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arguchikwhat is it about trash and recycling, anyway? this is especially true of trash or recycling that you collect in small-ish receptacles. so you empty the receptacle, right, you dump it into a larger container, take it out, or whatever the task entails for your current living situation. then, within a day of emptying it, the receptacle is moderately full again. but then it stays that way, moderately full, almost indefinitely, until the memory of the last time you emptied this small-ish receptacle fades into myth. and *then* one day you come home and BOOM! it has reached critical mass, and exploded all over the surrounding floor space. where did all this trash/recycling come from, you wonder? wow, i really need to take this out, but....jeez, it's going to be a huge job. was it this huge of a job the last time i took it out? hmm....when *was* the last time i took it out? and so on. you might exist in this state of wonder for several days, meanwhile the aforementioned trash/recycling situation gets worse and worse, threatening to take over your living space until finally you go through whatever your emptying process entails, and you're back at square one. the next day, sure enough, it's moderately full again...and etc. rinse and repeat, you know the drill.
this happened to me last week with my recycling. i think part of why it snuck up on me is that i have been making an effort, since august/september, to eat at home as much as possible, and to pack my lunch for school--and have actuallly been doing really well with that, with all of the expected benefits: i'm eating a lot healthier (back to being a vegetarian who occasionally eats fish) and i *feel* healthier, i've lost like 5 pounds (running 20+ miles per week also helps) so my jeans fit better, my bank account isn't draining quite so fast, and *oddly* my short term memory has seriously improved, etc. however, the recycling situation had gotten so bad that spillover from my two handy blue curbside bags (so thoughtfully provided by the city) was threatening to cut off access to my kitchen. zow! i was thinking about breaking out my backcountry poles...maybe getting a pair of crampons... my friend L, on a recent visit, was very amused by my plight. um...sharon...why don't you just take it out? (but that would be such a huge job at this point, it would surely eat up 3 hours of my time!) i finally took it out a couple of days later. it's amazing how motivational a friend's gentle, mocking yet commiserating laughter can be... lo and behold, the next day one of the blue bags was halfway full already. since then, i've been watching it. it has been holding steady for a week--and i have been resisting the temptation of putting stuff into the other bag, just to see what happens. it's a scientific study.
today i faced the problem all over again. i finally bought a shredder--QFC had a confetti shredding model on sale, so i brought one home. i've been meaning to buy one for a few years. then i pulled out the bag of stuff-that-needs-shredding that's been accumulating for....what, two and a half years? (no, not that long--i got someone at the bank to shred a bunch of stuff for me at some point, maybe a year and a half ago). anyway, i took this bag out and BOOM! yes, it has exploded all over my dining area floor. i have found stuff in there from a year and a half ago! i found a W-2 from a job i held back in 1994 (clearly i cleaned out my old tax files at some point since moving here...but when exactly that was, i couldn't say.). i got a little misty-eyed, but i am ruthlessly unsentimental about clutter, so into the blades it went.
the truly amazing thing is seeing just how many credit card applications i have received in a year and a half, give or take. i remember reading somewhere that there's a way to make these things stop coming, but i didn't save the information. yeah. it's google time.
this happened to me last week with my recycling. i think part of why it snuck up on me is that i have been making an effort, since august/september, to eat at home as much as possible, and to pack my lunch for school--and have actuallly been doing really well with that, with all of the expected benefits: i'm eating a lot healthier (back to being a vegetarian who occasionally eats fish) and i *feel* healthier, i've lost like 5 pounds (running 20+ miles per week also helps) so my jeans fit better, my bank account isn't draining quite so fast, and *oddly* my short term memory has seriously improved, etc. however, the recycling situation had gotten so bad that spillover from my two handy blue curbside bags (so thoughtfully provided by the city) was threatening to cut off access to my kitchen. zow! i was thinking about breaking out my backcountry poles...maybe getting a pair of crampons... my friend L, on a recent visit, was very amused by my plight. um...sharon...why don't you just take it out? (but that would be such a huge job at this point, it would surely eat up 3 hours of my time!) i finally took it out a couple of days later. it's amazing how motivational a friend's gentle, mocking yet commiserating laughter can be... lo and behold, the next day one of the blue bags was halfway full already. since then, i've been watching it. it has been holding steady for a week--and i have been resisting the temptation of putting stuff into the other bag, just to see what happens. it's a scientific study.
today i faced the problem all over again. i finally bought a shredder--QFC had a confetti shredding model on sale, so i brought one home. i've been meaning to buy one for a few years. then i pulled out the bag of stuff-that-needs-shredding that's been accumulating for....what, two and a half years? (no, not that long--i got someone at the bank to shred a bunch of stuff for me at some point, maybe a year and a half ago). anyway, i took this bag out and BOOM! yes, it has exploded all over my dining area floor. i have found stuff in there from a year and a half ago! i found a W-2 from a job i held back in 1994 (clearly i cleaned out my old tax files at some point since moving here...but when exactly that was, i couldn't say.). i got a little misty-eyed, but i am ruthlessly unsentimental about clutter, so into the blades it went.
the truly amazing thing is seeing just how many credit card applications i have received in a year and a half, give or take. i remember reading somewhere that there's a way to make these things stop coming, but i didn't save the information. yeah. it's google time.
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Date: 2005-11-14 10:40 am (UTC)Credit card offers = most of my confetti
A long, long time ago, I looked at renting an apartment on Mercer Island with a friend, and the residence was in some classic buildings that were once military housing. (I can't remember the name...) One of the things that impressed me was the fact that the rental cost included waste disposal from the door: there was a little compartment, with an inside and outside door, next to regular door in which you could leave a bag for someone to come by and retrieve.