The comfy chair and ottoman that my husband bought for my birthday many years ago sits back in a corner of our living room. Beside it, the brick hearth stretches beyond the fireplace, giving me a convenient little “table.” Very often this is strewn with books and papers that need my attention as well as my calendar and my to-do list. I stay on top of it, making sure it is regularly cleared, usually while my family watches a football game or works on homework in the room around me. For almost two and a half years, this space has been convenient and manageable.
Until now.
Now it is cluttered beyond recognition due to my lack of time to sit and clear it! I have a stack of research books, most uncracked, one flagged with sticky notes on information to be transferred to paper. And I MUST check the due dates on all of them!
Blank notecards are stacked, waiting for my words of encouragement to our football team before their first playoff game. A book by a friend of mine sits beneath them, waiting to be read. Booster club receipts and checks occupy the corner near the mantle, needing to be entered into my bookkeeping system, and a rubber band surrounds 25 elementary school literature pieces I agreed to judge.
Of course the usual stuff is there, too: school papers, calendar, pen, random pieces of paper that need to be filed or noted or even just thrown away. The need to unclutter calls to me. I will sit down this evening and go through things, piece by piece. At least that’s the plan. And you know what so often happens to the best laid plans . . .