Tag: decluttering

Sheet Music on the iPad

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X-T10, 35mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec, ISO2500
 “Sheet Music” Cedar Park, 2025

I’ve started using my iPad for reading sheet music, and it has cleared so much clutter off my desk. It feels great to have fewer loose papers sitting around. When I am learning a brand-new song, I still like having a paper copy because it is easier to mark things up and see everything at a glance. But when I want to revisit an older song and refresh my memory on a section, the iPad is perfect.

I keep all my sheet music as PDFs in a OneDrive folder, and I can open them from any of my devices. I manage everything from my MacBook, and it works really well. It would be even nicer if I could create a direct shortcut to my Sheet Music folder in OneDrive, but for now the setup is still very convenient.

Paring Down the Pens

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X-T10, 35mm, f/5.6, 1/100 sec, ISO1600
 “Pen Holder” Cedar Park, 2023

My pen collection is getting smaller as I look to see what I haven’t used and will probably never use. I have gotten some as gifts or just picked them up in random places, which is not good for someone who wants to declutter. I need to get better at this. 😁

Delete and Destroy

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X-T10, 35mm, f/2, 1/100 sec, ISO1250
 “Scratched” Cedar Park, 2023

As part of our decluttering journey, I am finally disposing of several old, broken hard drives. I wasn’t sure how to prepare them for recycling, but thanks to YouTube, I discovered that scratching the platters is a good way to ensure that the data would be difficult to retrieve. And even if it was retrieved, it’s probably of no use to anyone. But, better safe than sorry!

Ready for recycling. ♻

Hurdle Cleared

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Photo info: OLYMPUS E-PL9, 9mm, f/4.5, 1/80 sec, ISO200
 “Breakdown” Cedar Park, 2023

I’ve started to seriously declutter our garage, and one of the big hurdles has been cleared. Several years ago we bought a massage chair, and it was delivered on a large wooden palette. And that palette has been leaning on the wall in our garage ever since. But today I took the sledge hammer, crowbar, and circular saw to it and slayed the beast! Its bones are now in a pile waiting to be dumped into next weeks garbage bin. This accomplishment paves the way for the easier tasks (and also gives us more space in the garage. I wish I did it earlier!

My Go-To Pens

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X-E4, 27mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO1250
 “Fountain Pens” Cedar Park, 2022

On the right side of the photo are my three go-to pens, including my newest pen, the Pearl White Pilot Cavalier. I love it so much! It writes smoothly, is slim yet comfortable, and the color is beautiful.

On the left side of the notebook are a bunch of disassembled pens which I just cleaned and will give away. Most are inexpensive Jinhao pens which are fine, but they just don’t spark joy for me. The Sailor Fude (gold) is one that I may keep because the nib is unique in my collection, but the rest I will be saying goodbye to. Thank you for your service!