Issue 19 - November, 2000
by Diana Waring
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October 2000 Highly Irregular Newsletter Dear Friends, Greetings from the Black Hills of South Dakota, where the leaves no longer reside on trees but somewhat crunchily under foot. My last newsletter was written during our seven month sojourn to New Zealand. Unfortunately, our system for sending out newsletters was not operable, so we were several months late in delivering the news! You may have noticed that we are using listbot.com which allows this Highly Irregular Newsletter to become much more... well... regular. If you wish to unsubscribe or know of someone who would like to subscribe, please go to our subscribepage. On to this monthÕs topic: "On Becoming, ahem - gulp - OrganizedÓ. Sing: "Nobody knows the time I have lost (do, do, do)..." from being a charter member of the ÒOrganizationally Impaired.Ó Though I have written about this in the past, it has greater meaning and relevancy to me than ever before. I have never, EVER been accused of: ÒAn organized desk is the sign of a diseased mind.Ó If you have been, I laud you - enjoy the story of my stuggles! Have you ever had one of these days? You decide to treat your family to muffins for breakfast, but can not locate the muffin tins; your daughter asks you for a book about the Vikings, and you spend thirty minutes hunting high and low through all the bookshelves - with no success; you decide to calm down with a nice cup of tea - the wonderfully fragrant, loose jasmine tea that a Chinese friend gave you - but you can not find the tea ball; the dogÕs toenails are driving you crazy as they click, click, click along the floor and you are furiously SURE that those expensive dog-nail clippers were sitting in that box under the table; and the final straw - you decide to add more cush to your pillows-on-the-bed systemwith that extra pillow you had tucked away somewhere, only to find that it is lost, and you are left gritting your teeth while your head resides on a tired lump of rock, oops, I mean Òpillow.Ó For me, this scenario has been oft repeated over the last twenty-one years (since the onset of marriage). Change a few details here and there, and it basically describes what has been the state of my storage and memory. Enter... (drum roll, please) Homeschool Mom and Professional Organizer, my friend, Florence Feldman. While at the Richmond, Virginia homeschool convention this year, I had an extremely interesting conversation with this dear lady. She explained that her self-created business is to help people organize their lives and their homes. She shows them how to organize their kitchens, their linen closets, their bedrooms, etc. As she spoke, a fabulous new world began distantly to open up to me. I wondered if it might be possible to turn our linen closet from a dangerous menace for the unsuspecting body who opens it, into a gloriously organized nook where one could simply open the door and lay hands on the object desired. I pondered the prospect of having my kitchen drawers set up where I might immediately locate the specific tool-of-the-meal without having to go on safari through all four drawers and several boxes before giving up and making do with a knife. And - oh, be still my beating heart - could I possibly be cured from the childish habit of stuffing clothes any which way into dresser drawers just to get them out of sight? As I was processing this vision, fragments of a long-time-ago conversation came floating back to me: someone describing how each of her belongings had a ÒhomeÓ - a place with enough space for it to live when it was not in use. Hmmm. The dream of attempting the formerly impossible was birthed in me that day. It grew and grew, until it was too big to stay isolated inside my mind, so, as we drove around and around the U.S. this spring on our journeys to home school conventions, I broached the idea with my husband, Bill. First day: ÒJust imagine what it would be like to organize the pantry, Dear.Ó ÒHmm.Ó Second day: ÒJust imagine what it would be like to organize the linen closet, Dear.Ó ÒHMMM.Ó Third day: ÒJust imagine what it would be like to organize our library, Dear.Ó ÒARRGH!Ó That is when the overwhelming magnitude of this project began to seep into our brains. Do you know that we are book collectors of the worst sort? I can barely make it past a second hand bookstore without blowing the monthÕs budget! We have rescued books from the East Coast, the West Coast, New ZealandÕs coasts, the Mid West, South West, Down East, you name it. Books on history, books on home school subjects, books on crocheting, books by Dorothy Sayers, books that make your spine tingle with suspense, books that defeat insomnia... And they have been shelved, willy nilly, wherever there was an open spot! Not a bit of organization. Add to that my familyÕs propensity for squirreling books away in their own rooms, and you begin to understand the vast amount of time I spent trying to locate that one book on the Vikings! So, we began to draw diagrams; to measure. Where should this bookshelf go? Where should that genre of books live? Could a shelf fit there? How much room does a person REALLY need in order to squeeze through that doorway? And there were more diagrams for the pantry - a scheme to help us find the food we had hidden in there. This time of planning was essential in order for us to break down the impossibly huge and overwhelming job into smaller, bite-sized tasks that could be accomplished each day. Remember, real life (food, sleep, listening to children) has to keep happening during Project: Organization! Arriving home after nearly a year of traveling, we were somewhat in awe of the magnitude of what confronted us. But, after a few days of muttering, ÒWhere do we keep the ... (fill in the blank),Ó we decided to roll up our sleeves and go to work. First it was finding the kitchen again, next unpacking our clothes - not only from our suitcases but also from the hall closet where EVERYTHING had been stored... in piles. Then, the ongoing battle of the books. Little by little, day by day, we saw progress. One day, I actually experienced the near miracle of seeing all the G.A. Henty books together! Amazing. After several weeks (!) of minuscule organizational accomplishments, the ÒfeverÓ infected my deepest fibers. What fever you ask? The... ORGANIZE YOUR DRAWERS fever! I was standing in the kitchen, minding my own business, when suddenly, without any warning, I decided to pull out the top kitchen drawer and organize it. Lest you fail to be impressed, please realize this had NEVER happened to me before. When all was neat and tidy, and all the missing pieces located, and all the types sorted and stored, I got excited. That was easy! What would happen if I organized the second drawer? The third? The fourth? That brings me to the point of this entire ramble. The surprising treasure I discovered in our quest for organization was... TIME. Just imagine all the time you save by not having to search high and low for a certain book... How much better your time is spent tickling your children instead of searching fruitlessly for the lemon zester... And the time saved when you are putting away clothes and you donÕt have to fight the dresser drawer just to open it! Ah... time... I always thought that I didnÕt have the time to give all my belongings their own little homes. Now, I am learning that spending the time to create organizational ÒhomesÓ for all our stuff liberates an incredible amount of time in every day life. There is a remarkable sense of freedom that comes from knowing where things are when you want them.. even when you donÕt want them! Add to that a reduction in agitation and fredom from frustration that comes with having all your ducks lined up in a row - well, it just doesnÕt get any better than this, friends. I AM SERIOUS!!!! This is me, Diana, the person least likely to be voted the ÒMartha Stewart of Home Schoolers!!!Ó If it works for me, dear ones, it can work for you! So, my wee thought for the month, for those who have struggled like me in the area of organization: Discover the joys of having time and freedom in your everyday life by taking the plunge (even if you just do one drawer today) - get organized! Blessings, Diana p.s. Our online special is a 30% discount on our History Alive through Music products, America, Westward Ho, and Musical Memories of Laura Ingalls Wilder. This special will last until the end of December, 2000. Return to the List of Newsletter Issues

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