Organization

Organizing Gibberish Thusly

/ Ally Bean / 31 Comments
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First leaf with Autumn color says, “Look at me!”

THIS WEEK I’VE BEEN SORTING through my desk drawers and my computer files.  I save lots of ideas, either scribbled on bits of paper or quickly typed on computer sticky notes.

I keep these ideas as prompts just in case I need something to write about here.

Like today.

MOST OF MY SAVED ITEMS are snippets of thoughts that float through my mind while I’m doing something else, so they’re not fully formed ideas.  In fact, they are generally pure gibberish.

But I continue to believe that one of these saved items will be the best idea ever, so I’m reluctant to throw any of them away– until I do.

I could be deluded, of course.

[Rather like Gayle King and her massive purse + jewelry collection, featured in O magazine this month.  It’s a collection so unwieldy that it required an outsider to sort through it, culling out that which no longer serves her.]   

[Alright, maybe my little pile of ideas is nothing like Gayle’s purse collection, but you get my drift.  Too much of anything is confusing.]

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Underwhelming decorative Summer grass says, “I’m not dead yet!”

I WON’T BURDEN YOU WITH a list of my half-formed ideas.  I respect your time and sanity, my gentle readers.

But I just wanted to let you know that I’m still moseying along the blogging trail.

Tossing and deleting the gibberish as I go.

Catching A Train To Nowhere, I Am This Week

/ Ally Bean / 28 Comments

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Some weeks I feel as if I’m getting nowhere.

As if I’m sitting at the station waiting for a train that I hope will go somewhere, but realize may go nowhere.

I know where I want to get to.  I can see what needs to be done.

But because I’m waiting for something outside my control to happen, I’m unable to decide what to do next.

So here I sit. Bored. Impatient.

Thinking that life could be more exciting than this, yet knowing that it often isn’t filled with adventure.

And if I am to be truthful, feeling apprehensive about what’s going to be asked of me next.

When the train gets here.  Where I am.

Eventually.

In Which I Attempt To Spring Clean & Am Thwarted By Motherly Advice

/ Ally Bean / 22 Comments

Order out of chaos.

It’s that time of year.  Spring.  And my half of our clothes closet is a mess.  As usual.  Just ask Zen-Den.

So I’ve decided to be strong, be decisive, be ruthless… and sort through my clothes.  And accessories.  Because it’s not doing me any good having all this stuff piled up hither and yon.

I crave a calm, organized closet.  Angst-free.

Encourage or discourage?

But here’s the issue, when I start to organize anything in our home I hear my late mother’s voice telling me three of her stock phrases. The woman was nothing if not consistent.  And cautious.

  1. Waste not, want not.
  2. Be careful.
  3. Think it through.

So then after acknowledging that these phrases are bouncing around inside my mind, I become so filled with doubt that I do not do that which I set out to do.  And the closet… or the basement… or the junk drawer remain messy.

Stumbling over the past.

It’s the oddest thing.  I can let go of outdated ideas with ease.  I can move on from rotten relationships as needed.  But when it comes to objects that I’ve bought or inherited, I have difficulty deciding what to do with them.

Begging the question: how do you un-program that which a well-intentioned mother who grew up during the Depression programmed into you?

There must be an override switch somewhere, right?

QOTD: What’s On Your Superpowers List?

/ Ally Bean / 21 Comments

• • •

Remember back a few weeks ago when I was reading Darcy Eikenberg’s Bring Your Superpowers To Work and how it bugged me that I couldn’t figure out what my superpowers were?  

I mean, I’ve always been told that it’s more important to know WHO you are than to know WHERE you’re going.  Yet there I was on a bleak February day not knowing myself OR my path.   

So I decided to dig in and determine what superpowers I had.  Then I created this list.  Perhaps it’s a bit lighter in tone than what Darcy has in mind, but it is who I am.  Which I do believe is the whole point of this exercise.

• • •

• • •

I am…

  • able to confirm that the color you painted your walls is not the right color.
  • able to laugh, more often than not, at the absurdities of life.
  • able to say thank you so many times in a day that it may sound insincere, but it’s not.
  • able to bring ideas and experiences together in novel ways.
  • able to determine within minutes of meeting someone if said person is a problem solver or a problem keeper.
  • able to sit on the curb and clap enthusiastically as the parade goes by.
  • able to find a way to avoid ironing anything, preferring to delegate that task to anyone with the patience necessary to get rid of wrinkles.
  • able to remember minutiae/information that doesn’t matter any more.
  • able to remember to write down minutiae/information that matters now, often remembering where said minutiae/information is after being written down.
  • able to pick myself up, brush myself off, curse about life’s inequities– and then start all over again.

• • •

• • •

Now, I’ve shared my list. What about you, gentle readers? What are your superpowers? I’d love to know.