Clean up....

Yesterday I just got tired of this office being such a mess, SO I started re-organizing it. When you have two people using it at an almost steady rate, it has a tendency to get discombobulated. When you have a house keeper like me, it makes it even worse. When you have one right-handed person and one wrong-handed person, it gets even WORSE! The mouse is all wrong, the elbow room is wrong, the way the chair sits is wrong, the pens are on the wrong side, and your papers get all messed up.

I have an over-abundance of books, and papers that I just have not gotten rid of yet. SO they get all stacked up and in the way. I had two tall wooden CD cases out in the garage just collecting dust. I do not like them as they are black and don't fit into the rooms right. Well I decided that they would do fine on top of my computer desk, as a sort of hutch. They could hold all my back up CD's and some of my notebooks. I painted them the same color as the office, to blend in. Not Martha Stewart by any means, but not really bad either. It eliminated most of the clutter on the desk. I can actually see the top of it now!!

As soon as I am finished with this show and Little Shop Of Horrors, then I will have a huge break, and I plan on digging into all the papers I have saved for years and years and years, and go through them page by page and PURGE!!! If I have not looked at it in a year, no matter how cool it might be in the future, It is getting burned!! Actually I have a shredder, and will shred them and use them as mulch in my garden!!

Speaking of burning...Someone actually has a fire going in their fireplace!! I can smell the first wood smoke of the season, coming in through the office window. It got cold last night, down into the low 40's here and the 30's on the mainland!! Frost can't be too far behind! We had the tail end of a low come down the strait last night with winds up to 30 MPH. Just a heavy breeze for us. We have our worse storms in the Fall. The worst one was Oct of 1962. The Columbus Day Storm. I was in high school and at an away football game. The winds hit, and knocked out the power, and they cancelled the game, took all of us students that had ridden the Rooter buses and put us in the gym. The storm knocked all the power in the western half of the state out, blew roofs off, blew barns down, knocked over tons of trees and telephone lines, and generally made a huge mess out of our state and Oregon. Winds were over 85 miles an hour, and just called a big wind. Sounds like a Category 1 Hurricane to me!

We did not have the advanced warning that we do now, knowing far ahead of time that a potentially dangerous storm was heading our way. We were always prepared. When the first light blinked, we would get out the emergency supplies and be ready. We always had Kerosene Lamps, candles, and plenty of wood for the fireplace. Mom would always have a secret stash of marshmallows and would drag them out to make toasty marshmallows and we would roast hotdogs also. We always made an adventure out of our disasters.

There has been more than one Thanksgiving Day spent without power, and Turkeys in the oven! The restaurants with Gas stoves, made a killing opening up and cooking anything. It was an adventure.

The way the squirrels are stashing away the nuts, leads me to believe that we will have a fairly nasty winter. I am ready!! I have wood, just need to stock up on some food, and PET FOOD!!

Oh! And don't forget your MEDS!!! Take a look at the first aid kit too, Is it intact? Are the expiration dates still good? Most of them usually are expired! Get in the habit of changing out your OTC meds. Replace the ones in your medicine cabinet with the ones in your first aid kit, and remember to replace that one in your kit!! You should always have fresh dated meds that way.

Now, If I can only practice what I preach.... :-(