Tag Archives: household organization

Random Thoughts from a Cluttered Mind

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Recently I had a mad cleaning fit and finally — finally! — took on my home-office space. Although I think I’m a fairly organized person, the stacks of magazines and piles of papers and random notes stuck everywhere (I hope “Snd by 4:30 Tuesday” wasn’t important because I have no idea what I was supposed to “snd” or to where) said otherwise. Inspired to do better, I cleaned and filed and recycled and threw away and ended up with such a clutter-free work space that I know it will take me only a few days to mess it up again I’m feeling back in control. So why not do the same thing to my brain? We all have these unfettered half-finished thoughts and lists and ideas sort of floating around — you know, the things that keep you up at 2 a.m. because you simply CANNOT GET THEM OUT OF YOUR HEAD. If you can declutter your desk, why not declutter your mind? So here are some of my thoughts that are just lying around taking up valuable space. Who knows what I could accomplish without them in the way — finish start my novel, clean out the refrigerator, take a nap? The possibilities are endless!

  • We early-to-bed and early-to-rise folks do not like springing forward into Daylight Saving Time, with its dark mornings and its sunshiny evenings. Bleh! Of course, it does feel as if you have more time to go clothes shopping after work to get home and pull weeds, so that’s a good thing.
  • I never have to complete this sentence when talking to a fellow female about why I can’t go to the movie and sit still for two hours: “You know I had that major sinus infection for six weeks and then I finally went to the doctor and got some high-powered antibiotics that worked great, except that now …”
  • I don’t know why I cannot look away from “Celebrity Apprentice.” Has Donald Trump’s hair somehow hypnotized me? Scary stuff.
  • The baby-switching at the end of “Downton Abbey’s” final episode still bugs me. From one frame to the next, Lady Mary went from holding a “newborn” with fluffy reddish hair to one with slicked-back black hair. What does this mean? Did the producers think we wouldn’t notice? Or when season four starts and we’ve jumped ahead 10 years but nobody’s changed except for this strange child who DOESN’T LOOK LIKE ANYBODY ELSE, will somebody remember that Lady Mary blacked out for a bit after childbirth and nobody was with there with her for a few minutes and maybe SOMETHING HAPPENED???
  • I hope colored jeans are still in style this spring because I picked up several pairs last year and if everybody else is back in classic blue denim and I’m bopping around in turquoise and lime green and bright red … well, it won’t be pretty. Literally.
  • Speaking of babies — and this is a good thought I don’t want to get rid of — seems as if everybody’s having them. In the past few months,  my brother & sister-in-law had their second, a girl named Harper (love, love, love that name); several friends welcomed new grandchildren; and almost everybody I talk to is hosting or attending a baby shower. More, please.

Ah, I feel much better now. Thanks for helping with my decluttering project. Sadly, I already can feel those empty brain spaces filling up, much like my clean desk seemed instantly to sprout new stacks of staff. So come back soon for my next data download. Who knows what’s in there?

How To Move, or Has Anybody Seen My Mixer?

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What I’ve learned about moving:

1) You must have friends who will help you. You cannot do this by yourself. And I’m not talking about the help you needed when you moved in your 20s and you rounded up your brother and his friends and other random males and fed them beer and pizza to move your couch. We’re way beyond that at this point. Because even though my husband and I are now mature grownups who can pay the professionals (who are still 20-something-year-old males, by the way) to do the heavy lifting, you still need friends. Friends to tell you to ditch the box of cross-stitch patterns you’ve carted around for years because you WILL do them someday. Friends to make you face up to the fact that you have eight wooden toast tongs, three cheese graters and a whole drawer full of kitchen gadgets you cannot identify. Friends who make you question if you’ll ever really wear that silver lame dress. If you don’t have friends like that, get some before you move. You’re welcome.

2) You must have a husband who is kind and patient and understanding, even when the contents of the storage pod everybody forgot about are unloaded in your new garage and you’re left with 25 — count ’em, 25 — plastic boxes of undetermined origin. You need a husband who simply sighs and smiles and clears out some more space. If you don’t ‘have a husband like that, get one before you move. You’re doubly welcome.

3) And, finally, you must have a sense of humor, a tendency toward flexibility and an unflappable sense of balance that is not thrown off when you can’t find your earrings, your hair dryer, any matching pair of shoes or your big Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I can understand how the earrings and hair dryer and shoes might be lurking in boxes somewhere, but I’m really baffled by the disappearance of the mixer. Stay tuned …

Books and Other Random Thoughts

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You all are so sweet to wade through my jumbled and scattered thoughts here in Bloggy World. You have no idea how much I appreciate that. But you’ll be happy to know that I can manage to string together some coherent sentences and actually get them in print — really, I can!!! Here’s proof:

You know the economy has tanked and everybody’s scrimping and saving wherever they can, right? You know folks are cutting back and slashing expenses, right? And you know that the book-publishing industry — like music and movies — is suffering. Then you’ll be as surprised as I was when you find out that there’s one category of books that’s seen an incredible increase in sales. And it’s no wonder — I’ll bet you’re like me and cannot wander past that section in your local bookstore without stopping and checking it out.

And you know what they say when you first start trying to sell your house: Your No. 1 top-priority chore is to declutter. But be careful, because sometimes you end up with more stuff than when you started!

Speaking of family efficiency, how are you at packing? I thought I was pretty good. I had a system based on my method of household organization and it worked for years … until I out-organized myself.