Dealing with Paperwork

In a recent post, I mentioned how we have tried to reduce our possessions. I want to continue that line of thought.

When I became my father's caretaker, I also inherited all of his and my mother's paperwork. I wouldn't necessarily call them hoarders, but I would say that they did not throw much away as regards paperwork. There were business documents in their files that went back to my birth. It fell to me to go through each file -- paper by paper -- and determine what needed to be kept and what needed to be destroyed. Almost all of it needed to be destroyed.

This process took literally months for me to accomplish. Of course, I was still working at the time; in addition, I was looking after Dad, and that required almost daily attention. But there was a lot of paperwork there, from old bank books from the 1950s to long ago forgotten insurance policies to even utility bills. And I had to look at each and every item.

It was about this time that I realized that I was more or less guilty of the same behavior, and I resolved to do something about it so that my daughter would not inherit a similar paperwork nightmare. My two recent moves have helped tremendously, for I have gone through all files and eliminated everything that was not relevant.

It is the other thing that I've done that I want to share with you. Actually, I have to give Donna credit, for it was her idea.

As mail arrives, I sort through, destroying most because most is junk mail. But bills and other legitimate items I place in a stack. Then once a week, I sit down at my desk and act on the mail (pay a bill, provide necessary information, or whatever is called for by legitimate mail). I then scan that mail.

I keep the original for 1 year (I'm not sure why I don't just destroy it at the moment), then destroy anything at least 1 year old. The scanned copy is renamed and moved to an appropriate folder on my computer. Each night, all data on my computer is automatically backed up, and the backup goes to an external hard drive. Now, if there was a fire, then all data would be lost since both the computer and the external drive are in the same location, but that would also be the case if I relied solely on paper files as I had in the past. So, we break even on that point. But, if the computer fails, then all my data is safe on my external hard drive.

Now all my paperwork is neatly stored in one space saving location. About once a year, I review my files and delete anything no longer necessary.

I used to have 2 two-drawer filing cabinets, plus 3 smaller ones, all crammed full of paper. We no longer have filing cabinets. The hard copies I retain for a year are filed in notebooks, all of which fit easily in a single box when moving; otherwise, they reside on a shelf in what we call our "computer room".

Of course, another thing that helps is that so much business can be conducted online these days. Bank statements, investment portfolio statements, utility bills, and other paperwork can be sent electronically, thereby eliminating the scanning step. All these advancements are certainly making life easier and more efficient.

Something else I do to reduce the amount of paper we have is to download manuals for anything we purchase. Rather than try to keep up with the bulky user's manual for a refrigerator or lawn mower or drill -- or whatever you buy -- just download the manual. I've found very few manuals that weren't available online. Once I do download the manual and ensure it is identical to the one that came packaged with the product, I then discard the original manual (recycling, if possible, of course). Boy, has that not only saved space, but also the aggravation of finding the manual when I need it.

Counting the Days

We have just over a week more before we hit the road. It's been quite busy here.

We secured a storage facility for our household goods, and for the past 2 weeks or so, we've been taking various items over there. Almost all of the boxes are there now and several pieces of furniture. Donna has emptied the kitchen except for what we need for the last few days we are here. Besides some bedroom furniture and some living room furniture, there isn't much left in the house.

We are having a garage sale Saturday, July 14. I hope everything sells, for I don't want any of that stuff. I really believe that less is better.

Another thing I've come to believe is that I'm tired of yard work. I've always enjoyed working with plants. Donna and I have had gardens since the first years of our marriage. But since we've retired, I've come to believe that gardens -- and yards -- tie you down. To have a nice yard, you really need to mow weekly whether the yard needs it or not. Plants and grass have to be watered, weeds have to be pulled, fertilizer needs to be applied, bushes need to be trimmed, and the list goes on and on. I'd rather be playing. If I ever live in a house again, it will probably be a small garden or patio home with a very small yard. So, I'm selling all my yard and gardening tools in the garage sale, some I've had from the early days of our marriage.

We donated several boxes of books to local charities. I had hauled some of these books around since my college days thinking that someday I would read them again. We tend to cling to these things, perhaps out of sentimentality. We really need to just let go. If I want to read one of those books, I'll just go to our local library or download the book to my Kindle. Since many of the old books I had were classical literature, many of them are available free somewhere on the Internet.

Really about the only things I am keeping are things relating to my family history, like the Cameron family Bible, family medals and awards, and other things that just can't be replaced. I hope they will mean something to my descendants one day, but that may be a pipe dream. They mean something to me, though, so I'm still lugging them around.

So, we have drastically scaled down our possessions, and it feels very, very good. I like being "lean and mean" so to speak. As I've said before on this blog, you don't own possessions, they own you.

I'm always amazed at the things we continue to lug around. This morning, for example, I came across a shoe box of old check books going back at least 10 years. Why am I still carrying these around? So, I spent a little time and shredded all of them. That's one less shoe box I have to worry about in the future.

So, the house is just about cleaned out. We'll wait for next Saturday to arrive. My son-in-law is coming down to help me move the heavy items to the storage room. The storage facility has a trailer for use by occupants, and I figure that at most it will take 2 loads on the trailer. After that, we just wait for the closing on Monday, and then we head on down the road looking for some fun.

Check Out the Web Site

As we wind down to our last days in San Angelo, I want to remind all my blog visitors to check out my website, Living the Good Life. You can always link to it from this blog by clicking on the link to the right.

I created the website as a way to better organize my interests and to share them with any visitors to the site. Whereas the blog is a good way to keep up with us on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis, you can view items by groupings on the website.

For example, I'm currently developing a page on the website called "RV Corner". If you are interested in the RV lifestyle, then you can find various articles related to RV travel grouped together there. I've only recently started this page, though, so I have only a few articles posted at this time. I'm currently focusing on some of the mechanics of RVing, such as what is involved with setting up an RV at a campground and what you must do when preparing to leave a campground.

If you enjoy reading about our hikes, you can find all of that information grouped together on the "Hiking" page. Although many of the hikes are actually taken from the blog, there are many more hikes we've enjoyed over the years that I've posted in other formats. At some point, I'd like to format all the hikes in a similar fashion. But that is not a priority at this time.

If you are more interested in travel in general, then check out "Travels with Donna and Keith." As with hiking, many of these entries are simply links to blog articles. They focus on the places we have visited, such as museums, historic sites, and other places of interest.

Another section that I've just added is "Good Eats." This section is basically a review of places we eat along the road. I don't claim to be a restaurant critic, but I can at least describe a place and tell you what's on the menu. All of the reviews in this section are simply blog entries I link to.

There are a couple of other categories as well, but those listed above are probably what most visitors to the site would be interested in.

I invite you to visit often, and I hope you enjoy what you find.

Diet Update

Not much to report on my diet.

After losing more than 25 pounds, I've more or less leveled off for the time being. We've had company off and on for the past 2 weeks or so, and that has gotten me out of my routine. For me to diet effectively, I need a routine. Instead, we've eaten out at places we normally would not eat, and we've cooked meals we normally would not cook while dieting.

But I'm pretty satisfied, because I haven't gained any weight -- I'm just holding steady. Part of this is because I've continued to exercise. I try to walk 3 miles at least 3 times a week. And I've started interspersing some short jogs into my walks. I started off with one good 100 yard jog at the end of my walk, and now I'm jogging at least 6 times during the walk. I don't want to push this too much; after all, I'm no spring chicken. I hope to soon work up to jogging about quarter mile and then half mile intervals and extending my distance from 3 miles to 4 or 5 miles. As we begin to travel soon, this may get difficult. Since we will be in different places every few days or so, it may be difficult for me to find a good place to exercise. I know the route here at home, and I'm comfortable with it. I know exactly how far it is. But when we are in a state park or commercial RV park, judging distances will be a bit more difficult.

I used to jog almost daily until I began working at Region 18 ESC in Midland in the late 90s, and I enjoyed the energy boost it would give me for the rest of the day. I'm beginning to get that pep back. Since we will soon be doing some good hiking, I need that extra energy. Overall, I'm just feeling so much better, and I've not experienced any real back pain since the weight loss began in early May.

We have about 2 weeks until we close on our house. We have a list of places we want to eat just one last time before we leave San Angelo behind, so I may not lose any more weight until we get on the road. But when we move into our trailer full time, you can bet we'll be bringing those scales with us. I still have a few more pounds I want to lose.

Good Eats: Zenter's Daughter, San Angelo, Texas

Zentner's Daughter is a well-known steakhouse in West Texas, famous for its garlic-flavored sirloins. In fact, the Zentner family has operated numerous restaurants in the area.

John Zentner opened the Lowake Inn in 1946 in the small community of Lowake, about half an hour east of San Angelo. Prior to that, he had cooked in his father's meat market and for the cavalry. You may recall an earlier entry on this blog about the Lowake Steak House. Betty, John Zentner's daughter, opened Zentner's Daughter restaurant in San Angelo in 1974, and she and her husband continue to operate it today.

On a recent Sunday, Donna and I were craving a good steak, so we visited Zenter's Daughter. It just so happens that they run a special on Sunday that we simply couldn't resist. The Sunday Fest is a wonderful deal for $12.95. You get your choice of shrimp, sirloin, or chicken, or your choice of any two of these. In addition, you get soup or salad, vegetable, potato, dessert, and your choice of either tea or coffee.

Both of us opted for the sirloin, and we were surprised at the size and thickness of the steak. Each of us were served 2 large portions of perfectly cooked sirloin, each piece probably weighing close to half a pound. The salads were good and were served with Zentner's own croutons, which are a wonderful snack by themselves. The potato was perfect, dessert was tasty, and service was excellent.

We close on our house on Monday, July 23. The day before, we plan to enjoy our last San Angelo meal at Zentner's Daughter. I think you know what we will order.

Love of the West

I've always had a love affair with maps.

One of my favorite parts of a trip is planning the trip. I can read a map like other people read a novel. I'm aware of every mark on a map and what it represents. As I plan a trip, I can visualize what is down each road, and I get excited.

As a child, one of my favorite books was the Texas Almanac, which was published every other year. I loved the section that provided information on Texas county by county, including a small map of each county. I devoured that information: population of the communities in a county, major businesses, agricultural production, and various other related information.

I would spread  a Texas road map on the floor and pore over it from east to west, from north to south. My favorite area was the west, especially the area starting with the Hill Country and moving to the Davis Mountains and Big Bend Country. This was fueled, no doubt, by my love affair with westerns. Towns in that area had a romantic sound to them: Sonora, Eldorado, Del Rio, Pecos. I heard those same names on the Saturday morning westerns I'd watch on our black and white TV set.

So, once I completed my college work, it was no surprise to my parents when Donna and I moved west. I knew that as an educator, I'd never make much money, but I knew that I could travel the state as a teacher, moving from teaching job to teaching job. And I've pretty much done that, from Olton in the northwest corner of the state to Ozona in the southwest corner.

I do love West Texas.

I love those wide open spaces and that big sky. In the morning and evening, sitting out is so much more pleasant than in the humid east, and even during the hottest part of the day you can sit out if you can find some shade and a breeze -- and there is almost always a breeze in West Texas.

People who simply pass through West Texas often don't care for it. They say it is only desert and that there is nothing to look at.

I disagree.

If you know where to look and what to look for, there is plenty to see here. And I'm not just talking about what you can physically see -- I'm also talking about what you can visualize if you know anything about the history of this area. It's a rich and exciting country, and one worth spending a little time in.

That Restless Spirit

Donna and I are cursed with a restless spirit. We just can't seem to stay in one place very long.

Fortunately, our daughter, Courtney, does not seem to have inherited that restlessness from us. She and her husband Michael (and our grandson Alexander) live in Michael's hometown surrounded by Michael's family. They seem quite content there, and I'm happy for them. I think they will be there for years to come.

Donna and I, on the other hand, seem condemned to wander from place to place every few years. But we've seen a lot of the world that way.

My father was an educator, and as he climbed the ranks from classroom teacher to principal to superintendent, we moved around. So, I spent much of my childhood roaming among small towns of central and eastern Texas (Fairfield, Mexia, Rosebud, Elgin, and back to Fairfield). I guess I can blame Dad for my restless spirit.

After graduating high school, I attended Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. I loved it there so much that I stayed on for an additional 2 years as an assistant instructor while working on my Master's. If SHSU had offered a doctorate in my field, I probably would have found some way to stay on a bit longer. It was in Huntsville that Donna and I met and married. Once I had my MA degree in hand, Donna and I headed to far West Texas, out past Lubbock, to the small town of Olton where I began my teaching career in earnest. We often blame that move for the start of our restlessness. While in Huntsville (Sam Houston), we were near both our families and we were content, but once we moved, we seemed to just keep on moving.

Over the years, we've gone from Olton to Saudi Arabia, to Wellman, Texas (near Lubbock), back to Saudi Arabia, to Jacksonville, Texas (near Tyler), to Ozona, Texas, (near San Angelo) to Midland, Texas, to Longview and Kilgore Texas, and back to West Texas once again to San Angelo. We seem to keep criss-crossing the state. Now we're pulling up stakes again, and we have that old excitement we had when we were just two young kids venturing out to the unknown.

I'm not sure what we're looking for. We take something from each place we live. Doing so really makes it harder to find a place to settle. When we go to East Texas, we find ourselves missing the big sky, wide open spaces, and low humidity of West Texas. When we're in West Texas, we find ourselves missing the colors of fall and spring that East Texas enjoys, as well as those drenching rains. Wherever we are, we find ourselves longing for something we've enjoyed some other place. The grass always seems greener on the other side of that fence, you know.

I don't know if we will ever be happy in one place. We may wander this planet until we drop dead from old age or exhaustion. The trip so far surely has been great, though.