The Magic Geranium

Have you ever read that old children's story where a woman's friend gives her a beautiful rose geranium and just setting it on the table makes her whole house look so shabby by comparison that she's compelled to clean and update everything? Well, now you don't have to read it. That's pretty much the whole story.

That also pretty much sums up what's happening to my office. I have a brand new color laser printer, still in the box. In order to even unpack the thing, I have to clean my entire office. I've been working on it for two days. I've also been working on getting to bed earlier and earlier until I'm almost back on an entirely daytime schedule. Hence, the earlier time frame of this blog post. I'm happy with the less cluttered office and the prospect of hooking up my new printer. I'm less happy with how tired the schedule transition is making me, but I'll adjust. I've been needing to get back into a more day-oriented schedule for some time now. It'll certainly make homeschooling easier if I can get it done in the morning rather than the afternoon. "If" being the operative word here. We're making great progress lately, so I'm hopeful.

I also made a tea drawer. One of my friends has this fantastic drawer in her kitchen that holds nothing but all sorts of different kinds of tea. It inspired me so much when I saw it that I just had to have a tea drawer, too. So I cleaned out one of my kitchen drawers to make into a tea drawer, and then when it was finished it was so neat and organized that I just had to clean and organize a few other drawers, too....oh, wait! It's the Magic Geranium all over again. But the effect was that after nearly two years in this house, I'm finally beginning to get some things arranged the way I want them. There's a long way to go, but I'm making progress.

The books, however, are not making such good progress. I need to fill another Pookatales order that needs to go into tomorrow's mail, and then maybe I can spend an hour or two writing before I have to hit the sack. Here's hoping I get more than a few paragraphs and can bring a decent number of words to the Moxie meeting this weekend.

In the meantime, my office is looking cleaner and cleaner, and under all that stuff on the desk I think I might just have room for a nice potted rose geranium.