Spring Cleaning My Life

Since I knocked off work at about 6:00 p.m. on Friday, I've cleaned up a few things. Some of them were the standard "spring cleaning" sort of thing--I took two Jeep loads of stuff to storage (not that any of it was Christmas stuff that's been boxed up in the corner of my living room for 2.5 months or anything), did a few loads of laundry, bagged up a bunch of stuff for charity, put shelving in my upstairs hallway so that we could keep all of our puzzles and games in one place instead of four different ones (though my daughter always insisted that she knew exactly which games were in which place and it wasn't a problem), filled a couple of garbage bags, bought some plastic file boxes so that I can get my old files out of my file cabinets and into storage, shredded a bunch of paper bills that have been sitting in a stack unopened for months because I pay my bills online, and finally cleared out the materials I was keeping on hand for a job I left over a year ago.

But it wasn't all work. I put out some calls for submissions for my webzine, Rational Outrage. Rational Outrage is a GREAT webzine (and that's not something I'd ordinarily say about something of my own creation), but it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. I pulled out a novel I started in 2003 and re-read the first 18,000 words in preparation for finally digging back in to it. I bought five CDs this afternoon. And, of course, this all comes on the heels of having cut off all my hair last week.

But perhaps the most significant thing I did today was to clean out my tub drain. The tub has been draining more and more slowly for weeks, but...well...who wants to go digging around in there? Who even wants to THINK about what's going on down there?

Today I equipped myself with some tools and some chemicals and dove in. Not literally, of course. I don't want to create the impression that this was an upleasant experience, but when the job was done and I was all pleased with myself and claiming victory, my daughter looked suspiciously at the tub and said, "Now you have to wash it." And so I did.

The last thirty hours or so have been very productive, and in the midst of them all I've managed to watch a movie and last week's episode of LOST with my daughter, spend a little time at my parents' house, do a favor for a friend, and talk to my stepdaughter on the telephone. And I'm not even tired (stand by for massive crash).

There's only one problem.

Since 10:00 this morning, while I've been storing things and throwing things away and hanging up clothes and reorganizing and creating all this great space in my life, I've been piling up things that I wanted to keep but wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with. I've been piling those things...um...on my bed.

And now it's 12:30 a.m., and I've got lots of floor space, but nowhere to sleep.

I guess the next phase of my personal renovation should involve something about PLANNING.