02-08-09

I enjoy the author Sarah Ban Breathnach. I have sworn off most self help books in favor of fiction, but her simple abundance series is a mixture of meditation, how-to-manual, and memoir. So at work, when the lunchroom is empty, I read a few pages of her book Moving On: Creating Your House of Belonging with Simple Abundance.

And an early exercise is to walk around your house and photograph the mess. Not to beat yourself up with it, but to get the "before" version captured. So I did that tonight. I photographed:
- My necklace holder that is so crowded that it takes 5 minutes to untangle to the necklace I want to wear.
- The small drawers of my dresser, that are brimming with spare buttons, rarely worn slips, unwanted swimsuits, etc.
- The top of Bruce's bookcase that holds my pile of books available for trade on Bookins.
- The family file cabinet that has a few labeled folders, but really no rhyme or reason as to which "important papers" go where.
- My closet with hanging slacks and shirts that is in dire need of another purging, and maybe some directed additions instead of just skimming what's cheap off the clearance racks.

And the photo I thought most worthy of making the blog, my scrapbook room that is overtaken by Sunday School supplies, other papers I can't part with, too many undone scrapbook projects to manage, and my personal favorite, the red and blue glass vases (middle top of photo) that I could not live without at Ikea even though I still have no idea what to use them for!

Will I tackle any of these unorganized areas of my house? We'll see if Sarah motivates me, but it's not in my plans right now. Except the necklaces, I'm ready to weed out some of those.

“If I had a dollar for every self-help book that was sent my way, I could have probably paid for this studio,”
Oprah Winfrey