Shredding

No, not the cat. Me.

I'm a filer. I keep paper copies of everything - credit card statements, bills, bank statements, warranties, receipts, medical bills. Everything. I have a nicely set up filing system in the lateral file cabinet that matches my desk. It was heaven to finally get an actual filing cabinet and I use it.

Every year or so, I purge files, and keep just the past year's records. I like to be able to look back at the year's expenditures when I'm handling our financials. I have been a conscientious filer in the last two years, around the time my husband retired. Because of everything that's been going on in our live, however, I have not been a conscientious purger. Thus, the files were bulging and stuffing just one more piece of paper in each hanging folder had become more and more difficult.

It was time to purge and shred. The purging part didn't take long, but I was faced with a foot tall stack of paper. Oh, brother. So I pulled the Ativa shredder close to my comfy office chair and started feeding.

Two things you find out (or remember) when you're doing this. The shredder may say that it will take 12 sheets at a time, but don't do it. The poor machine sounds like a person trying to choke down a mouthful of saltines without a drink of water. Also, it gets hot a lot faster than you think, and you have to stop regularly for cooling off periods. That's actually what I'm doing right now.

The floor is covered with small snippets of paper dropped while emptying the shredder bin. There's a black trash bag full of 1/4" x 2" pieces of paper next to me just waiting to split and spill. I have shredder lubricating oil on my hands (and almost on my shirt - good save!). Oh boy, this is fun. Not.