BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Organization What did you Organize Today?

Dear Jilly -

I know there are emotionally laden reasons for the "white trash" label. I also would gently suggest that the phrase is derogatory and applying it to your own world hinders rather than helps. So while others might use it, mentally translate it into "cluttered" into your mind. Cluttered is not derogatory - it's simply a current state that can be worked on. If things currently look cluttered, then definitely they can be worked on to look more neat and tidy!

With all the branches down, it is very cluttered looking here. Plus we have the entire old shed's worth of steel in a pile in the corner. So we have to get that out to the recycling place. My sleep schedule is really wacky right now - I was asleep about 2pm I think, awake maybe 6pm? And have been awake since then. I am trying to get myself really sleepy so when I go up I actually fall asleep instead of tossing and turning. Which reminds me, I'll go make myself some tea right now. But in any case it means I'll probably sleep through daylight again. Hopefully I'll wake up with at least a few hours of sunlight to do the outdoor gathering work before it's dark. It needs to get done before the real snows come.

Today was mostly about schoolwork, I wanted to get it done early this week so I could focus on web work during the week itself.

Today I want to bring the books that are on the outside porch into the storage area of my house. They have gotten a bit wet from the storm and are looking curly and unhappy. I move so much that all my books get ruined eventually.

I also am hoping to get the rest of the steel and some more metal out from the lean to and set them up for a second recycling run.

Lisa, you know where the white trash thing is coming from. It keeps coming from that quarter and is always either mildly irritating or vastly upsetting. I am working on just being irritated/amused instead of discouraged.

My own POV is that it's all slowly getting tidied up and clean, and that I am in no hurry. It is healing like i am healing. I have to try to remember this in spite of the anxiety of not doing something on someone else's timeline. This is MY house.

I think you should get a nice little bit of money from your old shed. Someone recently dismantled an old bus in the woods around here, and got a thousand dollars from the metal.

Today I have been working on my desk/pantry area. Yes my desk is in the pantry. It's only 150 square feet in here and I have to grab a desk where there is room.

So my books and papers and binders are mixed in with nuts and top ramen and olive oil. I have to constantly weed stuff away from my desk or it piles high in a day. Every so often i just take everything out and decide what goes back in. I'm still in the middle of this process and hope to have it under wraps tomorrow.

Today i worked on pulling more weeds from the garden (almost done!), organizing the wood for the firepit, getting boxes of random stuff off the front porch, and clearing out more things from the lean-to.

Someday all this will be organized and pretty.

Dear Jilly -

That is great that you are making such progress. Celebrate those small steps!

I know it's challenging, but maybe there's a way to start thinking of it as pretty right now. It's pretty and in progress, and that's fine. Any house will always be in progress. There will always be things to do. And that's OK. It can still be pretty right now, in its own special way.

I'll put the white trash comment in the self esteem area since I think it's more along those lines than the organizational lines.

After spending most of this morning writing, I spent the afternoon organizing my storage room and throwing out a lot of my ex's junk! What a liberating day!

Dear Dianne -

That is fantastic! Good for you! I'm sure you feel much better about that room

Celebrate the victory!

Organizing is liberating! Hurray for you! And I am so glad you let things go that no longer served you. I know how good that can feel!

You sound like you are very self aware Jilly. Stay true to what your feel and know. Consistent slow action will result in lasting change. It the consistent part that is important. No need to rush the process. I am of the mindset that rushed never works, it's fleeting at best. Time spaced improvement is the best way to create and stick a new reality.

Today the fire department came and took our exercise bike, for use in their fire station. So we're helping them stay in shape! We also gave them a bunch of beanie baby toys for use in consoling kids who are traumatized. So two sets of things out of the house. Hurrah!

Bob also did a bunch of chainsawing of fallen trees from the Nor'Easter, so the lawn is in better shape.

We *still* have the steel from the shed out there. I don't like it out there, it is a big mess. I will give Bob a few more days and then I'll just call the Craigslist guy to come take it.

The big issue right now is my Dad is coming over for Thanksgiving dinner and the dining area is full of piles of garden stuff that needs to go into the shed. So we'll have to work on that tomorrow.