Blue on Blue

I think some people might have misunderstood what I wrote yesterday about Blogger e-mail subscriptions. Blogger itself is NOT going away -- at least, not that I've heard. Just the ability for people to sign up for an e-mail subscription to blogs via Feedburner. Does that make sense? I hope so. DO NOT PANIC!

I'm a little late this morning because I set out to do a very simple thing that suddenly became a much more complicated thing. I wanted to find my NHS number, so I opened the file box where I store all our paper records and discovered a big pile of loose paper on top -- basically accumulated stuff that I've been shoving in the top of the box for God knows how long, without organizing or filing it in any way. I decided to put it all away, so I spent a half an hour buried in the file box.

Honestly, I don't know why I'm saving any of that stuff. Beyond a few key documents, like passports and birth certificates and marriage licenses, why do I need any of it? I'm paraphrasing here, but I'm pretty sure when I read Marie Kondo's organizing book years ago, she said most paper documents are useless, and I suspect she's right. If I needed any of that stuff I bet I could get it online in two or three clicks.

As an extreme example: life insurance policies. I have a thick folder containing pages and pages of documents all carefully sealed in plastic sleeves -- the insurance policies my parents bought on my life way back in the 1960s and '70s. (They did this as an investment, but don't ask me to explain why life insurance is a savings vehicle. They were much smarter about these things than I am.) The accounts themselves are valuable and can be redeemed or borrowed against should I need money. But do I really need the actual, physical policies? Would the insurance company really turn me away if I came to them and couldn't produce this yellowed stack of paper? Don't they have computers?

Don't worry -- I'm not throwing them out. I'm just asking. And most of the documents I have are a heck of a lot less potentially valuable than that. Old receipts, instruction manuals for the vacuum cleaner, medical records from doctors' appointments five years ago, blah blah blah.

I still have four or five file folders full of yellowed newspaper clippings that I wrote during my journalism years. At this point, they're so old I can't imagine they'd be valuable to any potential career I could pursue henceforth, even assuming I went back into journalism. I should go through them and just save a few favorite articles and toss the rest.

Hmmmm...I may have discovered a task for the day.

Otherwise I have some Newbery books to read and some gardening to do. Olga is snoring next to me but will no doubt want an outing later. Life as usual!

(Photos: Another shot of the amazing Ceanothus on my walk home from work; our tree fern through the bedroom window, with layers of reflections.)