New Thing #346--Towering

Thursday was the final day for my tutoring center. Although I had been bringing home extra supplies for a week or so, there was still quite a bit to move. At the end of the day, the students helped me load everything into my car before they left. When I got home, I brought it into the house and put all the boxes in a corner of the dining room.

Today's job was to organize the crates so I could take them all down to the basement. First, I took out the things that belonged to me and returned them to their correct place in the house. Next, I grouped the books by category and organized them in crates, and put all the office supplies in a box. The last activity was to take care of all the paper that had accumulated over the last three years. Most of it (student records and completed tests) needed to be shredded before I could dispose of it.

Scolding myself for leaving all of the shredding till the end, instead of taking care of it as I went along, I got out the shredder, set it on the island in the kitchen, and started on the task. Within minutes I had filled the shredder bin, an office wastebasket, with strips of paper. I emptied the strips into a bag and kept going. Soon I had filled every bag in the pantry, and I started stuffing the shreds into folders that were also being recycled. I filled one milk crate with paper-laden folders, then a second, followed by a third. The job took several hours, and every empty milk crate I had!

When I was done, there were paper strips strewn all around the kitchen. Milk crates and bags littered the floor. I swept the floor and threw all the stray shreds into an open bag before I closed it up. The last part of the project involved taking my handiwork to the paper recycling bin at our local elementary school. Before I put the paper in the car, I stacked it all up to see how much there was. Much to my surprise, today I made a tower of shredded paper taller than me.

The tower of paper was tall, but not heavy at all. I was able to take it out to the car in two trips. When I got to the paper recycling bin, I opened the lid, threw the bags of shreds in, and dumped the milk crates. It took all afternoon to create the shreds, but only a few minutes to dispose of them.