This is going to be one of those posts where I have no choice but to make blatant fun of my own imperfections. To "come clean", if you will.
I have been trapped in a pig sty of my own making. For the past week I have been trying to chip away at the dust and clutter in my workspace... which, I'm embarrassed to say, is quite considerable. Not because I enjoy dust and clutter but because essentially I live and work in one room right now, and it's virtually impossible to keep it neat and clean all the time. My home office is also my bedroom, living room, and on occasion, my dining room (although I never leave dirty dishes around). It's not ideal, but it was a conscious decision for me to move back into my mother's home over a year ago as I started my writing business and as an effort to save money to move to Paris (the latter is going slower than desired, however). The price I have to pay for economising is small living space. I console myself with the knowledge that it is only temporary, and provides me with incentive to become a very successful writer and move out as quickly as I can!
I have always been a bit of a clutter-bug, but to give myself a little credit, over the years I have gotten less tolerant of own my sloppy habits. I still tend to toss dirty laundry on the floor at night but will usually put it in the hamper the next morning... or at least later the next day. Living and working in one room does require more of an effort to pick up. For instance, I make the bed every day now, which is a habit I never could sustain until I moved back in here. It was one thing to go without making the bed when I had an apartment where I could shut the bedroom door, but I can't work in a room with an unmade bed; it drives me nuts.
Having all the "essentials" of one's life crammed into an 11x12 room is not easy. The first thing that greets me when I enter the room is a coat rack. It houses my scarves and hoodies and lightweight jackets (heavy winter wear is in the home's communal coat closet). Next, I have a dresser with a mirror, and the top of the dresser is perpetually cluttered with makeup and vitamin bottles and jewelry because there isn't enough space to put it all away, out of site. My undies and socks and assorted health and beauty aids are stored in other dressers and containers in the guest bedroom and in the linen closet, because there is just not enough room in this room for ALL my things.
After the dresser, I have one tall bookshelf filled to overflowing with books I use regularly as well as my "to read" stack (in fairness, I had THREE bookshelves in my old apartment and I got rid of quite a lot of books before I moved, with only two boxes of books now remaining in storage with my files, furniture and off-season clothing).
That's on one wall of the room, on the right as you walk in the door. On the facing wall, the bed takes up most of that space. It has a headboard that contains some storage (even though it reduces the walking space in the room by a foot) and that's where my main lamp, clock radio, telephone and home theatre speakers live, as well as my stash of chocolate and the remote control.
In the corner on the other side of the bed is my workstation, which is taller than it is wider and which is designed to fit in the corner -- another space-saver. Here, you will find my laptop (which doesn't fit quite right on the main workspace, one that was clearly built for a full computer workstation rather than a laptop), my all-in-one printer/copier/scanner (love its space-saving qualities), two shelves above that house filing bins and extra software, and on the shelf underneath the keyboard tray, one of those plastic file storage containers and some office supplies. This is my only "filing cabinet" in the room - all other papers and files are in boxes downtown in my storage locker.
To the left of the desk sits my Yamaha keyboard. It's my link to my musical ability (fair, not spectacular), and which I now rarely play but do not want to dismantle and put into storage because I fear if I do, I may never play Chopin or Beethoven ever again. Thank God it has its own dust cover or the keys would be sticking together from dust and lack of use. Even though I know it would create a feeling of more spaciousness in the room, I am reluctant to pack it away. Right now it serves as a convenient place to put papers and notes for client projects (since I have no space for an actual work table and generally end up using the bed as a temporary workspace during the day). The papers tend to slide off if I try to stack them too high. That's probably a good thing. Underneath the Yamaha I have a few small piles of books (including a paper copy of my own e-book) but I can't put too much here because it's next to the electric wall heater - the entire house uses electric heat (oui, c'est très cher!)
In the corner behind me is the combination entertainment zone and office supply storage. Had I had a bit more foresight when I moved back in here, I might have realized that the beautiful pine entertainment armoire would have fit perfectly into this space, giving me not only a place for my TV, VCR and home theatre/DVD, but storage underneath for office supplies. Instead, I did not use the brains God gave me and I opted for another solution: an open TV stand for the television that only has space for a VCR and which has all the cables and my wireless router showing in plain sight underneath; and next to that, a butcher block cart (for a kitchen) on which rests my DVD/theatre player, has a drawer where I keep my checkbooks and postage supplies, and storage underneath for paper and file folders and notebooks and junk. And next to THAT is my clothes hamper, and then the woefully inadequate closet. If I'd gone with the entertainment armoire, all of that would have fit neatly into one vertical unit and I could even have hidden some storage boxes on the top of it. Instead I am pretty much stuck with everything being stored horizontally, which wastes all the space above waste/chest level (which I filled in with a map of downtown Paris). It is also a huge dust magnet - all those electronics generate static which attracts the dust. I suppose I could go back to my storage unit and swap out the entertainment armoire for the furniture I am using now, but that would require hiring a small moving van and enlisting the help of two strong young men, and I will have access to neither of those until the summer. And I'm not sure it's going to be worth doing all that.
About a week ago, feeling distracted and maxed out by the mess, I started by cleaning out the closet and adjusting some of the shelving to make better use of the hanging space. That was a good place to start and it really is making a difference. Now when I do the laundry I can put it away immediately instead of procrastinating in my frustration because things don't seem to fit anywhere. Check THAT one off my "list"!
Then last night, I did one other long-overdue project: I got rid of my CD tower (now bequeathed to my niece) and took all the CD's out of their plastic cases and put them into one of those nice, compact CD cases. The dust on those jewel covers and the CD tower had me sneezing for hours.
With each little project and each little bit of successful cleaning and reorganizing, I want to do more. I dusted the bookshelf and straighted up the books, and even took out some I no longer wanted and sent them to the thrift shop where my mom volunteers (all except my copy of "Sex and the City" which my mother felt was not appropriate for a CHURCH thrift shop. Oops. Can you tell I don't go to church? That never even occurred to me.) I dusted the headboard storage area. I dusted around my desk and workstation. I dusted so much the dustcloth wouldn't hold any more dust and I had to wash it out before I could continue dusting the rest of the room. (Even these miracle microfiber dust rags have limitations.)
This room also has limitations and the only way to overcome them is to move out and give my mother back her house (I'm sure she'll have mixed feelings about that when the day comes). But in the meantime I just keep trying to make the best of what I've got to work with. After all, I'm here by choice. So all I can do is try to minimize the clutter, keep up with the dust (which is endless, of course)... and to keep my eye on the prize: getting to Paris.
Paris... <sigh>... my personal Mecca, my dream, my future home, my future life... where I will continue to struggle with less-than-stellar domestic habits, and where I will fight dust and probably clean out more clutter after settling in. Cleaning is a part of life. It comes with the territory, distasteful as it is.
It will just sound so much better in French.
