A Place for Everything.

and everything in its place (or as much so as this not-so-organized organizer can ever expect).  

I have been on an sorting/ sifting  roll lately.  For so many years, our family has been in a state of transition.  There was the year and a half leading up to our planned move to Portland, Oregon, there was the very sad, very long 10 months (only) that we spent in Portland, there was the move back to the Northeast, there was the new baby, there was the third move out of a rental and into our own house, there was the house renovation, and now there is the c a l m.

Except there must be something with me and this c a l m , as I not spending it so calmly.  There has been so much forgotten, neglected, put aside, thrown down, and ignored that I am quite honestly relishing the chance to tend to this "stuff" again.  With the help of my new label maker and a very organized lady, I am slowly but surely restoring a sense of order to our stuff and to our lives.

So far, I have 

~found a home (here or with the local Vietnam Veterans of America) for mounds and mounds of cords and other miscellaneous electronic equipment~

~burned my entire collection of cds to my hard drive, resulting in a couple cds being transplanted to my kids' bedrooms (currently our 5 year old is enjoying Creedence Clearwater Revival's Chronicle and the 4 year old has latched on to REM's Dead Letter Office. Hysterical, Awesone and Disturbing all at once)~

~sorted through countless pictures, letters, saved momentos (with countless more to go)~

~begun the process of consolidating my retirement funds from my various teaching positions~

~developed a budget and stuck to it~

I still want/need/have to

~work on (or start ACK!) those baby books~

~refinish our library card catalog and move it to the living room for all to admire~

~read all of those manuals for the appliances that I actually do use, including my washing machine and my camera~

All of this upending and repackaging, though, while chaotic, is all at once so settling for this rolling stone that has stopped rolling for the moment.