It's a Slow Process

It may not look it, but I am making slow progress toward clearing my desk to make way for the new computer, whenever it arrives (I've told the guru no rush -- I need to make room first!)

Believe it or not, this is after a day of cleaning things off.  I figure any time I actually see wood on my desk, that's a good day.

I'm doing it slowly.  For example, I still have a stack of letters from the Compassion kids that arrived when I was in Iowa that I haven't answered.  I'm taking time to answer them now, as I come to them.  Only my printer isn't hooked up right now (because I've lost the install disk) so I can't print them, so each letter has to be hand written, which takes at least twice as long.

But my wonderful friend Mary in Rockport just sent me a whole bunch of stickers, so taking time to write to the kids, one at a time, gives me a chance to pick the perfect stickers to send to them, and get a one-postage-fits-all envelope ready to send with a whole bunch of gifts attached to each letter.  I haven't done that in a long time.

I also found something I've been frantically (well...sort of...) looking for for about a week now. I thought I'd lost it and was disconsolate, but it is now found and put in a safe place.

Ever since I was a kid, I made mountains of stuff on flat surfaces and on those rare occasions when the Aquarius in me kicked in and I decided to clean (Aquarians can go years without "seeing" clutter and then suddenly one day they have to get it all organized) my way of organizing is to take it layer by layer, occasionally doing carbon dating along the way, tossing out the stuff I no longer need and then separating what's left into piles. 

Essentially, I break the mountain into mole hills, toss out a little bit, and stash the mole hills in other places.  And then when it is all finished, I start putting the mole hills back on the desk and have the base for a new mountain.

For example, the pile on the left of the desk is stuff I plan to use in decorating a couple of journals I'm working on.  The stuff on the right side is stuff I haven't dealt with (like the rest of the Compassion letters).  The stuff piled on my computer is stuff that I need to keep and need to find somewhere to put. Out of sight to the right of my computer is more stuff that needs to be filed away somewhere, as soon as I can figure out where to store it.

I keep telling myself that if I had a bigger office with more shelves I could organize better, and I probably could.  Over the years, I have brought in various cupboards with drawers to put stuff into. And that works, briefly, until more stuff comes in to take the place of the stuff I moved into the drawers.

But this is a TINY room and I've run out of places to store the cupboards and shelves.  And besides, eventually they get covered up with more stuff.  

I am feeling like my mother these days, as I wade through "all this crap" and wonder what in God's name I am going to do with it all and how I can ever get rid of enough to make this a neat and tidy office.

For the moment, though, if I can just clear away a place where the guru can put the new computer and get it set up, I'll be satisfied.  And it shouldn't take more than a day or two before my mountain is built again and I can start all over.