A Simple Jam

Yesterday was one of those days where one thing led to another, which led to something that took all day that led to something that is probably going to take several days.

It started simply.  You know, I'm really getting into this whole pocket letter thing.  I've already finished one that I'm going to mail off today.  It's kind of by way of an introduction and I was happy with how it turned out.

Behind each one of those pockets is a little gift...things like stickers or Washi tape or something else (a copy of two of my reviews is behind the "I am a writer" pocket).  Some of them have mini letters explaining -- like the Lawsuit picture.  It's not nearly as fancy as some pocket letters you see, but I'm pleased with it.  The woman I am sending this to is in Australia, so on the back there is a California map showing where in the state I live.

The next one I'm doing is for a woman in Malta, who suggested we might swap pocket letters with a book theme.  I'm having fun with it but have been so obsessed that I even dreamed about pockets.  In my dream, I was thinking of a pocket about Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue," about which I have spoken here so often.  the book is about the development of the English language and I thought it would be fun to have a bunch of English words, with a picture of the book on top of them.

I thought about how much easier it would be if I printed the words on sticky paper, the kind I used to use for transcription.  That would make it easier because I would not have to individually glue each word, but just peel off the backing and position on the pocket background.

Easy peasy.

Only I put a too-small piece of paper into the printer and when I started to print, it jammed inside.  This has happened once or twice in the past couple of years, but this time it was so securely jammed I couldn't even see it.  Now the problem with working with the printer is that there is so much stuff piled on the floor, since I am out of shelf space, that you can't get to the printer, so it involved removing everything on the floor, most of it to a box and then I had no place to put the box, so I needed to clear off my desk, putting all that stuff into another box, both of which I could now put on my desk.

When I got everything cleared away, I still couldn't find the lost paper.  I called in the Big Guns -- Walt.  He couldn't find it either.  We lifted everything that could be lifted and couldn't even see it, but it was definitely jammed, the printer kept telling me.  Finally we found it, jammed in so tightly it was in a place that we couldn't get to.  I was about to write a "help!" message to Canon when Walt turned the printer off and back on again (I had done that too, but this was after a lot of poking and prodding) and the paper just fell right out.  Doh!

So now I had a working printer again, but everything that had been on the floor was in one box and everything that had been on the desk was in another box and a bunch of stuff was piled on the kitchen table.  One of those "where do I even start" sorts of things.  But I looked around at the whole office, at the dust-covered piles of things I haven't looked through in years and decided that this was the time I should take advantage of the job started and clean up the office to see if I could make it more workable.

This is the perfect time to do it because  there is nothing on my calendar this week, except working at Logos on Thursday.

So this is what I will be doing for the next few days -- trying to find a way to make this office more efficient. a seemingly impossible task, but might as well give it the old college try.