Purge (the good kind)

A week off...a glorious collection of days when I do not have to sojourn down state to my job, one that I am still not sure if I like.  Well, I like that I get a week off every now and then, so let's keep it positive today, okay?

Yes, so one week off...what to do?  what to do?  Write my novel?  Finish the 3 articles I started (and by started I mean I've thought about writing them)?  Prepare an outline for my idea for a play - the opening scene I keep seeing over and over again in my head?  These are all things I keep saying I will get to - when I have time.  And yet here I am day four into actually having the time, and nada...  Oh procrastination, you cruel, cruel seductress.

BUT I did not loaf around on the couch all week, surfing tv channels and web sites (well, a bit, but I am on vacation).  No, I decided to purge...my clutter.  The junk around my house that just makes me nuts and blocks my ability to feel peaceful in my own home had to go.  So I tackled the dreaded "crap room."  You know, the room in the house where everything you don't know what to do with gets dumped.  Yep, I tore that baby up and threw out 4 huge bags of paper, knick knacks, unused photo albums, questionable gifts (does my mother-in-law even like me?) and pretty much anything else with a 1/4" of dust on it.  

And damn - it felt good.  

I now have a guest room where guests can actually put things in the closet.  I moved a small, formerly clutter-filled book shelf into our bedroom, where it magically transformed a lonely corner into a beloved book nook (complete with reading chair and lamp).   All that on day 1.  

Days 2 & 3 lead me to other rooms of the house.  I disassembled a basement corner where the remains of my product sales business had gathered to commiserate about yet another great idea I did not have the time or energy to keep up.  I cleared out the bottom of my closet, finally discarding all those shoe boxes that I kept because I was going to store my shoes in them (and yet I had 15 empty ones...perplexing, I know). 

And finally, I pillaged the junk-filled secretary desk, the one that when I splurged and ordered it from Pottery Barn I swore I would keep it neat.  Well, it is no longer a $1600 crap cabinet.  It is now a functional workspace - one that beckons me, no pleads with me, to put my shiny black laptop on its clean desk and write that article, book and script.  Yet, here I sit at the dining room table...

I think I'll go catch a movie before I pick up Princess from school.