One Woman’s Trash

…is another woman’s treasure. Actually, it’s both my trash and my treasure. This week’s Whole Life Challenge Well-Being Practice is to clear a space that’s normally cluttered and then keep it that way. For me, the easy pick was our kitchen counter. Stuff just piles up. Mail, receipts, catalogs, flyers, pens, pencils, notebooks, pen boxes, a squishy baseball (???), coupons, appointment reminders—all piled there to be dealt with later. This is just one of many such areas in the house, but it’s the one that bugs me the most because, as things accumulate, I find myself trying to prep dinner in a space the size of an index card.

Not ideal

As I cleared the counter, I made a decision to toss an old spice rack that’s been sitting empty for months, thanks to a pantry purge and reorganization during the last Whole Life Challenge. (BTW: Alphabetized spices are THE WAY TO GO! But then you already knew that.)

Then it hit me…

“Could you please pass me the Robert Oster Motor Oil?”

If only I didn’t have to keep food in the pantry. Or do I?

 

 

 

Taming the Chaos

I had a few cool little things to write about this week, but then got wrapped up in a project that’s been on my mind for a long time. I had a week off earlier this summer, and thought I’d tackle it then, but it seemed hard, other things popped up, and the days faded away without any progress. Maybe it’s because I’m headed to the DC Pen Show in a few days…who knows…but suddenly I’ve been overcome by the need to get my pens in order. Like, really in order.

Not that things were truly horrible. I did have them in display cases, Mike Dudek & Karas Kustoms holders, and zippered cases (mostly), but it was all pretty random, and when I wanted to use something, it took a little mental sweating to track it down. Time to up my game.

So I took the fountain pen list I’d generated in Evernote, tracked them all down and laid them out on my dining room floor—a room our dogs can’t enter because it’s gated.

My old list needed revision so I used it to create a table—a BIG table—in Evernote with columns for pen description (organized by brand and model), storage location, ink details (when applicable), as well as a field to check a box when the pen’s been reviewed. More fields may be added as I decide what other details I may want to add (like “in use” location), but it’s already a much better accounting of what I have and where it lives.

Then I took those pages and worked through them, placing the pens where it made sense—which sounds easier than it was. I like things to be symmetrical and in a certain order and blah, blah, blah. It’s not pretty when my OCD tendencies kick in. As I placed the pens, I marked the storage location on my worksheet. Let’s just say there was a lot of erasing and rearranging as I worked through the process. And I’m still not quite done. But almost.

After placing and logging the fountain pens, I rearranged my ballpoints and rollerballs. I have a few more 48-pen cases on order (via ebay, they’re cheap and perfectly fine), as I plan to get my collection of Retro 51s arranged after I finish the the current project. And then MAYBE I’ll address my pencil situation.

Soooo…the cool things I’d planned to write about will have to wait. I had to tackle this while I was in the mood.

My brain is soooo relieved.