It's Time Now

About a year and a half ago, I decided to sell my big house and get a smaller one. I went from 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms plus a bonus room to a 3 bedroom/2 bath house. Charity got a ton of stuff, because I hate garage sales and wasn't about to hold one. Another ton of stuff went to the dump, and the rest of it got moved. Unfortunately, I kept about a ton too much for the new house.

I got the critical things unpacked right away: the kitchen and bathrooms, computer desk, furniture, and my books. The rest of it stayed in boxes shoved in the family room or the spare bedroom, and I've managed to live without most of it just fine. But things have finally hit critical mass.

In my first post, I mentioned that I want to change careers. If I do, then I'd be quitting my job at some point and staying home a lot of the time trying to get travel work. But the chaos that surrounds me at home is an emotional drain that would interfere with my ability to focus on my new career. There's something about disorder and clutter that calls attention to itself, like the plant in "Little Shop of Horrors" that yells, "Feed me!"

I can't get started in travel, because I don't have a clear work area. It sounds stupid, but there's meaning beneath it. The work that I want to do requires that I be able to keep order and schedules and good records, but if I don't have the confidence to do that in my own home, how will I have the confidence to do that for a living?

Over the weekend I sketched out a plan for how to rearrange the furniture (assuming the boxes are gone) in the family room, where the computer stuff is. Tonight my daughter and I tackled part 1. We moved boxes and an old stereo cabinet out from under a window and put the piano in their place. Tomorrow we'll move the file cabinet to the piano's old spot. This will get the office-y things on one end of the family room and the casual seating on the other end. Then I start going through the boxes and separating everything into Keep, Trash, or Give Away. I need to get that room to the point where I can look in it and feel "aahhh!"

Then I can get busy pursuing the new career, while I work on the rest of the house (which is less intimidating) as I can.

It's time. It's way past time.