Medical crisis in the family

I haven't posted for awhile because my spouse needs to have heart bypass surgery. Needless to say I'm rather distracted from my usual interests. Once the surgery and initial recovery is over I'll be back. Until then stay healthy.

Book: Space for Living

Well the relatives have left and I'm getting back to my old habits, like posting to this blog.

Here's a book I'm perusing today:

Space for Living: How to Create Multifunctional Rooms for Today's Homes.
by Liz Bauwens and Alexandra Campbell. Clarkson Potter Publishers, 1999. ISBN: 0-609-89899-x. It's books like this that can make you realize how much more you could do with your home.

Unhealthly furniture

I really don't like to read that even my furniture could be bad for me. Fortunately most of our upholstered furniture is new enough that harmful vapors probably are not an issue. But maybe I'll dust more.

Good advice if somewhat unwelcome. Protecting Yourself from Your Furniture

Under-Stair Storage Space

Pictures can really help you visualize an idea, so take a look at this post by Dornob, 10 Clever Under-Stair Storage Space Ideas & Solutions. Stairs can be real space hogs, but done right they can become a valuable storage area.

Myplace Laptop Table Notebook Workstation

I bought one of these back awhile ago and I have to say I like it. The Myplace Laptop Table Notebook Workstation is a pretty handy little lap table that you can use in bed or elsewhere. It folds flat (one of my requirements), has legs that can fold down for two different heights, which I've not seen on any other lap table. And it's actually wide enough that you don't have to be model thin to use it! There are two separate surfaces that can be tilted up or down as needed. The smaller one on the right has a built-in mouse pad. Over on the left side there's a small LED light that's flexible so it can be moved to where you want it (however you will not get lots of light from it). The larger surface has a lip on the bottom edge so that books (or netbooks) won't slide off.

It's an "As seen on television" advertised product so there are multiple places to buy them. Finally,, and most importantly it stores easily under a bed, chair, or in any other cubbyhole.

If you like working in bed, on the couch, or you're wanting to sit in a particular large comfy chair this is one solution. For me it means being in the same room as my spouse and thus a bit more sociable.

Slick space-saving desk design

I may have mentioned this before but I really like the Dornop site. They cover the design world and post blogs daily with lots of images to illustrate their points. Not everything they cover is related to my area of interest but one post that caught my eye is the Space-Saving Furniture: Home Office Desk & Storage Idea

Going paperless

The paperless office was a much predicted and totally unrealized forecast in the early days of digital. Ironically it appears that computers have resulted in offices (both work and home) having even MORE paper. But as individuals we can cut our paper usage and storage down. Several sites offer solid advice for accomplishing this. The first, and one of my favorite sites on the web, is Lifehacker, and their article, The Complete Guide to Going Paperless is spot on with great advice. I found one user's comments about electronic notary intriguing, I will have to read up on that one later. But as you can tell from other users' comments everyone has a different comfort level that has to be met.

I'm betting you can probably find some files, articles, clippings, etc. that could be scanned and utilized better if they were in electronic form. I challenge you to pick one you think would be more convenient if only it were digital and give scanning and storing it on your computer a serious try.

Mine is going to be all those dratted insurance claims sent to me by my health insurance. They often have multiple appointments, patients, and doctors listed making it impossible to sort properly. They end up in one file folder and stay there. I don't need to save the paper copies but do need to check dates, which doctor, and what's owed occasionally. I could create a word or excel list of the claims, list the basic information (date, doctor, what it was for, and for whom) and insert a link to the related electronic copy. That would not save trees but would free up some file cabinet space.

Even better I could check with my insurance company to see if they could email my claim receipts so that I wouldn't need to scan them myself. That would save trees and time.

Note: I since checked my insurance company's web site and they don't appear to offer electronic delivery by email. I can access my records (in a different form and layout) online but only back about a year or so. Which is probably all one needs. But I think I will call them and suggest this as an option. They'd even save postage, and what company doesn't want to save money?

Other related articles and sites:

• Seven Strategies for Going Paperless - check out the rest of their blog, A Small Notebook for a Small Home. It focuses on simplifying one's life and home and has some great ideas.


• Six tips for going paperless

And naturally there is a possible downside to going paperless, see this interesting article at Going Green: Going paperless has its costs