Unblocking the pipes and oiling the cogs.

May has all but passed me by and what have I been doing? Hmm, wish I could say I have been in lock down writing up a storm, but in fact, I have to admit I have been otherwise occupied. All the same, I have been in my study for most of the time busy with things. There comes a time when you have to unblock the pipes, oil the cogs and make the creative environment...well creative again. To enable this I had to attack my appalling filing system, and win the battle of the computer vs. spam infiltration, and find my desk beneath the piles of creative mess in progress. Some it seemed was mine, a large pile of paper seemed to be missing school notes (aha there they are!), yr 12 assignment drafts from my youngest son and strange coded sheets of my eldest son's Software engineering assignments that had misprinted.  Unwanted paperwork was torn and shredded, vital work placed into folders and organised into book boxes, school work returned to owner, and desktop cleared.

My second task was to back up my computer before it was wiped. A big job when you are not brilliant at all things technical and the 'brilliant one' you need, has a heavy load at Uni and works as a Business Analyst in a Government depart 17 hrs a week and has no time to help his mother.

However, with the help of Google I found answers to my problems and found out how to do the things I needed to do with saving/exporting files and emails. Complications arose as my not-so-old (but well out of warranty) widescreen monitor decided to pack it in at the same time! One minute I would be in the middle of a crucial act- then the screen would suddenly go blank... so I'd have to wait for the screen to return to normal and then continue. It was time consuming and frustrating! Eventually I had to resort to using my old square monitor- Arrgh, how horrid,  it was the wrong shape.
By last week I saved all I needed (and saved the family folders too- although they all own computers/laptops/Ipads etc as do I, my computer is the hot spot). D day arrived and I wiped the computer,  and bought a new monitor. Installing all my folders and components back to the computer was a big job. Not content with importing the folders as they were, I decided to rejig everything. I  created basic folders and combined all the relative folders within. I moved all my pictures into folders defined by the year they were taken and VOILA  I have created a more orderly look to the various folders and my messy filing system is under better control. 
Once I had installed my new Samsung monitor with its 24" screen on the desk, I was back in business. 

My focus in getting my work place organised has been partly due to the 10 week writing challenge I started 6 weeks ago. Although not monitored or regulated,  any goals I have set for myself  during this period are all self achieving. Family needs always work against the flow but I have somehow followed through on my to-do list and I am making progress.





I added some fun to the study with wordart





This is my funky hand I sit in to read over my work!