Not so much.
January, February and most of March was spent scrambling to make ends meet: essentially working six part-time jobs: pet-sitting, cross-guarding, Taco Tuesday at one bar, scrubbing floors at a bar Wed, Thrs, Fri, working brunch at a bar every other Sunday, Ubering and doing Ubereats. Lots and lots of hours and the remaining hours of my life spent stressed-stressed and trying to figure out when to shit, shower, shave, shop and sleep!
I have been worse at responding to text messages (currently over 100 unread texts [darn it]) and I've hardly checked email except when I'm expecting something to come through; that's proven to be a poor decision: oops!
Just last night I finished backing up my photos to google photos, I had over 1,000 to back-up. Not sure when I last did a back-up but I was still at the zoo when I did. I tend to take a lot of photos. I received a message there are over 13,000 pics to delete from my phone: oh. boy!
I did spend a couple hours last night unsubscribing from junk emails, deleting emails, responding to emails and sending out a few emails I just hadn't gotten to. I am down to just over 600 unread (or otherwise unattended to) emails from about 1500 unread.
The goal this weekend is to whittle down unopened/un-responded to texts: I love the reactions from folks when I just casually respond to a text from weeks prior as if three weeks hasn't passed. I also appreciate that my friends tolerate this from me and know that my intentions are good and if they really need me all they have to do is say it and I'll hop to.
A few things I have gotten to since bars and restaurants were first shut down:
*I have organized all my plastic food storage containers: tops with bottoms, all stacked in a lovely manner and all nicely stored. I also have dozens of containers with lids I do not need and will not use and I cannot wait until this weird-o pandemic time is over so I can get these out of my life and donated somewhere (unless you need some: let me know!). All matched up containers, I just have too many and my heart won't let me throw them away!
*I have sorted through, organized, packed-up, delivered and have had picked up most of the pet supplies I had on-hand. I have maintained an often times overwhelming amount of these donated supplies: mostly food and treat donations but also a significant volume of toys and collars/leashes, grooming supplies, pet clothes and other random tidbits. Given I am not hosting the large, spring fundraiser (unrelated to the pandemic) and the fact that stores have been curbside pick-up for weeks now and therefore there are no donations to pick-up I figured now was as good a time as any to unload and hang up my hat in this arena. I was planning on continuing to contribute to the rescue community in this capacity until this fall (September 2020 puts me 20 years off and on [mostly on] volunteering/working in rescue in my community) but seems like a good time to stop now and then I'll be exiting the rescue community altogether (or as much as is possible considering how intertwined this is with my life). I have one project up my sleeve that was in process before COVID19 hit, hopefully this project can still come to fruition this fall: we shall see.
*I have sorted through almost all my clothes bins and pulled out items for donation, items for resale (God I hope The Designer Consignor survives this shut down and reopens!) and items to be recycled, did you know that Savers recycles textiles? I make separate bags of clothes that are just dead: too old, too torn, too worn, etc. and leave them in the donation bins with a "to be recycled" note attached. I need to research whether or not they recycle shoes: if they do that's awesome, if they don't I need to find a place to send dead shoes. I hope I can collect shoes from family and friends and send a few good sized boxes/year to be recycled/upcycled.
*I have re-potted a couple of plants, have potted some self-propagated plants. I have two more to attend to but don't have appropriate vessels so they will have to wait until non-essential shopping can be done again responsibly.
*I have gotten all caught up on the recycling in my life. Sounds weird but my apartment tends to be full of recycling to be attended to in some fashion: items drying, cans to be crushed, cans with labels to be removed (you can take the labels to the city service garage and add to their shredded paper recycling 😁), plastic/glass recycling to be taken to the service garage and paper/cardboard recycling to take to donation bins, etc. I have eight (yes, eight!) recycling containers in my apartment: a box for paper/cardboard, a box to go to the city, a garbage can for aluminum cans and one for steel cans. I have small bathroom sized garbage cans for aluminum lids (I keep them separate because the way the scrap yard I use contains cans to be recycled leads to these things flying all over if they're not bagged separately) and steel lids (see previous reason) and one for random steel/other metal recycling and a small container for copper for when I have some. Being caught up with recycling is HUGE, I just need the scrap yard to reopen so I can clear out everything I have in my storage unit (It's taking over!).
*Just tonight (hours and hours after I started this post!) I finished adding pics to an album for a farewell party for my friend Brigid before she moved to Tahoe in October 2018 and actually shared it with her. I also spent hours uploading pics (172 officially!) from my friend Jamie's wedding this past October. Sure, this wouldn't have taken quite as much time if I hadn't accidentally clicked "add to library" and had to spend an hour sorting/deleting pics from my phone, google photos library and the wedding album on google! I have effectively deleted 400 pictures from my phone tonight! Just shy of 13,000 more to sort through 👌
*I feel like there's something I'm not remembering..it's been a long, exhausting, stress-filled three-ish months.
Those are my random thoughts for today.
I hope you are well, stay well and strive for happiness always.
Leah
Food storage container organization success pics below: for no good reason!
#projects #life #choices #recycle #storage #tasks #todo #todolists #email #text #sort #delete #donations #rescue #pictures #albums #sharing #plants #clothes
