighing the hard drive down. I only had 2 GB left on it, and the computer was extremely unhappy. So I got an external hard drive and started shifting stuff on it. After moving all my photos, and Chickollage stuff, I'd still only reclaimed 2 more GB. So then I moved into my partner's side of the computer and discovered a folder which had 16 GB all by itself. All his video stuff which had hidden itself into this innocuous looking folder - the My Videos folder was empty. So I moved that as well. Then went to a defrag. The computer told me it didn't need it. It was happy again and humming along, and now I am too.

Decluttering

Visitng Aargh Ink the other night, I found out that Jennifer Crusie is decluttering her office, flylady style. It's a relief to see pictures of other people's clutter because then I don't feel so bad about everything that is accumulting in my writing room. At least I can see my floor, if not my surfaces. And the bookcase is generally neat. My problem is the boxes around the perimeter full of paper with stuff on them, and who knows what else. Finding someone to store these in an organised manner is my dilemma. If they do even need storing.

So to tackle this clutter 15 minutes at a time, I'm going to start with this desk. This is more a storage desk, than a working desk but it would be nice to see the surface. My big plan was to use this desk as a collage workspace. Trouble is my cat Dorkus has taken a liking to it, and whenever it is clear (or not) he sits upon it, blessing it with his cat hair.

He likes sunning himself on top of the blue storage drawers, right in front of the window.

15 minutes later and I'm not done yet. And I have to wonder how much hair one furry little fella can have. When I moved the blue thing, there was cat hair everywhere so the vacuum cleaner came out.

Now half an hour later, the desk is clean althought there is still some stuff that I have to find a home for. Just not on this desk!

I've also cleaned the oven, vacuumed the dining room/kitchen floor in preparation for the mop, vacuumed the hallway and lounge room. Definitely took longer than 15 minutes but just found out the landlord's are paying a visit tomorrow to check what needs fixing so not too soon at all.

However, I think I'm now going to hop down to the chemist...my hayfever is playing up as a result and that I can live without.

A pre-sleep post

Well, I was going to blog tonight but then I got distracted by Californication -remove the first two syllables and you get the essence of the show - chopping up magazines, and now it's time for sleep.

I could be counting my blessings but at the moment I'm adding a parking fine to a car that won't start (looks like it needs a new battery) to forgetting to pick up my keycard before the month ended and then not being able to use Eftpos. Whoops! Interesting week.

I finished reading Blind Submission yesterday. Really enjoyed it and I didn't guess the mystery author although I suspected at least one person that the protag didn't even suspect.

I've been a naughty girl and bought The Sims 2. It's highly addictive and I have to ration my time or I will never ever get anything done and will just spend my spare time in a virtual universe, simulating life. No Sims during the week and I've had my fill of tv for the week. Goodnight for now.