Monday, Monday

This started out as a Monday Morning update, but has quickly become a Monday Afternoon Ramble! Not for particularly bad reasons - I've been busy baking (of course), doing laundry, picking up, planning, sorting, cutting, washing dishes (goes with baking), and in general pottering around doing the little things that add up to a satisfying feeling of having gotten something done even if you can't quite put your fingers on what it was that you have frittered your time away doing.

In so many ways I am content to do the little things that keep a house running, what is harder is getting said home to a point where it is just little things that keep it running smoothly instead of limping horribly, sadly along. Just last week I tackled a truly frightening project by organizing our mail center. It takes up the top of a bookcase in the center of our house and was completely covered in a very intimidating pile of papers and other clutter. I sat down and sorted the papers, created a very nice filing system of inbox-style letter trays, removed the extra chargers for phones that we no longer use and even had room to plug in the fountain that we moved to sit in a little alcove created by two bookcases. I still have to go through all of the pens and pencils I found and shoved into a couple of pencil cups (I'm sure that some of them are quite dead), but there is a little upright organizer for stamps, an address book, and a couple of member directories and other things needed for mail, and another one of those little upright organizers for sorting things that need to be taken care of right away.

I'm inordinately proud of myself for this endeavor, since it is one of those things that has been bothering me the longest and seemed the most impossible. The top ledge of the kitchen island (which these two bookcases sit under since it was built with not enough room to pull any stools up to) is my current project. As the clutter is cleared away and the counter cleaned it is filling up with boxes and such of things I need for baking and for Thanksgiving preparations. I had hoped to clear it completely, but I can't seem to find a more convenient spot for the gallon of molasses and 10 lb bag of flour and other large amounts of supplies that I am going through.

Now I'm practicing a bit of avoidance here, but thought I'd keep everyone apprised of my progress!