I may have a couple of those early scans saved on a hard drive somewhere.

The amazing and simultaneously slightly horrifying thing is that I was just able to take pictures, using the camera in my CELL PHONE, that are higher quality than the BEST scans I was originally able to get.

::mimes head explosion::

IKR? I actually kept my old flatbed scanner for ages... until I realized that a. I was having to play ridiculous games to get the Win 95 drivers to work and b. my several generations ago cell phone was taking better pictures

I JUST realized this, and am still astounded. I have a printer/flatbed scanner, (as well as several standalone scanners bequeathed to me in various friends' moves), but other than being guaranteed flat (vs slightly angled) and never having to wrangle with a light source so there's no phone shadow on the page...

Is it REALLY worth the space it takes up, just for that?

... mostly so the ones that can free up storage space, because printing things is nice.

I think a little downsizing may be in order.

I DESPERATELY want to just ruthlessly tackle the "living room" labeled boxes in my mom's garage. The majority of them have been unopened for five/six years, and when we moved in here I put my foot down. All nonessential boxes stayed in their labeled area in the garage. If it had stuff you'd immediately unpack & use, it could come inside. I was. Moderately

successful. But the other part was always supposed to be - once the right-away stuff is out & up, start bringing in a few garage boxes at a time to sort, & either empty or re-pack as STORAGE. Labels, sure, so you could look for stuff. But not - this.

Do you have a timer, stopwatch or other time-counting-plus-alarm device?

Because that looks like something that could be tackled in a series of 15 minute sorting bursts.

Over a span of time.

(So hey, while you weren't looking, guess who also has ADHD, as it turns out.)

I am subtly vindicated but also DEEPLY ANNOYED, cause a lifetime's worth of the mess and clutter and disorganization being My Fault because I have the same problem with it - but I desperately WANT to get, and manage to stay organized, it's so much BETTER. My brain's just a bully who makes it difficult to get started. But - all of that has been ENTIRELY

Realizing that I get anxious and unhappy when there's disorder because it makes it hard for me to keep track of what I need to stay on top of the day, rather than just some sort of WASPish fussiness was a huge thing.

disproven. I haven't lived here full time in over a year. Evie's mess is extant, but largely contained to her bedroom. I moved this box labeled office, IN WHICH I FOUND THE DIVORCE PAPERWORK I'VE BEEN ACCUSED FOR YEARS OF HAVING CARELESSLY LOST, among a lot of stuff that's IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS that I can't make decisions on. I brought it in three weeks ago.

Yep, not you.

It hasn't moved. It HAS acquired two packages of printer paper.

NOT ME.

I swear some post-Cheeto 45 day, I am going to turn up and youse and mes will take over and have a giant organize and sort blitz.

While wearing funny hats and eating ridiculous food.

I am planning on doing actual reconnaissance a little at a time over a few days, to figure out what I KNOW can be gotten rid of - the haphazardly stacked boxes are all empty, being saved for - I'm not sure anymore, honestly. But just set out & stacked, not broken down.

Yeah, breaking them down will probably make a huge difference just from that.

THAT bed & frame I have wanted to get rid of for years. It finally made it out of the house, but I've been trying to get her to take it & dump it with one of the thrift stores that takes furniture. I've been trying for two years.

I'm going to tackle the garage here, and the half haphazard hurricane that resulted from me moving but not really having anywhere for my STUFF to go. Plus some intermittent Evie colonization when I was gone.

I want to make it functional with a sleeping space & a workspace. Or at least more functional than as it exists now.

(The apartment, where I'm not currently staying because of money issues, is a WHOLE OTHER pit of overwhelming disorganization, too much of other people's stuff, and an inability to make any headway cause the sucking inertia takes SO MUCH to overcome.)

Which was why discovering that the cats had expressed their pique or displeasure over something by LITERALLY CRAPPING MY BED(/sleeping area) for a second time just. Kicked me in the solar plexus, yesterday. Cause thanks for not even letting me have that, guys.

SO. FOCUSING ON WHAT I CAN DO AT MOM'S, SINCE I'M HERE. (Also, now that I'm done getting that thought out before I lose it - finding out about that diagnosis surprises me ZERO AMOUNT.)

Yeah, in hindsight an awful lot of things make sense.

And augh, cat crap on bed is the worst. Curie had two desperation poops because she was scared to go past Michael out the bedroom door, a couple months ago.

One was on top of Steve. Mercifully, there was the duvet between him and the foulness.

Needless to say I took some float time off work that morning.

I think focusing on what's in front of you is a good plan. Make a small refuge space and work outwards, sort of thing.

I was resigned to the most recent round of craps, cause I saw those first & could tell they were relatively dry. Then I noticed that a pillowcase had the dried cat pee salt deposit look, and was resigned but bracing myself -

If you can't get/afford Nature's Miracle at the mo, white vinegar is cheap and effective.

-- to discover it was soaked through, as were my pillows AS WAS, as I continued gingerly two-fingering things into a garbage bag for transport, the couch cushion underneath.

AUGH, NO

(They seem to be recovering after the day's worth of obsessive laundering.)

Oh good.

I still haven't been able to deal with the attic garret travesty, because it involves having to figure out maneuvering everything that's been defiled out of the far side of the room, down a ladder (with clutter from bat's bedroom at the base since i started sleeping downstairs), down a flight of stairs and out to my truck, to my mom's IN HOPES they fit -

... and I start hitting the wall of "oh my god no this is too much" at about trying to get the feather bed & my comforter (what I had dragged off of my crap mattress to make a blanket wallow I could actually sleep in) off the floor while trying to contain the dry cat turd collection while moving saturated-then-dried cat pee fabric & filler bulky bedding.

D:

(Which I will have to kickstart myself into dealing with once I can stay there again, hopefully before the heat really hits. Cause then it's humid mystery room with bonus eau de chat.

Can you journal up some battle plans and orders of operation before going over to do it?

Like, sort of a morning exercise while fortifying yourself with tea and food.

I know I tend to feel a lot less overwhelmed when I've applied structure to the unstructured, even if it's just in my head.

Also, absolutely setting timers for work this long, break this long, or even cycling between tasks.

Because while one can hyperfocus for hours, it generally leads to burnout even without emotionally exhausting cat fluids.

That's probably going to be the best plan. I have to keep myself from getting mentally snared up on all the everything that needs to be dealt with to get TO that, & make it a clear and easy least resistancey way out.

Make a list of short burst tasks too, while you're at it.

Because some days, or even some times in a day, a long chain of 'must do this to get to this' isn't in the cards right away.

Just make sure I've got "this is gonna be difficult even AFTER making it down the ladder."

Yep.

I haven't drawn up a plan yet, because I got overwhelmed by the state of existence of the entire rest of the place, and kind of half-bailed, then (accidentally) full on bailed cause it took a couple months for my body shop in PHX to find replacement pieces for an 18 year old truck. & despite being harassed over the phone about how long it was taking by BOTH

my mother here & Vana's there, they ate a SIGNIFICANT amount of overage it ended up racking up, so they could report back to Geico that it was entirely covered by the deductible/what they were willing to pay out before declaring it totaled.

I BUSTED ASS to get at least a few pieces of it decent before I left, and by the time I got back, that had all gotten undone. (Multiple contributing factors, but still. Ain't no wind in those sails, right now.)

I hadn't put it in the same words yet, but making the mental shift to prioritizing what I can do here at my mom's, because and while I'm here, is definitely where I need to be.

<3

Yeah. Go for the little successes now, build on them, build back your reserves and confidence for accomplishing things.

Set a timer for 15 minutes. See how many empty boxes in a single storage space you can flatten and stack in a Designated Spot.

Then go take a 30 minute break, or a 45 minute break, whatever is needed (also on a timer) and go back and take another timed 15 minutes and... sort boxes in that room so that boxes of a similar sort of contents are stacked together, or whatever.

Repeat. Dust things. Sweep. Wash something. Whatever. Just... little and whatever you see that you can do right in front of you.

I like making things like little mini challenges, or pairing up with someone who has something they NEED to buckle down & do, but Dunwanna.

My weekdays are full of Science Things, but I have a bunch of Yard Stuff to do over the next couple weekends.

Although admittedly that is less NOOOOO and more YASSSS

If I find myself faced with something tedious but necessary, I will totally partner with you.

If you want to make Accomplishment Plurks, I will totally follow them as my work-a-day permits.

This is also one of the things I'm paying attention to making sure that I actually DO. Reestablish regular casual-conversation level of interaction with my friends. Because the last year especially has been more day to day overwhelming than I've had since the worst of my Massachusetts Time. I withdrew a LOT, more than I meant to & more than I had realized.

Awesome.

(Basically, I can check internets when I first get up, then I get another window to see what's up around 10:30, then there's lunch hour, then afternoon break around 3:30ish, and then after dinner internet time until I turn into a pumpkin at 10:30.)

I love my job, but I realize just how much dicking around amiably online I can no longer do, that I could when I was I.T.

Chronicling the saga of the cat piss laundry challenge has already helped me keep up with it.

I am glad to be a sympathetic set of eyes.

If you have any more, put a cup or two of white vinegar into the wash water. Helps prevent re-marking.

Oh! I just thought of something I could be a mini-challenge partner on. I need help staying on task getting my game world written up.

Because right now I'm averaging a helpfile every couple months.

I think I am going to be smart and check the WEATHER for tomorrow, and then decide which arm of this I'm going to start with - the garage (already loosely brainstormed), or the living room turned bedroom hopefully turned usable space again indoor room.

It'll be an after dark only thing until I've got the yard and garden straightened out for the year, but there are at least a couple hours a night I could be doing stuff in that I've been mostly wasting looking at cats on Imgur.

Oooh, good plan.

Oh! That's definitely something I would be happy to pair up for. XD

\o/

Ahahaha. It SAYS a few degrees cooler, 100% humidity, 100% chance for rain. But yesterday, it guaranteed rain today, and instead we got WARM and MUGGY (even inside, despite the A/C. Any physical activity in another room, instantly sweaty and energy-sapped. I? Rescued a fan from the garage a couple weeks back, and have it oscillating directly behind me.)

My Canadian soul is dying a little at such weather in March.

That's July shit right there.

So I think I'll switch tracks to the indoor stuff (I can start with Put Trash in Trash Bag, Take to Can Outside, which will also let me get an idea of what else actually needs to be done.)

It hideous and I am miserable. It only gets worse.

If it actually does storm & it's nice, I can switch to the garage - keep the door up to air it out from housing peeblanket, and start with box breakdown.

You got this!

My plan after work is to transfer the soil from one of the old garden boxes to the other, so that I'll be able to move said box out of the way of where my new peach sapling is going to be planted.

I hate being the "at least it's a dry heat!" cliché wielding asshole, but for me it's TRUE. I can handle "and people LIVE HERE? on PURPOSE? by CHOICE?" surface of the sun temperatures (&know how to keep cool & safe in them!), but the second you kick the humidity index up, I go down.

I also need to move the border stones into a wider arc to accomodate said tree, and should probably do it before the rain they're forecasting later in the week.

As a former resident of the Okanagan Valley, I hear and understand this.

I got heatstroke twice last May. TWICE.

Dry heat, I'm happy at 40*C if I've got water and shade. Humidity is just vile and the only way I know how to cope is to either evacuate to the lake, or go subterranean.

(I have set up my office in the basement, in prep.)

... borderline prostration/stroke, but I generalize out of habit.

Dude, still heatstroke

A+

Also, in the spirit of your gardening partnering - track down all the tiny planters with seeds I got from Target, and use one of my breaks to set them outside where they'll get a bit of the rain, and then on the next one - decide where best to put them, perchance for growing

Yesssss, plants

On the topic of rain, I think we'll be warm enough that I can get my rain barrels hooked back up again.

Although I need to replace the cheap-ass plastic tap on one of them.

I can probably guess what each of the painted pots was supposed to be, but the ones in the recycled cardboard(?) starter pots...

MYSTERY

Mystery food!

Oooh, rain barrels!

That is Neat.

We got one when we first moved in, but it fills so fast that we got a second last year.

Unrelated, other than having been something on my "check the next time you're up for something" list:

... underwhelming reveal. I did NOT just find the plug for my light box, but one incredibly similar.

Which means there's a fair chance that the plug at the apartment, not powering my little fan but having come SO CLOSE - is the cord for this. & vice versa.

The hunt continues

Which is good, but less conducive to being able to immediately settle in & blow off some steam until I've got Evie asleep for certain, and I can try to manage the same.

(I can still use it as a hard flat surface & doodle around some, but I was SO SURE. Ah, well.)

I'm pumpkinning for the night, but have a good one, and a productive tomorrow.

Same to you!