The Organizing Journey Day 11

Day 11 – I Wasn’t Even Home

Got up.  Mowed in the orchard, showered, then took Mom out shopping.  Got home and left again right away to a friend’s house for a couple hours of r&r (maybe I was making up for working on my birthday).  I’m home now and it’s 5pm.  I can either cave to exhaustion or push through it and get some organizing done.

In light of how little organizing I’ve been doing lately, I think the latter is in order.

Where to start?   I’m frozen in indecision.  The magnitude of the project is overwhelming.  Back to “the clock” method, I guess.  Now I see why I do it that way (see blog post #1 for description).  It’s like baby steps. 

My apologies for having nothing interesting to show today.  I ended up caving to exhaustion (and there is a new episode of Broadchurch!). 

But I should be home most of tomorrow so will get something done (aside from making the lemon zucchini cake I’m planning for dessert).  This is so embarrassing (an organizing blog post without any organizing) that it will motivate me to really accomplish something tomorrow.  I look forward to it.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments and feedback.  It’s great hearing from you all and finding out that I’m not alone in this journey.  :-)  Share your tips, tricks, ideas and experiences too, in the comments section.

To see the beginning of this journey, click here.

The Organizing Journey Day 10

Day 10 – Yeah, It’s My Birthday

Which means I don’t REALLY have to do anything fruitful today, right?

Up at 4:30am again (it seems to be habit now).  Had to clear stuff out of my studio without actually organizing any of it (teaching at 10am).

So I set up my “show” table in my bedroom (it’s about the size of 2 card tables together) and put the removed clutter there. 

That may actually work out well because I didn’t use up all the table so I may be able to DO a lot of my sorting right there ON the table.

Anyway, class was fun even though it wasn’t what we’d planned.  We made stacker ring sets.  Here are the rings they made.

And now a friend is coming over and we’re going to go out and have dinner.

I still haven’t done the dishes, but there aren’t really any more than before.  The only thing I’ve dirtied is a glass so there aren’t even any dishes on the counter, just in the sink (I can live with that for another day).

Tomorrow I will work on trying to stamp a skinny ring (a stacker, basically).  I haven’t had much success with that yet, but want to keep trying because a very patient person is waiting on me for it.

I’ll also mow in the orchard tomorrow.  Then I can spend the rest of the day organizing.  Yay!

Oh, I did do one thing today that may not be actual organizing but certainly counts toward improving my living conditions (which is the point of organizing to begin with, so I feel they’re related).  I finally installed an overhead light above my work table in the studio.  It’s not pretty, but it serves its purpose quite well.  (The photo was taken before I moved my table back into place… it actually IS over the table when in use.)

The light I got apparently stopped being sold the day after I purchased it (I was going to show you the link), but here’s one that’s similar but twice as long (mine is only 2 feet long).  Similar light.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments and feedback.  It’s great hearing from you all and finding out that I’m not alone in this journey.  :-)  Share your tips, tricks, ideas and experiences too, in the comments section.

To see the beginning of this journey, click here.

The Organizing Journey Day 9

Day 9 – Organizing Starts in the Head

Remember that thing where I worry about…. Everything?  Part of the reason that this morning I hand-delivered an order.  Do I like driving for two hours (round trip)?  No.  But my lack of enthusiasm for long drives is overshadowed by my fear that an important package with a lot of jewelry will get lost in the mail.  Insured or not.

Here’s where it was delivered…

When I got back I worked on projects for tomorrow’s class. 

I planned on doing the dishes when I got back from my delivery.  I know, I’m supposed to do them first thing in the morning, but I forgot and got dressed and I didn’t want to mess up my “outside world” clothes.  And then guess what?  Yep, you got it.  I never ended up doing the dishes.  To be fair, there were only four, but still.

Organizing, btw, isn’t always about running around putting things into storage bins.  Sometimes organizing happens in the head.  Doing mindless tasks (driving, showering, playing solitaire, etc) allows the brain to think about things in a different way.  Give yourself permission to take time with this tool. 

One of my “things” is going to be deciding between drawers and shelving.  I way prefer shelving (I’m an “it’s got to be in plain sight and easy to get to” kind of person), but I won’t be getting rid of all my drawer furniture just yet.  We’ll see though.  The only advantage to drawers is that I don’t have to find the wall studs and install rails.

With shelving, you also can go pretty high… and you can stay somewhat narrow.  It’s awfully hard to find drawer furniture that doesn’t stick out a full foot from the wall.  All that stuff makes the room smaller.  Drawers also tend to be too tall.  Why would I want a 6 inch drawer to things that are no taller than ½ to 1 inch?  Waste of space. 

There’s also a hybrid solution… open shelving furniture (like bookcases).  But again, those only go so high before they become dangerous.  But I’m only a bit over five feet tall anyway, so I don’t really need to worry too much about utilizing the upper regions of the wall space.

I have lots of these things (see below) and honestly I’d like to get rid of them (or at least relegate them to a seldom seen location like the garage or storage shed).

They are everything I don’t like in storage… they stick out too far from the wall and the drawers are too deep.  We won’t even get into aesthetics. 

I got so frustrated with what I was doing in the studio that I didn’t get ANYTHING else done the rest of the day.  That means I get up at 4am again and get back to work.  I’m teaching at 10am so at a minimum I’ll straighten out the studio. 

Oh, and tomorrow’s my birthday so fingers crossed for smooth sailing.  After class, my friend is going to take me out for dinner.  Yay! 

If you're wondering why I am still calling this the organizing journey, it's because I refuse to give up no matter how many distractions there are.  I have SO much stuff to get rid of and SO much stuff to put into proper places.  I'm really excited to dig my teeth into this.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments and feedback.  It’s great hearing from you all and finding out that I’m not alone in this journey.  :-)  Share your tips, tricks, ideas and experiences too, in the comments section.

To see the beginning of this journey, click here.

The Organizing Journey Day 8

Day 8 – Day Off

Got up early, as usual, and thought about the fact that I have hours of free time before my last component arrives, so I can spend that time organizing/cleaning the workroom.  But then I remembered I needed to do SRAJD work so here I sit two hours later, still doing that.  Oh well, it all needs to be done.  The fun will have to wait.

Finished breakfast and TOTALLY want to get into the workroom, but if I don’t wash this morning and last night’s dishes first, I’m setting a bad precedent.  If I *do* take care of the dishes, I’m working toward “daily cleaning” becoming a habit, which would be a good thing, rather than letting things build up to the point of massive cleaning.

Today I’m finishing the job for my local assembly woman’s office.  Also got a regular order out that sold from my Etsy shop over the weekend.  In the middle of dishes, I got a call from the senator’s office.  Another order coming in.  Yay!

So yesterday I told you about my label-maker.  Is one that fancy totally necessary?  No.  But sometimes we treat ourselves to make things more interesting.

Today while I was working in the studio, I needed to use my wooden dapping block.  In the uppermost recess I found three rubies.  See… THIS is why I need to clean and organize.  Ha ha ha!  Oh, I know exactly when I placed them there.  It was while I was doing an order in December.  Yes, you heard me right.  December!  I have stones all over the place.  Actually, as I sit here typing this, three rooms away from my studio, I’m looking directly at (‘cause they’re sitting right below my computer’s monitor) 12 absolutely gorgeous brecciated moukite jasper cabs.  They’ll probably still be there when I take the “before” photos of my bedroom (which is where my computer is).  We’ll see. 

Amazon just delivered another treat.  I don’t always have a water bottle that closes but if you saw the dust flying around my studio, you’d understand my trepidation about keeping an open glass of water in there.  I’m not a big water drinker, so I don’t need help discouraging me from drinking.  I was putting an index card on the top, but I have up to three fans going in the studio during the summer and lightweight things fly.

My solution was to order these lids that suction to teacups.  They’re perfect!  Wide enough to cover a glass of water and they actually do suction on so aren’t going to be sliding around or blowing off.  When you touch the little lip sticking out the suction is broken immediately.

So while I didn’t accomplish anything on the organizing front, I did manage to keep the kitchen and living room clean.  When my Amazon orders came in (two of them today), I opened the boxes, filed the invoices, put the items away, and put the cardboard boxes in my car to take to the recycling center.  Go me!

Thanks for all the wonderful comments and feedback.  It’s great hearing from you all and finding out that I’m not alone in this journey.  :-)  Share your tips, tricks, ideas and experiences too, in the comments section.

To see the beginning of this journey, click here.