a place for everything and everything in its place

We spent the weekend at the condo in Ft. Myers, and it was just glorious! We had a great time and after writing like a crazy woman to meet my deadline, it was really nice to just kick back and relax. We did a lot of reading, spent some time at the pool, sunned ourselves on the patio, went out to eat a few times, and watched some movies. I got "Capote" from the library and we really enjoyed that. Now I'm going to have to read some of his books! And Nelle Harper Lee was a character in the movie; she wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird." I read it in high school and LOVED it, so I reserved it at the library to read again. We also went out and saw "The Breakup," which was a great movie but very sad.

Today I cleaned up the house, took my walk, went to the store, cooked dinner, etc. It was a day of catching up. For me, today was a productive day, and that makes me happy. Brian and I spent the evening cleaning out the extra bedroom. It really needed some help! We're not near finished, but we got a really good start, threw some stuff away, condensed some stuff, put some stuff aside to sell on eBay.

In NY, we had an unusually large house. It was too big for just the two of us, but it came in handy at times because we could have lots of people over. There was plenty of room. And we could have lots of people over to spend the night, too! So my point is, when we moved here, we moved from a 5 bedroom 2400 square foot house (not including the full basement) to a 4 bedroom 1870 square foot house with no basement. Needless to say, we have a lot of stuff that just doesn't have a home. So our extra bedroom is pretty much wall-to-wall furniture. The piano is in there, along with 3 file cabinets, 2 bookshelves, at least 4 lamps, several extra pictures that don't fit on any wall, an assortment of tables and plant stands, and etc. The closet is full. It's all organized just so everything could fit in there. There are about 4,000 piano books in there!

We've got to get that room in working order or I'm going to lose my mind! Things HAVE to be organized in my house. It's not perfect, by any means, but pretty much everything has a place. Everything's not always IN its place, but I try to keep it neat. My closet is organized by short skirts, long skirts, dresses, pants, jeans, sweaters, etc. Even Brian's clothes are organized; after all, we share a closet! So you can imagine how this extra bedroom has been bugging me! I'm so glad to get things going in there. I truly believe that old adage that says, "A cluttered home equals a cluttered mind," or something like that. I've noticed that when my house is messy I'm not as happy, I don't sleep well, and I can't think straight. :-P

Wow, I've talked a lot about our STUFF! Hey, if you need help organizing, you know who to call! Just ask my mom - a few years ago, I helped her clean out her attic! It took several days and there was so much trash, it looked like the Clampetts had moved in! But it's such a great feeling when you purge your home of all the extra stuff you don't need or use! And it's wonderful to just know where everything is!