". . . little shall I grace my cause

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver . . ."

(William Shakespeare's Othello, I.iii.88-90)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Home Front

After a week of eating, drinking, sleeping, and breathing chess, it is time to get back to the "routine" (ROFLOL). I put the word in quotation marks because it seems every time the phonograph needle of my life gets into some semblance of a groove it encounters a speck of dust that kicks it right out again, resulting in either a Groundhog Day or a Back to the Future effect (my apologies to the metaphor/allusion-challenged among you, but I'm moving on).

I spent yesterday trying to get ready for "school" (guess I'm in a quotation mark mood)--going through books and papers, filing, tossing, arranging, storing, and the like. First I attacked the pile on the floor next to my bed, resulting in this:

The top level has my cell phone, planner, Bible and current reading; the top compartment has homeschooling methodology and reference books; the middle compartment has photos waiting to be sorted and put in albums; and the bottom shelf has--what else?--more books (those that are in the queue for either homeschooling or personal reading).


Ahhh . . . nothing soothes my soul like organization. Who needs wine? (Um, scratch that.)


After this project, it was on to the next. At our church's garage sale earlier in the summer, I found a gem:



Here's another angle:



IT ONLY COST $20!! Did I hit the jackpot or what? I needed something else in the dining room to store books and items currently being used so that they don't clutter up the dining room table. ("What? We have a dining room table?"). Does anyone out there know exactly what kind of piece this is? The top of it is recessed. I could change a baby in there if I removed all the books (and if I had a baby)! Notice the drawers (I love drawers). The inside has a shelf--so two levels of storage!


In addition to the physical organizing, I have been working on the mental as well, trying to get a fix on what shape my life will take this year. I have taken a new accompanying job at an area high school (part-time) and that is going to significantly change the landscape. For those who may be interested, I'll share a bit more about that soon. (And if you're not interested, just move on and let me babble . . . somehow it helps me to do so.)


7 comments:

Elephantschild said...

Giggle. I'm pretty sure that IS a changing table, given the "tray" on the top.

But who cares? I love it too. If I'd been at the garage sale I'm sure we would've been arm-wrestling for it.

I'm a huge proponent of storage cabinets and such that let you put books INSIDE - looks cleaner, and the stuff doesn't get dusty!

Susan K said...

I agree that it's a changing table. But it's not too hard to pretend that it's a buffet that a baby can't roll off of. :)

Yeah, that ended in a preposition. But that's "okay."

Barb the Evil Genius said...

Whereas my first thought was that it is a dry sink.

Jane said...

Barb's right. It's a dry sink. I have one in my basement that is very similar. They had a popularity spike during the Early American and Country decorating booms of the seventies and eighties.

Melody said...

But you can get a pad for it, to use when there are babies visiting your house. I used foam to fit with a pillowcase over it. My Shaker dry sink was built for me by my fil when Ethan was born. We were in our first house with stairs, and I wanted a changing table in the living room that didn't scream changing table!

Melody said...

I almost forgot...Put that stack of cubes/books somewhere else! Remember, that room is for other thing besides planning school! ;)

Cheryl said...

I think I'm going to come down on the dry sink side. Someone at the garage sale suggested the same thing when we were trying to figure out exactly what I had purchased. But who knows, maybe if I keep it around long enough it will go from being a school cabinet to being a grandbaby-changing table, in which case it will probably also be WET quite a bit!