Out of the inbox
The Crazy Lenten Diet is not the only thing I do during Lent. It's just the most famous thing. I have several other Lent-related activities, one of which is going through my email. This is another thing I've done for a number of years, but this year I've made quite a bit of progress, likely in part to hardly sending emails any longer. Consider the person I'd email the most is Laura, and these days we're more likely to text than anything. Shock, I know. ;P Anyway, my goal each day I'm home (so roughly five days a week) is to move five emails each from my inbox and my sent folders into appropriate sorting folders. I have one for my high school friends, college friends, several jobs (I even created a folder for my receptionist job this week), camp, etc. Because there are more recent emails I'm not yet ready to move from my inbox, I've started dealing with the really old stuff. We're talking at least a decade ago--when I worked at the bookstore, when I was let go from my receptionist job (hence coming across emails from a few coworkers from that time), even someone from when I went back to school. It's been quite the blast from the past. There are a few I'm keeping for now because I want to be sure I write down information, like people's newer email addresses, the physical addresses for my mom's cousins, from when we were in touch with them when Papa was ill and then had passed away, that sort of thing.
The other thing I realized is that I was moving right along with plowing through both main folders. I'd told myself that once I reached 50 emails--two full pages--I'd let myself do three per day, not the full five. I got down to 50 in my sent folder tonight. Wow. That's really amazing. I'm still at 79 in my inbox, but that's really good and that goes just into a fourth page. The inbox is harder because people have sent me pictures and I'm debating about downloading them--or figuring out if I've already downloaded them--and what have you. But this project is also reminding me of people from my past, and wondering what some of them are up to. I have an email from my high school friend, Jessica. She was a freshman when I was a senior, so we didn't go to school together all that long, but she was part of the greater group and we were roommates on our music trip to Florida. She became a professional musician, a singer-songwriter, and I thought to Google her tonight. She's on Facebook, though she said she's more active on Instagram, and I discovered she's moved back to the States; she'd been living in the UK for a number of years. So that was pretty cool. The only thing I'm bummed about is that her Instagram looks to have a video of her performing "All of Me" by John Legend--one of my favorite songs--except I recently stopped being able to view Instagram videos because that's how degraded a version of Firefox I have, apparently. Bummer. I'll have to figure out a way to view that. She had Ed Sheeran's "Perfect" on her Facebook, though, and it was lovely. It's so weird to see her all done up, because she was pretty plain in high school; it's like, wow, she's all grown up and adult and stuff. And then there will be a picture of her wearing glasses and she looks like the little Jessica I knew back in the day, heh. (She was a very bright girl and had skipped a grade, so she was just 12 when she started high school. And I thought I was young for my class!) Gosh, it was nice to see her again, if only vicariously. The last time I think I saw her in person was probably around 2006 or so for a mutual friend wedding--she was a bridesmaid, I was a guest. (We knew both the bride and groom.) Anyway. This has been a nice trip down memory lane. It's also a reminder of how wordy I am, sheesh. :P
The other thing I realized is that I was moving right along with plowing through both main folders. I'd told myself that once I reached 50 emails--two full pages--I'd let myself do three per day, not the full five. I got down to 50 in my sent folder tonight. Wow. That's really amazing. I'm still at 79 in my inbox, but that's really good and that goes just into a fourth page. The inbox is harder because people have sent me pictures and I'm debating about downloading them--or figuring out if I've already downloaded them--and what have you. But this project is also reminding me of people from my past, and wondering what some of them are up to. I have an email from my high school friend, Jessica. She was a freshman when I was a senior, so we didn't go to school together all that long, but she was part of the greater group and we were roommates on our music trip to Florida. She became a professional musician, a singer-songwriter, and I thought to Google her tonight. She's on Facebook, though she said she's more active on Instagram, and I discovered she's moved back to the States; she'd been living in the UK for a number of years. So that was pretty cool. The only thing I'm bummed about is that her Instagram looks to have a video of her performing "All of Me" by John Legend--one of my favorite songs--except I recently stopped being able to view Instagram videos because that's how degraded a version of Firefox I have, apparently. Bummer. I'll have to figure out a way to view that. She had Ed Sheeran's "Perfect" on her Facebook, though, and it was lovely. It's so weird to see her all done up, because she was pretty plain in high school; it's like, wow, she's all grown up and adult and stuff. And then there will be a picture of her wearing glasses and she looks like the little Jessica I knew back in the day, heh. (She was a very bright girl and had skipped a grade, so she was just 12 when she started high school. And I thought I was young for my class!) Gosh, it was nice to see her again, if only vicariously. The last time I think I saw her in person was probably around 2006 or so for a mutual friend wedding--she was a bridesmaid, I was a guest. (We knew both the bride and groom.) Anyway. This has been a nice trip down memory lane. It's also a reminder of how wordy I am, sheesh. :P