It's an unexpected day off for me today after hurrying around to clean the glass on my SUV at the gas station last night and tripping over the hose in the tank. It was a slow-motion unceremonious toppling over that wrenched one ankle and this morning I can also feel it in that hip and in the opposite knee. I have a very long walk from my car to my building at work and didn't want to get half-way there and find I couldn't walk further on it. Step just wrong and it really smarts, but I have plenty of low-impact declutter activities around here for today and the weekend.

Charmion, I weed out extra old cables every so often and used to donate them to Goodwill, which has an e-waste recycling component to the company. These days I take expired devices and extra cables to work where we have a large rolling gray bin for e-waste, including batteries. The university has a contract with a company that collects this (bins in several buildings, I lobbied hard to get one in my building!), including things we bring in from home, and the company refurbishes and reuses things that can be fixed. The rest is stripped and recycled as wire, plastic, glass, etc. I took in a lot of VHS tapes, but now I find that people still buy even the used ones as "blanks" on eBay. And many of the small cables and devices - sell them as working, or for repair or parts. I can even illustrate why those old bits are sold there:

Last week my dozen-year-old HP laserjet printer was acting up, and I printed the self-diagnostic sheet. I never look at those, but this time I skimmed the list and realized this printer has a DIMM slot that I'd never put any memory in. Typically if I print something like a PDF or article with photos it takes it a minute of humming before the output between each sheet. I found the right card on eBay for $6.64, including shipping. New, sealed in it's anti-static container. This little 64MB SDRAM card is not the largest available, but it will considerably speed up any printing I do. As long as there are people like me keeping old devices up and running, we will need parts for them.

Dorothy, I also love those out-door chores, as long is it isn't so cold or windy that my eyes do nothing but tear up and make my face chapped. A northern climate in winter would be difficult for me these days. I don't remember if I mentioned recently trimming out all of last year's asparagus shoots, but the garden looks tidier and I'll be able to spot the new ones as they emerge. There's more to do out there but I typically use my right foot on the shovel or spade fork and that's the ankle I twisted, so that will wait a few days.