Doing A Little Digital Spring Cleaning...

You see, I'm frugal, or some would say cheap. Heck, I'd call me cheap. I'm so cheap that when time comes for me to purchase things such as electronic equipment, I look for a bargain. The problem with that is, I don't get top of the line.

And when you don't get top of the line, you get electronic things that don't have a lot of memory. Today I tried to download something on my tablet I had recorded on our DVR. Turns out, I didn't have the space necessary for the download. Time for a little spring cleaning. 

Where to start?

One place is text messages.

Now, I'm not saying the reason my message folder 1.05 gigs of digital information was all Steve's fault. I'm to blame for some of that stuff...all those pictures. I added a few of them. But, to clear space, something had to give.

Before the cleaning the folder was 1.05 gigs. After I deleted my conversation with Steve, it was 898 megs. 

In addition to being cheap, I'm also a hoarder. I hoard digital stuff. I should probably go through my phone, tablet, and laptop on a regular basis, otherwise I end up with anti-hipster pictures and sometimes hilarious banter.

Yes, I should clean up things more than just in spring.

Using Our Garage As...A Place To Park Our Van

Life is made up of small milestones, small battles (sometimes big battles...) where the outcome is either success or failure, or in rare cases, a stalemate. And if we can recognize the small victories when they happen, well...life is then truly great.

So, what small victory did I accomplish today? What task resulted in a better life for me and my family?

I put our van into our garage.

Yes, that's right. I drove the van into its assigned space--into the space for which it was designed and built. And it felt good.

I haven't lived in many places, but I imagine other places people do things similar to us when it comes to the accumulation of stuff. In short, we hoard. I know very few who do not hoard, at least, in some degree. I freely admit--I'm a hoarder. I blame my parents (but in a good way...). Both my parents were children during the Great Depression. I've heard stories about how my father, who was born in 1924, used his excellent marksman skills to shoot birds to feed his family.

My mom was younger, she was born in 1931, during the depression, but I'm sure those tough times made lasting impressions on their young minds. So, it makes sense that being raised by people who sometimes had actually nothing, would "collect" things in case they are needed in the future.

Do people where we live hoard things?

You bet we do!

And I have proof. We live in an affluent community, for the most part. We have a one-car garage in our home. That's unusual. Most--especially the new homes--have three-car garages and many of those garages are full of stuff. They might get one car in their three-car garage. The rest of the place is taken up with stuff. And many still need storage unit(s) for the rest of their things that can't fit in their garages and basements.

Don't get me wrong--I don't mean to judge. Heck, if I had the space, and the means (which is basically the same thing...), I would most likely have more stuff too. We are limited by the size of our house including the garage to collect more stuff, even though we probably have more stuff than we need.

Coming full circle, I was able to--by re-arranging some of my stuff--drive our van into our garage. We had to take the van out to temporarily store stuff like a desk and other things after my father-in-law's funeral. We're now prepared for the snow that we're all praying comes this winter.

Life is made up of small milestones. Getting our van in the garage = victory!