Party Time!

To say that I have been overwhelmed lately would probably be an understatement.  I don't appear outwardly to be overwhelmed, but that's just my stoic personality - or my college minor in Acting.  But before I begin debating my skills in affected personality versus my actual personality, let's talk about clutter again.

A long, long, looong time ago, seemingly in a land far, far away, I began a little project called Kai's Clean Sweep Project.  It was supposed to motivate me to clear out the clutter in my house, so that my surroundings would be more simple and peaceful. While it may appear that I have been failing, or at the very least ignoring, this project, it is actually quite the opposite.  I just haven't been doing any physical object de-cluttering.

However, I have focused on some electronic de-cluttering.  For example, I spent three hours (THREE hours) last night moving photos from my camera's memory card to my laptop for future further sorting and eventual printing.  First of all, let me digress by saying my DSLR memory card ROCKS!  The amount of photos I have on there are hundreds and hundreds... in fact, I got that camera back in May 2010 and have NEVER deleted or moved a photo off of it until last night.  I have copied some and saved some to CD but the original was always on this card!  I have gone through two birthdays; two trips to see my parents, including a trip to Niagara Falls; several trips to the park, including one extended photo shoot with my friend CT; Thanksgiving; my husband's illness; Christmas; and a plethora of various pet, kid, layout, card and yard snapshots.

And after THREE hours of moving photos from the memory card to my laptop, I had only hit the second storage folder on the memory card, meaning I still have tons of photos to move.  I would have gone longer than three hours, but sadly, my battery on the camera died. 

Okay, so what the heck is my point?  Every time that I accomplish something like this, I realise how much disorder messes with my mind.  I have known these photos have needed moving, organizing and eventually printing, but I kept putting it off and off and off.  And it becomes one more "worry" (for lack of a better word) that clutters up the closets in my head.

Reading blogs was another daunting task.  Many of you may have noticed a distinct lack of participation in reading and commenting on your blogs over the past several months.  It was because I was overwhelmed by the sheer mass of blogs I felt I had to and want to visit!  Google Reader was NOT my friend during this time.  Why?  Because I had over one thousand posts to read.  ONE THOUSAND. 

Now how did I get THERE you ask?  Well, because I joined up on the class Blogging for Scrapbookers over a year ago, there was a subscription list created from all of the people who joined the class and wanted to be on the list.  I have/had that loaded into Google Reader.  In addition, through some of my other classes or from people who have commented on my blog, I have chosen to "follow" certain blogs, and those show up on my Google Reader as well.  And, because I am who I am, I didn't want to delete anyone from the Blogging for Scrapbookers subscription until I actually visited them at least once.

But a few days ago?  Enough was enough!  I was struggling in many areas (as I shared here) and when I went to my Google Reader I was just thoroughly done with being overwhelmed.  I hit a button I thought I would never hit:  Mark All As Read.  "Over 1,000" went down immediately to ZERO. 

I'm not sure I could explain to you the feeling I had... it was like... well, it was like the sun broke through the clouds and a magical rainbow appeared and the bluebirds sang and swooped down and dressed me, along with the help of some little mice, in the most gorgeous ball gown possible complete with sparkly glass slippers that fit perfectly upon my feet.  Fairy dust sprinkled all around me....

.... oh, wait, that was a movie I once saw.  Sorry. 

Ahem.

Okay, well, let's just say that I felt very FREE and LIGHT and like I should dance a little jig or something.  The next day when I went to Google Reader, I inwardly cringed because I wondered if there would be 500 or more messages there waiting for me.

A sigh of relief escaped me when I saw:  26

How much more manageable that was for me.  And I felt lighthearted as I browsed quickly through those 26 messages (some of you are so ambitious to be posting several times in a single day!) and was able to comment on so many blogs without feeling the weight of "over 1000" calling me back to Reader.

And now?

No Unread Items!  It's PARTY TIME!