PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER IN THE NEW YEAR

So for years, I've been asking friends if anyone wants to partner up to organize our homes and so then our lives. No takers. Until two days ago, when my friend Jamie asked if I'd ever want to spend two hours at one of our houses, and then two hours at the other house, doing whatever the host house hostess needed. Let's do it tomorrow I said. So yesterday, Jamie came over, and we set to work on my office/sewing room. By the time we finished, there was nothing left on the floor, and most of the tasks we'd declared we'd do had been done. She even left me with a list of things to do before she returns next week. I haven't done any of them yet, but I will. It's a pretty manageable list.

Then we drove over to her house, and worked in a few areas, with a goal of clearing off her dining room table. Again we made fantastic progress. It all goes so much faster with two pairs of hands and an extra set of legs. Not to mention an extra brain. We are both a bit quirky about our stuff, and we love organization, so we got along great. I can't wait to do more next week. I'm motivated to keep going. No photos for now. Just imagine how you've seen the sunroom in this blog countless other times....before and after. That's how it is. I'm not all the way to the after yet, but getting there.

And why, do you ask, is it already 2:30 of the next day, and you haven't done any of the items on the list or even taken the stuff we staged on the dining room table downstairs? Because last night after I left Jamie's house, I had a burst of energy, probably due to the warmish weather for January, and did a bunch of returns and shopping. Including Trader Joes, which I needed. Came home, read the paper, watched Bad Teacher. This morning, I was my usual non-morning person, and was trying to read quickly through my current book, then went for a nice walk with my friend Nancy S., then on the way home saw that my dear next door friend Kim was going to be filling up the landfill with PERFECTLY GOOD STUFF! I love Kim, she's an artist and she went to Michigan and she's really really fun and funny and a loving person, which makes her stuff all the nicer. I called her, and she apologized for the land fill, but just wanted it out. Guess who took almost all of it. Right, me, the person who doesn't want anymore stuff. Except the little stereo system and speakers, which I am going to email one of my Freecycle friends about right now. Done. The freecycle friend (acquaintance, really) has a pre-teen son who loves to take apart appliances and things to see how they work. Then if they can't get the thing working, they responsibly recycle all the parts. I love that. Now what am I going to do with Kim's stuff? Some of it I might use, since lots of it is organizing shelves and containers. The rest....to my garage sale. I'll put it all out to the universe of garage sale buyers who love a treasure, and who love to help me not have to take one thing back into the house. Coming to a driveway in May. Then I took my shower, then I came in the office to do some ironing, sat down to the computer while the iron warmed up, and the rest is blogging history.
...a few minutes later........I shut down Firefox, and went to the ironing board, and I had left the iron flat on the leg of my black around-the-house sweats. So now there is a big brown burned iron imprint under my knee on the right leg. I'm wearing them anyway, though, cause I don't want to iron another pair. If anyone around here notices, I'm going to try to convince him that I bought them that way.