remembering warmer days

Having totally emptied the shed and scattered the contents about the house, I am back to the bete noir of decluttering:  the office.

The knitting and craft supplies are re-settled elsewhere, but the desk and file cabinets remained piled high with papers and tchotchkes and other jetsam of the past year.  Boxes line the wall, some empty, some sorted.  Some plastic, but most are varying sizes of cardboard.  Two upright vacuum cleaners block access to closet and desk, their attachments leaking out of nearby boxes.  Another box holds files I organized 6 months ago but never consolidated into the cabinets or upstairs desk.  Yet another box holds the papers and books I swept from the desk top a month ago.  In front of the wardrobe/entertainment center are more boxes and the sliding plastic storage unit I dragged out from the back of the closet.  (The other is still inside.)  On the floor behind the storage unit, the wireless hookup lies on its side, blinking blue lights assuring me it's fine.  It is tethered to outlets on opposite sides of the room and soon I need to do something about those trip-hazard wires.

And that's just my side of the room.

I decide to NOT tackle the papers this time.  This time I'm going to do something that has visible results.  I start with the boxes, emptying them into recycling or goodwill bags, breaking them down, stacking them into a larger box, getting them OUT of there.  At the bottom of the storage unit, I find maps.  Ah yes, the trip to Taos.  The wine-tasting trip to Walla Wall.  The Foundry Art Gallery.  Walking maps of Portland (those should go into the studio.)

I give myself a shake and resolutely send most of them to the recycle bag.  (But, I could turn them into wrapping paper!  Make cranes out them!  Make boxes!.....)  I take the few trip memorabilia and open the big green box, ready to add them to it.  Oh, there's the neat journal with the magnetic flap that M gave me.  It would be good for the studio, too, but I probably have written in it.

Yes, I have:  one page, apparently from a trip to Kauai.

Wednesday
Finally resting and not sniping.  At the pool, lazing and watching the waves.  Our move from 319 was pretty painless.   D was out shopping for T's and trunks (the excuse was that he spilled red wine on his Ranch Chimayo T)  I had packed lunch and organized the food and was just getting ready to go to the pool when the phone rang and Natalie @ the office gave me the word that rm 123 was ready for us - 2 hours before we had to move out.  I carried a small load down to the office and was just @ the door when D called to me from the parking lot.  We got the room open (walking a maze of construction) & decided to load everything else through the lanai door.


Ah yes, that's pre-knee surgery, when D couldn't handle stairs.  He could handle waves though, and we had a lovely week.  We snorkeled, I showed him Salt Ponds beach, we saw teen girls practice the hula for a competition, we took a trip past the NaPali Coast, G and L took us out to dinner....

I look out the window at the empty branches waving in the chill east wind, at the slushy snow, at the grey-white sky.  I don't want to clear out the office,  I want to go someplace warm and uncluttered, with blue skies, fluffy clouds, and sparkling waves.

This is why I never get anything done.