Paper Declutter

My helper Marilyn came today and we attacked this ageing, foot-high pile of papers that consisted of paid bills, receipts, um... um... other assorted papers that aren't immediately throw away material.

She also shredded the back up material for my 2005 taxes, and between that and my papers, we ended up with a tall garbage bag of shreds.

I know there were papers in that pile that I have tried to deal with a dozen times, and today I did.

Here are two examples. I would say at least five years ago, but probably more, Barbara gave me a bunch of one cent stamps that she didn't need. Over the years, I've used them to upgrade the old stamps when there was a postage increase. I had recently found two 37 cent stamps and literally filled half of two outgoing envelopes with seven one cent stamps. Well, I was down to six stamps and today I reluctantly ditched them. That was hard, but I did it.

The second paper was a Christmas card where I so liked the inside verse that I saved it. Every time I picked it up, I'd want to keep saving it. But that's the kind of thing that has no home. So I decided I would post the verse on here (the sunflowers will now make sense) and when I want to read it again, I can come back to today's post. Plus, this verse seems appropriate for the first full day of summer.

This verse is a line from an ancient Persian poet named Hafiz... and he wrote:

Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe Me."
Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole Sky.

And now I can recycle the old Christmas card.