Organization

How midlife organization differs:

I like right angles. I love neat piles. I do have piles, but they're tidy and orderly. I also like compartments. The Container Store is my Neiman Marcus. If left to my own devices, I would purchase everything in the store including those all-important organizational impulse items at the check-out counter. I would have containers for the containers to go in. OK, I do have containers for the containers to go in, and all of my keys are color-coded.

Compartments are essential at this age because of midlife memory. If I put something in one of my 120 compartments, I always know where to find it. I need a power nap after looking through the 60th compartment for a lost item, but I know it's in one of them.

When I travel, I make notebooks with dividers...flights, hotels, mappage, things to do, contact list information and miscellaneous. I have to have a bigger purse, but that's organized too. I love purses with compartments...one zipper pouch inside a purse is just not enough. If I were a geek, I would wear one of those plastic thingys on the front pocket of a blouse for all of my pens. I just think you need more than one pen wherever you go.

I have been chided by my friends, who think I fall into the anal-retentive category, which is the one that comes after the organizational group. That's okay, because they can't find things and I can.

Sometimes I realize that organization can go a bit too far so I do things on purpose to try to balance it all out. If I see an area rug whose angles are not in correct angular position to the layout of the room, I will try as hard as I can to just leave it that way for a day or two. I can never go longer than a day or two at most because that's all I see when I enter the room, I dream about it being askew at night and I know that it's off angle even though I'm in another room and I can't see it. The same holds true for paintings that are out of alignment. You can be sure I straighten paintings at other people's homes, hotels and doctor's office waiting rooms. I can't help it. And, there is always someone who says, "I am so glad you did that, because I wanted to do that." 'Then, DO it,' I think.

This is not all my fault. I had a husband once who organized the trash...not separating things out for recycling but organizing the actual trash in the trash can. He thought it looked too messy. I had to draw the line somewhere, so I got rid of the husband and kept the propensity for neatness.

Let's get organized!
kk

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Once again sorry for the late additional post but I am really working hard on producing my documentary, full length film. More on this later.

I must say my life has become much more organized since KK moved in. I live my life as KK calls it, 'organically' and I know she wishes I was in a compartment too but I would escape and she knows that. Besides, what would she file me under? Chaos?? Three dimensional expression of awareness?? Organic and hazardous material? Ah, that's it.

It doesn't bother me if the batteries are in my lingerie drawer (in fact that makes sense if you think about it), if the miscellaneous drawer in the kitchen looks like the set-dressers from a scary movie did it or if the stack of magazines to read on the coffee tabel is one foot tall (this really makes her crazy). Sometimes I do things on purpose to disrupt her world, just for fun. Like once I put the tall glasses in the short glass compartment in the dishwasher. This rattled her no end. And then I put all the pens point side up in the cup on our desk and I thought she was going to stab me with one of them. Sometimes I like to move things around on her computer desk and then watch as she tries to figure out what she had done. This makes me laugh so hard I have to run into the bathroom and bury my head in a towel so she won't hear me. Her memory is so bad she thinks she caused the disarray. Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.

I have compartments and containers too but they are in the garage and I forget what's in them. I think my highschool prom dress is in one of them and I know I have a box of containers somewhere. But that box is probably in another box where I keep alphabetical, organizer tabs and labels in case I ever need them.

Contain yourselves,
SalGal