One Project Down...

Whew, just finished reorganizing my horse files. It sure is nice to get both the floor space and headspace back! By the way, does anybody need a box of my duplicate ephemera?

($15 plus Media Mail postage for a single, six-pound box. Not all of it shown/visible, obviously. Shoot me an e-mail if you are interested.)

A lot of my “new” material turned out to be stuff I already had: since a significant portion of the paper I’ve picked up over the past year was other people’s unsorted slush piles, that was not a huge shock.

Those slush piles are worth the risk, though, because (a) I really do love the whole process of sorting and filing, and (b) sometimes wonderful things show up, like diamonds in the dirt:

(I will give you all a moment here to hyperventilate.)

Also, I don’t have everything – I really need to catch up on the most recent ephemera, for one thing – but sometimes it feels like I do. Going through these slush piles reminds me of just how much I don’t have yet.

On the plus side, it looks like I won’t be needing as much in new filing and storage supplies as I thought – just a couple more flat file boxes, two more binders, and (as always) more sheet protectors.

I do need to do some labeling and indexing, and there’s a separate collection of materials that I need to handle a bit differently, but for the most part I’m now ready to catch up on my research and update my electronic “quick reference” files.

When those are done, then maybe I can finally get going on that grand dream of a comprehensive online Breyer reference guide – something that goes beyond just the basic names, dates and numbers.

But that is a long way off, and I have a few more pressing projects to take care of in the meantime.

One of those projects involves digitizing some of my more requested materials, like Marney’s photo albums of Test Colors, auction price lists, correspondence (the letter from Wild Horse Annie to Marguerite Henry, talking about Hobo, is a treasure I want to share with everybody!), Model Horse Congress fliers and show results, stuff like that.

I doubt I’ll get that done before BreyerFest this year, but it’s definitely on my docket.

First come the tax returns. Then finish the paperwork for all of my “new” arrivals (i.e. last year’s keepers). Then finish at least a dozen of my larger quilting projects. Then all of the usual BreyerFest prep.

Yikes. No wonder I slept in so long today!