Post office deliverance

This is one of a few times of the year when I look at the months' worth of flotsam and jetsam that choke the corners of my kitchen counters and laundry shelf and say

Enough!

and sort it all into File, Recycling, and - worst case - Landfill.

Unfortunately, my city is currently hosting a strike for a variety of services, including garbage/recycling/composting pickup. So I can't throw anything out.

I did my best this weekend. I carved out temporary storage space for some of it. I made a big box bigger by folding up the top flaps and taping them together, and filled it with paper to be stored in the garage and recycled when times improve. I recycled some mailing envelopes (another perk of online shopping) by filling them with other things I have left sitting out for the day when I might get around to mailing them. And then I mailed them.

Here's an interesting but little-observed-by-me fact: When you mail stuff, it stops being in your space! You don't have to plot or scheme or shift things around - it's just gone! and you have the added bonus of knowing that the things that were becoming a weighty responsibility while in said space are going to make a happy moment for somebody else, just as you intended when you first set them aside in a pile of papers on the kitchen counter.

Love, love, love the postal service. Especially because they didn't go on strike this summer.