When I moved into my flat about 13 years ago, there was some stuff that moved with me in boxes that I never quite got round to. At the start of this year I laid out a plan to work through all the fiddly small piles, the drawers where I might have dumped things five or ten years ago, and yes those boxes. As of today I’m down to one box that needs working through, plus varying amounts of nostalgia and technology that is either going to be recycled, thrown out, or put away tidily in storage.
I’ve heard that enough people are doing this that it’s causing problems for bin collection. Most of the stuff I’m getting rid of is either electronic waste which I’ll have to hang onto until I can get it somewhere sensible, or paper which I can drip feed into my kerbside recycling.
The downside of basically finishing sorting out my home is that I now need another project. And I can’t renovate my bathroom or buy significant furniture, which limits things somewhat.
The upside is finding notes from university, including some "let this man out of the all-girl dorms, he’s not dangerous" slips. One reads “I found this man in my fridge. Please let him out as I have no room for my milk!”.
I continue to cook more than I usually would, including some weird banana, pear and oats recipe that I found online and which was delicious but a terrible recipe. It managed to mix (American) cups with other measures sufficiently that even following it with a decent dry measure made it impossible to figure out how much to use. It also I think relied on but didn’t state a step of mixing things up at a critical point, meaning that eating it required a spoon rather than a fork or (as I suspect is possible if you put in enough oats) fingers.
I note that we’re encouraging children to damage cooking equipment as a way of celebrating our essential workers now.
I’m no longer able to remember the last time I’ve spoken to people (whether on social media, by phone, or by video). I may have to start some sort of diary to keep track.
Stay safe.