Flashback

I've become very fond of seeing the dirt and dust washing off my hands after I take a break from de-cluttering. It's some sort of weird relief, like seeing the burden of the clutter just flowing down the drain.

Today I was working on our front closet, and it made for my favorite kind of de-cluttering: old photo discoveries! It's so weird to see my own face grinning up at me from over ten (and sometimes over fifteen) years ago! I was a cute little butt head. Here are some of my favorite photos so far! Check back later and there might be "after" photos haha. Probably not.

My treasured stuffed tiger. I could never decide on its gender, but s/he is still with me today. Ragged and sad.


Don't blame me, it was the 90s.


"No wonder Clark was such a weird cat." - My mom.


Not a morning person. Even on my birthday. Or maybe I was just irritated at photo time.


That's a shark on my face. I don't know why.

I would put dates to these faces, but a) some don't have them, and b) laziness! Always laziness.

Wishlist #4: LCD TV

Hey hey it's that time again! That time that hasn't come around for a while because I kind of forgot about it or stopped being greedy. Probably the first, though, since I'm greedy 24/7/52/12/365-6. Anyway, the pictures would all look the same since I'm specifically wishing for a standard flat-screen LCD TV for my fancy apartment dorm in the fall. So I'm just listing my favorite one.

And, to sate your eternal desire for visual aids, I'm listing the top 3 craziest/most awesome TVs I found on the internet today at the bottom of this post. So scroll to your heart's content.

1. Sharp LC19SB24U 19" LCD HDTV - $270

I don't know much about researching these big purchases, but I do know this:

• I have a good, solid, bulky cube of a Sharp 13" TV that has worked pretty well for 8 of the past 9 years I've owned it. So I kind of trust Sharp as a brand.


• I want 19" because my roommate and I have had a disappointingly small TV (similar in bulky cubeness to mine) for two years that makes TV gatherings frustrating. College kids: does this happen to you?? In fact, the two of us talked seriously about getting a new TV for next year. Funny since now we'll be living in the most expensive dorm and neither of us can really afford a new TV but whateva!


• I have spoken. I want this TV. Grey's, 30 Rock and The Office will be oh so much more awesome. I might even start watching House with this glorious TV, who knows. I keep meaning to, but gosh, my TVs right now are just so subpar.

And now! These are not as crazy as I planned! Mostly they are childish! But I know you skipped down here to see what they are, so I present to you: weird TVs!

a. High School Musical TV

Oh HSM. How terrible your actors are. How catchy and stupid your music is. How slutty your stars are. Yet no one can resist you. This TV is kind of awesome, if only for the clever locker storage design and the many brain cells it will suck out of a generation of kids. We can't have them turning out smarter than us, after all. We know only too well how helpless the baby boomers seem in comparison to their kids. What do I click to get Internet? Anyway, there's also an iPod dock.

b. "The Japanese Crazy TVs"

These aren't all that crazy; in fact they're really cute. But I always wonder about the practicality of stuff like this, which you kind of outgrow past oh, twelve, and have to either throw out or declare "quirky" when it's really not. Or I don't know, maybe it is but I don't get it. I could see either of the two TVs on this link in something like Toy Story though. (Incidentally, I hope they don't do any more of those, because I've lost all faith in sequels/etc.)

c. Dynatron

I am so confused by the post stemming from this image, but the caption says that it is "the most expensive TV set manufactured in Britain. Assembled by thousands of highly trained paramecia in 1948, it was called a ‘Dynatron Ether Sovereign’." I enjoy the name and its ridiculous size, so I bestow it on you and your eyes. Maybe you can make some sense out of the link.

Clutter Personality

I've noticed a pattern or two as I've been slogging through the living room. Today, as I was starting to clear off the third of three sitting spaces (1: couch, 2: love seat, and 3: big chair that goes with the couch), I thought to myself, "There is SO MUCH PAPER here." That reminded me of this article I read on clutter personalities.

I revisited the article today and decided that, out of the five personality types listed there, my mother must embody at least four, these being: the hoarder ("This might come in hand someday!"), the deferrer ("I'll think about that tomorrow!"), the perfectionist ("Next week, I'll organize everything--perfectly!"), and the sentimentalist ("Oh, the little darling!"). The fifth is the rebel, who's still bitter about mom's nagging to clean that room.

This melee of personality types may make it sound pretty bad, and it is, but I do acknowledge that it could be a lot worse, like those people in the video I posted a couple days ago. But I think the combination of all these deadly personality types makes me understand a bit better just how much my mom needs someone else to take initiative in de-cluttering.

The paper-pileup is definitely a byproduct of her hoarding personality. She brought me up to always consider that something might be useful later and to never get rid of anything if you can help it. But this is only sensible to a point. There were receipts up the wazoo on the chair I was cleaning today, from Jack-in-the-Box nine months ago (that depressed me a lot) to endless printouts from online. I really don't think proof of your Junior Bacon with Cheese is going to come in handy soon OR later. About.com has some nice tips on how to eliminate paper clutter.

Think carefully about what kind of clutter personality you have, then take the appropriate steps to de-clutter yourself! This is a very important step that I'm feeling the weight of right now.

Thank to this site for the image.

P.S. I hope the people who have found this blog with similar projects underway are finding my tips and progress helpful/inspiring in some way! Always feel welcome to post comments about your own progress and projects. :)

Gramercy Green

Oh man!!!!!! I just got an e-mail saying that my room change request to be in this dorm of insane perfection for next year went through! I'm on the 11th floor and I'm so excited. Expect dorm room posts soon (it's relevant I swear!)...

You don't understand the adrenaline and the screaming that is happening right now... at 9:30 a.m.

Edit: Sorry I don't think I conveyed my excitement adequately in this post...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YYYYYYYESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS O. M. G. O. M. G. O.M.G. O.M.G. OMG OMG OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG GRAMERCYYYYYYYYYY HALLELUJAH PRAISE JOHN SEXTON? HOUSING GODS THY WILLS BE DONE IN THE NAME OF THE IRISH YEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS THIS IS GETTING BLASPHEMOUS BUT I HAVE GOOD HOUSINGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

Do It Yourself

Well, it's been a busy past few days! Not only with de-cluttering, but with birthdays and hanging out with my best friends for summertime fun and trying to get myself a job. I did de-clutter one of our couches in the living room. However, I sat down on it today and realized it's a depressing spot! It receives almost no light, even though it is about five feet from the window. Of course, this is because one of our bookshelves is placed illogically and uglily between the two! Hmm. I can't wait to start the re-arranging part of our project. In the spirit of DIY thinking*, here's a fun link about how to fuse plastic bags to make stuff! Just don't inhale those hot plastic fumes, kids.

Via Curbly.com

* Ok that's kind of a stretch, from my progress to "DIY" but I don't have much to write about...