A Little Spring Organization. Not to Say “Cleaning”

Oh, goodness, no. NOT to say “cleaning.” The idea of Spring Cleaning makes my hair hurt. I’m not really into that whole thing. House cleaning. You know. I prefer the approach of just not getting things too dirty. Keep the bathrooms and the kitchen and the litter boxes sparkling clean and then try to let the dust and cat fur in the rest of the house kind of settle into some sort of organic decorating scheme. Luckily for everybody, though, my husband 1) doesn’t so much go for that last part and 2) does all the housework, so we’re saved from being overcome by giant rolling balls of dusty cat fur.

What I *do* like, though, is Spring Organization. I love going through stuff I no longer use or wear and carting huge loads of it to Goodwill or church garage sales or, sometimes, just putting it out on the curb with a “FREE!!” sign on it, although that doesn’t always work: people will come up and knock on the door and try to pay for it, certain that I can’t possibly have meant it was really free. It’s fun to see their faces when you assure them that, yes, it’s really free. It’s yours! Take it!

Anyway, what I’m doing this spring is re-working something I started last year. I used to have a huge rubber stamp collection, and I had these storage drawers made to house a small part of it (there was also an antique oak flat file and a bunch of other containers, but we won’t get into that because the collection just starts to sound like that of a crazy person. Not to use the word “hoarder,” of course). When I gave away all the stamps–hundreds and hundreds and, yes, thousands–I suddenly had a place to store the stuff I actually use: beads and embroidery floss. When I converted ten of the the drawers with little dividers, I thought that was plenty for the embroidery floss. Ha. I had no idea: there are tons of colors of floss. Tons. Seriously. I don’t even know how many colors there are. Sources online say 454 solid colors, so let’s go with that, shall we? I don’t have them all–there are some colors I’ve never used, I’m sure. Some drawers were divided into 20 sections, some into 18 (for two larger sections for colors I use a lot, like #166). So let’s say I had 190 sections. That’s not enough for even half their total colors, and it wasn’t enough for the colors I have and use. I was having to double up in the little sections, making it hard to find what I needed when I needed it. Five different shades of blue crammed into one little tiny slot. Grrrrrr.

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So this week, while I’ve been working on a deadline, I’ve also been working on five more drawers. This will give me about 285 slots, and maybe that will be enough. I hope so.

Just for fun, I’ll leave you with this video I made when I made the first dividers. Music, anyone?

(The video would show up here, but for some reason, WordPress says “No to Videos!” this morning.)

Ricë also blogs at The Voodoo Cafe.

 

 


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