New Year's Cleaning

I have recently deleted close to 10,000 messages in my personal email inbox (in one of my accounts; I have several). I know, what was I doing with that many emails in my inbox? I'm terrible about cleaning it out. Let's say I get an email about an upcoming playgroup--I keep it so I can remember the information. But then other people reply about whether they are attending or not--I read those. And forget to delete them. And then I forget to delete the playgroup invitation after the event. I also get some newsletters from various magazines I subscribe to and I sometimes keep those "to read later," which of course never comes.

Of course, years ago, storing so much email was a problem because you were only allotted a certain amount of space. Such is not the case anymore. So, really, do I need to throw out any email? Mama calls it useless organizing, the kind of organizing you do that doesn't make you any more efficient and just takes time (say, if you suddenly decided to alphabetize your salad dressings or something). But it made me feel good, if only because I had proven to myself that I could throw so much away, even if it was mostly email I had never really intended to keep. And in the week since I've done it, I've kept under 25 emails in my inbox and tried to reply as soon as I get something. So, maybe I am more efficient, if only because I am more aware. Of course, I did keep a large chunk of old email--condolences on the death of our cat Morgan, congratulations on the babes and our various unions/marriages, anything from my mom, Lambeth, Mama, and a few other people. I'm holding onto some things. But I think it's time to move on to those other email accounts!

We've also been making a lot more progress on the basement, going down there a few nights a week to purge. Last week it was books. I think we purged two huge boxes of paperbacks, mainly mysteries from my grad school days (to be sold at the church book sale), plus a lot of paper (to be recycled). In the process, I came across several boxes of my academic and professional books. All the Victorian art tomes stayed in the basement for now, while the museum education books have come upstairs. Re-reading (and sometimes reading for the first time) these will help me on my museum ed blog, as well as help me feel more connected to my profession. I really enjoyed sorting through those books, kinda like revisiting old friends.

All of this coincided with Chinese New Year, which was coincidental but auspicious. It is considered important to clean house before the holiday. Ar-Ma even reminded us as we left her house on Saturday that we should go home and throw some things away. We'll just pretend that every week is the new year!