Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I Think I'm Nesting

I have truly moved to an area of the country that is unlike any I have lived in before. We had sleet today. The real stuff. We also saw a few little spits of snow in the air. It's October! We have sprinkles or flurries possible overnight tonight. That is an update from earlier, which called for one inch of slush. Let me just remind you it is October! The earliest I ever remember snow is Decmeber 3rd, 2000. That is my girls' birthday, and we had just moved to Illinois. It was a big snow, and that winter continued to be a snowy one.

So maybe in light of the impending cold weather, and maybe in light of not being in my house yet, I have begun to nest. (Without going into too much detail, we were supposed to originally be in our house by the end of October, the closing date got moved up to between the 7th and 10th of October, but in mid-September we found out the builder's office had not submitted paperwork to VA for subdivision approval. Oddly enough, everything was only overnighted to VA a week ago yesterday. Supposedly it could be another four to six weeks, but we have also been told that the Detroit attorney has a faster turn-around time. We are completely at the mercy of other people. And our house is sitting there finished, because the two building superintendents were perfect dreams to work with.)

When I'm stressed and in that nesting mood, I organize stuff. Hubby got home to the apartment today and made a comment about it looking like we were moving in long-term. He got to the top of the stairs and saw this:

It still needed a little work when I took this picture, but these books and other things had been sitting around in stacks, boxes, bags...you name it. I couldn't stand it any more, and not knowing when it was going to get moved, I needed it organized. We had this shelf in the garage since we moved all our bookshelves and cubbies in the big (albeit temporary) move.

Well, that shelf got me on a roll and I started going a little crazy. Not to me, of course, but to my family, although some of them do think the outcomes are kinda cute. Anyway, we have these stacking baskets that used to go under our bathroom shelves that sit outside the upstairs bathroom right now, because there really isn't any room for them, we are trying not to become too permanent, and we have no house guests to see all our personal items sitting out at the top of the stairs. But I will share them with the world:

They were really a mess. They had just been pulled out of a box and thrown down and rummaged through. Plus, I was still living out of my suitcase in the bathroom and needed to get that straightened out. Really, I was trying not to be permanent here. I'm feeling a little negative right now, so I decided to just give up and unpack and act like I lived here. Maybe it will be like when you're waiting for someone to come to your house and they don't show up and don't show up, and then you have to go to the bathroom, and that's when they get there...now that I've unpacked maybe we'll get the call and our paperwork will all be done. Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah, I might be dreaming a little bit.

We don't have much room in the bathroom for stuff, and I need some sittin' out space, so I took one of my cute little pails (in my favorite Americana colors) and one of my yucky normally inside shower curtain liner hooks that I rummaged around and found, and hung it on the towel bar we don't use. Now I have a place for some of my little stuff I need to get to:

Then here are some of my excess books in a basket by my bed. They'd been stacked up at the bottom of the stair landing by the computer and kept getting kicked when the kids would walk by, so I finally took care of them.

I feel a little better, but I think I'm going to do more tomorrow. There are still tons of messy places to deal with, and organizing makes me feel useful.

And I'm addicted to it.

Hi! My name is Kayren, and I am addicted to organizing.


7 comments:

Mari said...

I like to organize too. It makes me feel so accomplished when something is cleaned out and straightened up!
It's been sleeting on this side of the state too. I hope that's the end of it for a little while at least!

Lora @ my blessed life said...

Winter weather before November! I remember a few of those early snow days in Ohio. I really do miss snowy winters a lot. Just out of curiostiy, what made you decide to move to MI? If I'm being nosey, just ingore me.

Betsy Brock said...

Those northern lakes will do it! I heard Pennsylvania had snow like a mini blizzard yesterday! It is chilly here in Ohio but so far sun with it!

I can understand the organizing fettish during stressful times. It makes you feel that you are in control of something...even if it's just the stuff around you!

Love the little striped bucket! :)

Ronnica said...

I love the basket for the books! That's just what I need. I have a stack of books that aren't organized, just sitting there. I don't have a place for them on the bookshelves. But I could get a basket, perhaps. Where did you get yours, do you know?

Kayren said...

Lora,
We moved to Michigan because Hubby got a job here. That causes laughs when we tell people that here because the economy is so bad.

He will officially be retired from the Army on November 1. He has been on what is called terminal leave since August 1. That's when you can take your accumulated leave and take off, like vacation or job hunting, or you can go ahead and start your new job. That's what my husband did.

We were also fortunate that he had very marketable job skills both from his undergraduate and graduate degrees and his area of specialty in the military, which was contracting/logistics/program management. He had several avenues open to him and if we had chosen to wait, we could have probably gone to another area of the country. We felt very strongly that God was leading us here.

The job here opened up in a fairly simple way. You'll remember we just moved from Virginia, where we had lived for two years. We had been in Illinois for six years prior to that, down by St. Louis, and the last two years of that he was assigned over at the Boeing Factory. His bosses were up here in Detroit, and he traveled here frequently. They took him under their wing, and for the last couple of years they all kept in touch and whenever he traveled to Detroit from Virginia, he always made sure to see them while he was in town. When they knew he was retiring, they were interested in him filling what ended up being much the same position he did in Illinois a few years ago, just here.

We always thought we would end up back in Illinois. Then we thought we might just stay in Virginia. But God closed all those doors pretty obviously. At the same time this door was fairly wide open and we really did feel like this was where we were supposed to be. I really like it here so far, and I think once I acclimate I'm going to love it.

~ Kayren

Kayren said...

Ronnica,
Wal-Mart just in the last week. It's under $8 and it is very sturdy and smooth.

Nancy said...

Wow...that made ME feel better! Organizing is SO therapeutic! Way to go!

 
Designed by Blogs by Sneaky Momma