spring cleaning

I recently learned the origins of spring cleaning: throughout the winter, as people heated their homes by burning stuff, soot would build up on everything in the house - walls, cabinets, mattresses... In spring, everything came out of the house, the house was cleaned, all the stuff was cleaned, then all the stuff returned to a clean house.

This spring, I'm ruthlessly tossing anything that has acquired a layer of dust - whether it is actual or mental. When I was younger (with less stuff thus more space), I took tons of photos and had them printed in quadlicate. Why I needed four copies of Sue drinking a beer, I don't know, but I did. Just eliminating the duplicates is freeing up quite a lot of space. Imagine if I get rid of all the bad photos...

I shredded all of my travel and office expense reports from MIT. mmm. I threw away all of my 401(k) statements from 1999-2005 and have filed all of the relevant retirement info in a 3 ring binder. ahhhh.