(no subject)

Today I feel somewhat Herculean.

Over the past five days, a bunch of friends have come through my place. Some just dropped in, others visited and then we went out and did things (my winter grocery shop, yay!). Several of them commented - politely - on the amount of paper I had round.

It's the middle of a period of high work for me and my lounge room is also my office. So paper makes sense. Since I have several things going at once (various writing projects, two types of current teaching plus upcoming teaching and various papers that other people want advice on, plus everything financial, which is almost all out of the way now, but not quite) the paper is spread out. There isn't nearly as much as there was a few weeks ago, because I've been working very hard to get the whole thing under control.

What the paper was, was sorted. I could go straight to the bit I was working on and just pick up where I left off. Yesterday I had intended to finish three lots of things and today another two and to diminsh the paper so that I could get through the teaching period without any worries about outstanding other matters. They were very close to being finished, after all, and there wasn't much work in them, and then all those papers could be cleared away and I could heave a sigh of relief.

It was a nice theory. I haven't done any of it. What I'm doing instead is trying to find everything. I think most of my visitors must have cleared just a little bit of paper out from where it bugged them, quietly and without telling me.

What I found last night when I have woke up from my grand fatigue was three big piles. The papers hadn't just been moved (which, frankly, wouldn't have been a problem) - they had been moved into a tidy state, where pieces of research jostled with research material jostled with novel jostled with teaching jostled with tax jostled with stuff left out because it was urgent but didn't fit in any category.

I didn't even want to look at it then. Too many crowded thoughts shoved randomly into three big piles. To be honest, I don't really want to look at it today, but I have to. I'm only relieved that the tax papers were almost all away before friends dropped in. The urgent stuff from my accountant (that was going to go out yesterday) is somewhere in all the papers, though the envelope ready for it wasn't moved - I'm just going to have to find it and then send it when I can and hope it's not too late.

Today I'm gradually diminishing and sorting those piles and finding everything again. The good thing is that I've already located my teaching materials for Wednesday and most of my teaching materials for Tuesday.

None of this is the end of the world. It does make me wonder though, if people who don't work at home just assume that home offices are paperless or organisation free?

(no subject)

I've done eight of the labours of Hercules. I found the last of my tax and will post it tomorrow on the way to teaching. I've got one pile to go, but the worst is done. I've even done most of the work associated with most of the piles, *and* I've set up more space for holding cookbooks and maybe found a solution to my rug problem (not that I admitted I had a rug propblem, until I found a possible solution).

My lounge room still looks a bit burdened with paper, but I can't do anything else until after the teaching section of the week is over. I'm pretty sure that I've taken care of all the urgent stuff, though. This is just as well, given I didn't get to lunchtime until 3 pm and haven't so much as begun to tackle the problem of my kitchen yet. The problem of my kitchen is dirty dishes.

PS When I needed a break I bottled last year's medlar liqueur. This made just enough space in my library so that I can make and store more liqueur. This is entirely essential, because fresh medlars are coming my way very shortly. Very, very shortly. Pialligo Apples might have some left after I've bought half the crop - you'll have to ring and ask, though.

(no subject)

murasaki_1966 has alerted me to the highly important fact that some crucial elements of Middle Earth are not, in fact, in New Zealand.