Compulsive hoarding is a mental disorder that is just beginning to be understood. As a hoarder, I have acquired things over the years with a specific purpose in mind at the time of the acquisition, used some of those items for their intended purposes, forgotten the goal for different objects, but now that I find that they have outlived their purpose in my life I am struggling to rid myself of those same things.

You can read the start of my journey here.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Welcome to the future.

Let me just say that I can tell why Hopper and Scooter have been sleeping so much. At the height of whatever this bug is, Hopper was sleeping as much as 20 hours a day. Scooter was sleeping about 16. The fatigue hit me today. I was awake for a couple hours this morning and just couldn't get warm and couldn't stay awake. So I went back to bed and froze for a couple hours. I was a bit warmer when I woke up, but I periodically fell asleep while working on paperwork today.

I wasn't able to get as much done as I wanted, which seems to be my mantra of late. I did what I could to get paperwork that has accumulated in the living room this summer gathered up, so I can sort it. However, between the spontaneous snoozing and the pain going down my right leg from my back, I didn't get a lot done.

On a good note, though, Hopper and Scooter were awake most of the day today. Longer than they have been in days. I'm hoping this means I'm just a day or two behind them. I want to get busy again. If nothing else, I'll plug away at paperwork and see, if I can't make a dent in it between nap attacks.

The other night, I was watching, Hoarding: Buried Alive, since I was feeling so punky. I try to watch Hoarding shows for homework, so my focus stays on the big picture. The gentleman featured on the show collected newspaper articles. He had stacks upon stacks of newspapers he still had to go through as well as stacks upon stacks of articles he'd already removed. He ended up not really liking the professional organizer, as their personalities clashed, so he decided to do the work on his own. I have to admit he did a really good job of clearing things out.

But the thing that caught my attention was that the organizer brought a portable document scanner for him to use to scan the articles and keep them in his computer. About a year ago, a friend had suggested I get some sort of a card scanner to use for receipts and business cards, since we have so many doctors' cards due to the girls, but I'd totally forgotten her suggestion until I saw the show. We do have a flatbed scanner as part of our printer, but it can be cumbersome to use, and it takes forever. First, the document or photo you want scanned has to be previewed, and then accepted, and each scanning takes at least 2 minutes from beginning to end.

The scanner that was shown on the show was almost instantaneous. It was similar to the card scanners used at doctor's offices, only bigger. It was big enough to scan legal documents, so I think it would work for any paperwork we had. If we eventually get one, I'll have to do some research to see which one to buy. I'll also need to see, if the documents would somehow be memory hogs in the computer, or if I'd need tons of SD cards to store all of the information I scanned.

While it may not happen for awhile, I am thinking this could help us tremendously. I think of all the time it would save. We have more paperwork than we know what to do with. I have already purged our home of 28 grocery bags of shredables, but I know I will likely have dozens more by the time I'm done dehoarding. That doesn't even touch all that I haven't sorted or have saved.

This is definitely something to take into consideration.

6 comments:

  1. What a good idea! Just be sure that all the info is off the computer if or when you get rid of it! We once bought a used computer for parts and when hubby turned it on and looked around he couldn't believe that the former owner left scanned copies of driver's license, birth cert, you name it!

    I know you are smarter than that, but bears mentioning! :)

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  2. I saw that episode as well, which is really cool. And that is a fabulous idea.

    Soon you'll be better, and the girls are well on their way, so you WILL be able to get as much done as you have before. You had mentioned in a previous post that the first month or in the first month of school, the girls get sick, so in a (maybe not the best) way, things are going according to plan.

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  3. If you go that route , you can get an external hard drive (mine is called a pasport ) to stroe instead of SD cards . All my photos for the last 4 years are stored on the paasport ansd I have used less that 1/4 its memory .Frees up my computer for other stuff, and its is a safety net in case of a crash

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  4. Hey, here's another idea for you at staples you can buy clear page protectors that have pockets to hold business cards. They hold 10 each well actually with cards facing the back I have 20 in each page. I have a binder with these and they hold all of Ashely doctors and therapists cards it's great .. my husband is very organizing so he purchased these when she was still in the NICU. This binder is very helpful, I like being able to pull it out and have emails and names at my finger tips. Keeping all the info in your computer would take up no space so that may be even better for you but it sounds like a little bit of work to scan each time you get a new card so there more upkeep involved.

    Your doing great sorry I have not been reading .. I hope to catch up. Get healthy quickly. :)

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  5. that's a great idea. I'll have to look for something like that. I am DROWNING in paperwork, and it's so hard to know what I need to keep, and what I can shred. And more paperwork shows up ever week. Sigh...

    Glad to hear you're feeling better

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  6. Hurray for another Hoarding show for me to watch! Jordan, my husband, can always tell when I've been watching Hoarders because it gets me cleaning and sorting. I didn't know TLC had one too!
    Sorry you've all been under the weather!

    And thanks for the scanning idea! We just got a scanner and I'm excited to be able to cut down on our numerous boxes of paper stuff!

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