OFFENDING HOME OFFICE: PART 15

Note these posts originally written early in February 2014 and is being posted in sequence every 3-4 days.

I slept until almost 8:30 am today, unusual around here, then it took me twice as long to get showered and dressed than usual, not sure why, just dragging a bit.

Outside 45 mph winds are wailing and I hate wind.  So much so it took me until nearly 11 to go out and release the geese, water them.  The cats had already been out by that time and had voiced their discontent at the wind, quite loudly.

Geese are funny creatures, ours have wintered over in the safety of our large garden area.  It’s a great situation for all concerned, they weed out all the leftovers from last season while fertilizing as they go.  They are also able to get in the middle of the roofed pen with no chance of a predator being able to reach them all winter.  They like that.

They are let out on a daily basis to graze for whatever natural foods they can find, and then tucked back into the pen for safety at night. 

 

Jolie our main herd dog will even herd them into the pen at night if we aren’t home by o’dark and stand guard at the gate until we come to water and close it.  Jo-Jo is always so proud of herself when she does that.  She would be the first to tell you the birds are her responsibility and she takes it serious.  Which is pretty remarkable considering she is a collie/Aussie shepherd mix that is a self taught rescue animal.

Her “sister” Georgia will guard all night, but tends to love her pillow in the sun room next to her heater in the daytime of the winter months.  They are a pretty good team.

When I released the birds they did their usual run with their wings spread wide “flying” as we call it, although they are generally too fat to get their little feathered backsides off the ground.  Not so today, the wind gusts caught those large wings and even the fattest, Whitaker (a Toulouse/Embden Cross—read big bird of about 18 pounds) found himself airborne for several feet.  

The look on their faces was priceless.  Then of course they had to do their goosey boasting of how high they flew and how far.  Crazy birds, strutting around with their chest thrust forward and wings spread to the back to look big and important.

Little Snowball, a white Chinese/Tufted Roman mix of maybe 10 pounds, soon found she needed to keep her wings folded to avoid flying a lot more than she wanted.  Last I saw her she was picking up small rocks, hmmm wonder if she has feathered goose pockets to put them in.

Once the dogs, cats and birds were all fed, watered and accounted for I crept upstairs with great intentions for the day, but soon found myself journaling instead of working.  Every so often I’d get writer’s cramp and get up to do a bit more on the room, but not near the volumes I’ve been doing.   I emptied 3 small boxes, and the four shelves of the wire bookcase.  

With the emptying of them I decided my scrapbook albums would look better and be easier to access on that set of shelves than the shelf I currently had them on. So I undid a sort, so to speak, I had done nearly a year ago to make it more attractive and useful.

Ds has been asking for more space on the wall unit bookshelf for his art books, and moving those albums to the other bookshelf would free up 1 ½ shelves for him. 

It would also allow me to use my Mickey Mouse bookends to where they could be seen with great advantage.  I liked that too. 

I guess I should admit right here that I am a huge Disney fan, as is all my family.  We have something Disney in every room of the house. For guests here it’s kind of like looking for “hidden Mickey’s” at Walt Disney World, the Disney items are here, but some times not super obvious. I generally try to have items that are both useful and decorative.

On our next trip I will be looking for a tabletop paper towel dispenser for my work station here in the craftroom.  I also have plans for some interesting “create” type Disney signs for the room.  Stay tuned for that project.

Back to today’s decluttering. 

That’s something you need to consider when you are decluttering an area, be flexible.  What might have seen like the best possible location for an item, may actually work better somewhere else. 

If for some reason an items doesn’t seem to be comfortable to work with in one location, decide where it would be best for you and then move it, even if the new location doesn’t make absolute sense to others, it is YOUR work area, be comfortable and you will create more.

I went from having the scrapbooks from standing on edge with uneven depths on a high shelf to laying them flat with all the edges even on two smaller shelves.  The over all look and feel was much better. Both my son and I are a little obsessive about continuity, so the uneven edges and his art books being split to three different areas made both of us uncomfortable.  This one small change fixed that for both of us.

The shelf the scrapbooks previously went from over stuffed looking to a neat organization of books.  Since my son's books would be used only occasionally, far less than the scrapbooks, it simply made sense to put them on the higher shelf unit. Especially considering how much taller Sean is than I am.

The rest of the day I did “tidy-up” work.  You know how when you are cleaning you always make an even bigger mess?  Well today I worked on one bookcase/shelves and tidy up.  Tomorrow is another day to do more major cleaning.  

Actually we will probably make a run to recycle and donate tomorrow afternoon. In the morning I’ll probably work on small stuff until Gary gets home from work and we make the run to get rid of stuff.

Jan who feels like she did very little today, but did accomplish one thing as per her goal and it vastly improved the look of the room in OK