Tag Organization

Resonating changes

Michael 12 Comments

In the sports world they call it “a stale message.” The coach or manager is a good coach or manager and will continue to be a good coach or manager, but they have been in one place too long, and their message isn’t resonating with the players. They’ve become stale.

My kitchen was stale. It’s a good kitchen and will continue to be a good kitchen, but its message is no longer resonating with me. Err, that is, its layout is no longer resonating with me. It didn’t need a major overhaul. Just a tweak. I’d have liked to have swapped the refrigerator for the baker’s rack and to be honest, had there been more than just me at the time I thought it, I might have suggested going out for a drink after we’d huffed and puffed a major appliance and a freestanding rack loaded with pots, pans, glassware, and for some reason, a bagel slicer across the kitchen floor. But there was no other person, and I don’t drink, alone or in groups, so I kept my reorg (that’s new young adult speak for reorganization) to just countertop appliances.

Allow me a short trip down a short sidetrack. What’s the deal with the 20-somethings (and the 30 and 40-something’s who want to sound 20ish) shortening perfectly good words that don’t take too long to speak nor a genius to spell. Where we old fogies are perfectly content with dealing with our situations, they all have a sitch. (I’m not even sure how to spell that.) and don’t even ask me if I want to “have a convo” when I’m in the mood to converse with someone. Ugh.

Anyway, my kitchen sitch sorely needed a reorg so I had a convo with myself and got to it. Now, I ask you, how much is too much when it comes to kitchen gadgets.  I realized part of the problem with my counter sitch was the number of ladles (lades?) and turners (spats) that I had. And the number was too many, so those got thinned. The coffee brewer and tea kettle and their requisite accompaniments (go-withs?) took up much too much too much counter space, and the herb garden was monopolizing a perfectly good tea cart. I figured (figged?) if I could harness these three areas, I’d be much happier and believe me, a happier me is easier to live with, and as one who lives alone, believe me, that is crucial! (croosh?)

Well, to make a long story short (and you’re saying why couldn’t I have decided to do that two paragraphs ago), after several attempts I came up with an arrangement I can be happy with. (No, it wasn’t the same one I started with!) Oddly enough, my tea paraphernalia was much too much for the tea cart which then became a perfect spot for a coffee station. And now my kitchen is resonating again!

But just to be sure about things, if you should happen to stop by and visit, don’t be surprised if I ask if you’d like to move a refrigerator. Or at least have a convo about it.

Few times in life do moments of self-care become gifts for others. In this week’s Uplift we talk about how we take the things we enjoy doing and try to add joy to the lives of others with them.

IMG_4209

No Skeletons in my Closet*

Michael Leave a comment

If you’ve noticed, over the past few weeks I’ve included posts about counters and drawers and cabinets. That’s because I’ve been paying more attention to those spaces as I prepare for the annual fun fest known as spring cleaning. Last weekend I was in the bedroom closet. My bedroom closet is about the size of my first apartment and has just as much in it. So I thought it would be a smart idea to perhaps whittle down some of the extraneous pieces there before attacking the disaster it has become over the winter months.

For some reason I have clothes like you wouldn’t believe. Actually I know the reason. Over the past couple of years I have lost a remarkable amount of weight, about 120 pounds all told. Now, some of it (maybe 2 or 3 pounds) was planned but the most of it came off as numerous surgeons removed, rearranged, and reconstructed various pieces of me. Although I’ve been picking up new pieces (of clothes, that is) along the way I haven’t done a good job of eliminated the old. As a result, in addition to the few pieces Hangersthat actually fit I have clothes that are anywhere from too large on me to OH MY GOD WAS I REALLY THAT FAT BEFORE!!! So where does one start?

After taking an entire weekend de-hangering, cleaning, folding, and sorting I have a nice pile to donate, a few that will become welcome additions to the rag bag, a couple that are probably even too disreputable to throw away in a middle class neighborhood, and remarkably enough, some that fit. And still the closet bursts at its seams.

I know I could have avoided all of this if I had adhered to a few tried and true methods of preventing the clutter before it started. Things like remove one old item for every new one bought. That worked well enough when I picked up a new piece here and there. It went out the window last year when I came home with a few totes full of new stuff since I had no summer wear that didn’t fall off me and the neighbors kept asking about that guy with the suspenders holding up his swim trunks. Then there’s the old trick of turning all one your hangers facing away from you at the start of a season and reversing them as you wear what’s on them. Let me tell you right now that I don’t have OCD but if I did I wouldn’t go more than two days before being driven bonkers by the disarray on the closet rod. I can tell you for sure and indeed that I know I don’t have OCD because I made it all the way through a whole week before having to correct that madness. Perhaps you subscribe to the Forty Hanger Rule. Limit your wardrobe to whatever can be stored on 40 hangers. Everything else must go. I don’t know how women do it. I’m just a guy and I have over 100 hanging pieces plus all the sweaters on the shelves and the shoes on the rack and the ties, oh the ties. Why, I have more than 40 hangers tied up in golf shirts, football jerseys, and hockey sweaters.

There was once a time when I wouldn’t buy tires for the car. Trying to decide between tread patterns, mileage ratings, whitewall, blackwall, white-lettered. It was all too much. So I would just trade in the car. I wonder if I can do that with closets………

That’s what I think. Really. How ’bout you?

*There’s no room.