Piles of files

Several weeks back, as I was going through my parents’ house in preparation for its sale, I realized that I came by some of my packrat tendencies honestly.  I’m not in any danger of having to create pathways in my home through stacks of newspaper and garbage as seen on the show Hoarders, but I do have several file cabinet drawers full of magazine and newspaper articles I’ve cut out over the years.

I’ve collected articles on vacation spots, recipes, party ideas, health and exercise, investment tips, and many other topics I find interesting.  I have them grouped by subject in file folders and every once-in-awhile, I actually look through them to find some information.

My father did much the same thing.  His topics may have differed from mine (it was a bit of an eye-opener to see what articles he choose to cut out and keep), but basically he had similar files full of articles that he kept for future reference. 

The big difference is that I live in the era of the Internet, he did not.   When I want to find more information on a place I’d like to visit, a recipe that uses egg yolks after I have a few left over from a recipe that used egg whites (key lime pie!), or how best to get a red wine stain out of the carpet, I just go online. 

Although I will probably keep some of the articles I’ve collected, I’m going to set aside some time soon to go through my file cabinet and purge most of these files.  I am much more likely to research the information online anyway and, frankly most of the articles are fairly old and probably out-of-date.  In addition, I don’t want someone to be cleaning out my house one day after I’m gone and laugh at the irony of me clipping out and filing all those articles about reducing clutter.