Thursday, July 31, 2008

Time to Harvest and Preserve

What day is this? Where does the time go?

I woke up this morning thinking about what day it was and realized then that I hadn't blogged yesterday.

Just yesterday, Mary B. and I were discussing how the older and the busier we get with more responsibility we have, the more likely we are to forget things we used to recall easily. Sad reality of how our brain can only hold so much before it starts to chuck the lesser used memories.

At home the harvest has begun, so I leave a full day of work and have a full evening of garden and yard work. The zucchini are stacking up, the beans need picked and snapped, and the blackberries could be a bumper crop. I hope to make jam on Saturday since I still have blackberries in the freezer from last year that didn't get used up in smoothies and desserts. Where should I put all this bounty?

With summer work, I haven't had time to clean house or finish a paint job, and last night I was stuffing scraps of paper into a notebook for organizing "someday." Those scraps hold story ideas and research nuggets that I may use someday. I have multiple notebooks like that and several document files on the computer with similar notes.

So, as the information piles up in our brains and in our physical clutter, how do we manage to keep it all organized and preserved? I don't have the answer here. Anyone got a way to keep all that seemingly useful information well cataloged for future use?

3 comments:

Mary Connealy said...

You know how 'they' always say we're only using ten percent of our brains.

I don't think so.

I think I'm going flat out.

I physically felt my brain overflow in February 1987 and ever since then, if I need to memorize something??? I have to forget something old first.

If I could somehow just forget the Greek alphabet I memorized in college (no, I wasn't in a sorority, but a friend was) I might be able to remember my own cell phone number.

Mary Connealy said...

I have a true HORROR of forgetting important things. I am AWFUL about that.

I almost forgot a book signing one time. I remembered in plenty of time but when I saw an email I'd sent to myself it was like a bolt of electricity zapping me, I mean the fear, the regret, the awful feeling of failing at something that important. GOD HAVE MERCY.

I created a yahoo group with only myself for a member. I use that calendar obsessively to record any appointments of anything, books due, payroll due, birthdays, EVERYTHING, then it sends me reminder emails.

I'd be in such deep trouble without it.

Lynette Sowell said...

oooh! Blackberries...yum!!

I use a lot of folders, real and on the computer. :) That way I always have a story idea...somewhere. If I can find it!