Disorganization Station

Normally I'm an organized person. There is a place for everything and everything in its place. I'm not Sleeping-with-the-Enemy obsessive about it, but I do have to be organized living in a tiny house or else I would go crazy.

Since Hubby has been home all day, every day, for months, my organization has gone to pot trying to keep him busy and entertained. I try to keep a list of honey-dos on the fridge at all times so he can occupy himself without bothering me. He washes the dishes every morning before I get up. Good boy.

He also likes to clean things. For today he was supposed to scrub the microwave, stove, vent hood, and toaster oven. Then he was supposed to crawl in the attic and fix the hot water tank exhaust pipe. He got all that accomplished before noon. Crap. He scrubbed all the paint off the underside of the vent hood. On tomorrow's list: replace vent hood.

Anyway, when he can find nothing else to do, he tidies up and organizes things. Not that I'm complaining, but he has rearranged the office closet three times in the last six weeks. The house is looking great. The problem is when he doesn't know immediately what to do with something he puts it on my desk. That would include:

1) This isn't mine, it must be hers;
2) I don't know what this is and if I throw it away she will yell at me;
3) I don't know where this is supposed to go and if I put it in the wrong place she will yell at me;
4) Any piece of paper.

So, today I sat down in my computer nest to draw. I couldn't even see my desktop there was so much junk on it. I didn't know where to start making it better. It stressed me out just thinking about the task, so I played a few games of spider solitaire, paced outside, drank a Pepsi, paced a little more, a few more games of solitaire, and more pacing. I finally decided I would go back inside, face the monster, and put one thing in its rightful place. Just one. Ya gotta start with one.

It gets more complicated if you understand I actually have two desks, a file cabinet, and four open shelves in my computer nest. I started picking out three-dimensional objects and leaving the paper to sift to the bottom to be dealt with last. I pulled everything out of the shelves that didn't belong. I was amazed at the crap that had accumulated that really lived somewhere else.

Some of the junk:

- old Rx sunglasses
- empty glasses case
- 5 bottles of fingernail polish
- fingernail polish remover
- container of cotton balls and Q-tips
- tube of hand lotion
- 2 tubes of hydrocortisone cream (one dead, one good)
- hairbrush
- pliers
- 2 screwdrivers (one flat, one Phillips)
- 2 half rolls of toilet paper
- bottle of 409
- 2 gardening magazines
- 2 big manila envelopes that came in the mail at least three weeks ago (unopened)
- 3 old car tag forms
- a glow-in-the-dark keychain fob with my name on it
- a ream of cardstock
- about 50 drawings in various stages of completion
- a bucketload of art supplies (this took up 1/4th of the surface space)
- 3 piles of paperwork for research projects
- 4 old hometown newspapers
- Sunday comics section from about a month ago
- the cats' flea comb
- a string of Christmas lights
- an acrylic serving tray
- an American history book
- a book of poetry
- my recipe book and a pile of loose recipes
- 3 small spiral notebooks all marked "blog fodder"
- a stack of freebie notecards received in the mail
- 3 freebie newspapers from over a month ago
- paperwork on the new hot water heater
- paperwork on the printer purchased two months ago
- warranty information on his truck
- 25 bits of paper that have phone numbers, addresses or passwords I need to record in the Rolodex
- my dead iPod, and
- 4 karaoke CDs (where the hell did *those* come from???)

That was all in addition to what should be there like the computer, printer, lamp, phone, file organizer, and office supplies organizer; bills, address books, phone books, dictionary, and thesaurus.

Yep, I was up to my eyeballs in the flotsam and jetsam of life. It took the better part of eight hours to get the computer nest and surrounds tidy and livable. I still have a stack of paperwork that needs to be dealt with but my brain was too tired to care. That's on the list for tomorrow.

Then I starting cleaning. It's been too long since Pledge was swiped across my desk for there was a wad of furry dust behind my computer monitor that looked suspiciously like a dead cat. I dusted up about two more by the time all was said and done. Sheesh!

So finally I had a clean space to draw. My brain wasn't up to pithy comic generation, so I decided to just sketch whatever. I tried drawing my normally comatose cat, but she figured out I was looking at her too intently and kept warily shifting positions. I switched my gaze over to Hubby's office nest, very tidy of course, and drew that instead. Here's the daily view from my computer chair:


I probably should say something interesting about this drawing, but my brain is dead.