I've a lot of stuff on my desk. Who hasn't, right? Here are 13 things on my desk that I double like, no, make that triple,  quadruple like. 1. Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl action figure. She was a gift from the Husband, along with Woody and his horse one Christmas or birthday. 2. My tarnished sterling silver baby cup. I put paper clips and whatever else in it. 3. A coffee mug from Calavera Coffee . That's the specialty coffee shop in town owned and run by a kind-hearted and determined young man. He recently moved into his own store front. May he have the success he wants and more. 4. The Kanger survival multi-tool. The size of a credit card, this stainless steel thing has a knife, a sharpening tool, scissors, and a magnifying glass. It also has the ability to file fingernails, fasten flathead screws, measure things, and open cans and bottles. I think the Husband gave it to me to carry in my purse, but I could be wrong. 5. A solar calculator from the early 1980s. This was Mam...

That picture exemplifies a good reason why the Husband and I don't like to move things in the office. Yesterday, I finally repotted the umbrella plant that has been crying for a bigger pot for a couple of years. Yaay! We decided that the better place for the plant was in the corner by the window next to the Husband's desk. There wasn't much stuff on the corner table but there was quite a lot of stuff on the floor to get to that corner table. Much of that stuff got dumped on the floor next to my desk. I try not to look down.

It's chaos. I'm not talking about what's going on in our country. My chaos is personal and oh so mundane, but real: The chaos I create when I want to move one thing. Just one lousy thing. Doesn't matter what it is, a lamp, a table, a bookcase, or a box of research. To move one thing requires moving a lot of other stuff—before, during, and after moving that one thing. This morning I wanted to move a short, almost empty bookcase from its temporary spot against the wall to a permanent place alongside my desk. A matter of three feet, if that. Step One: Move the bookcase and various piles of paper files, books, and boxes from beneath my desk and the other side of it to whatever surface is available and not in the path of moving objects. Step Two: Remove the floor lamp from the side of the desk to wherever it's not in the way. Step Three: Nudge little by little the desk (a sturdy pine kitchen table, so somewhat nudgable) more towards the wall. Step Four: Re...

Sunflowers from the grocery store. I sprinkled a jar full of seeds throughout the backyard a month ago. As the Mama said about things she planted, "If they grow, they grow." Tiny roses from the roses that the Mama planted in the box I built many years ago and which I demolished on Friday. I should've either reinforced the box or removed the plants and potted them elsewhere for the Mama. Something I thought every time I watered the box the last few years. Bougainvillea and jasmine from the out-of-control vines in the front yard. The Mama would've been pleased to see the jasmine in full bloom, but also would've sighed that the vines had taken over. And, now, it's up to me to figure what to do. "What are you writing?" asked the Husband, looking up from the newspaper. The remains of our lunch sprawled on the kitchen table. "Nothing." A few minutes later, I looked across the flowers on the table at the Husband and said, "I wa...

I have more like 200+ things on my desk if I were to count individual papers and photographs. My desk was originally a kitchen table, which means chaos rules.  Though I think it's relatively neat at the moment. Okay, five things that are on my desk. Two seeds—an apricot pit and a lemon seed from fruit in our backyard. Well, there aren't any more apricots. The Mama, the Husband, and I happily ate them all. Molly the Cat turned her nose to them. A brown rubber lizard. I got it and several of its siblings more than 30 years ago. I gave the siblings away as trick gifts. Yes, I've scared people with the lizard. It doesn't have a name. I wonder if it would like to be called Buddy.  My address book that fits neatly in my purse, if I remember to bring it.  A paperweight that has a dandelion inside it. The Father-in-law gifted it to me long ago. Recipes for soft gingerbread cookies, lemon-poppy seed quick bread, and a friend's mom's recipe for Spanish rice. ...

I need to put up my "Gone Reading" sign more often. I got some good reading done yesterday. It did take awhile before I actually ran to the bedroom and escaped into another time and place but when I did I read for two hours before it was time to make dinner. In the evening, I went back to the mystery I was reading until I turned the last page of the book, which I will tell you about another day. To feel okay about going reading, I decided to cross a few things off my To-Do list. I finally put the photos I had scanned back in the Mama's albums. Some of them even went back on the correct pages. Hopefully, the Mama won't notice. I filed away some documents and put papers to shred in a neat pile on the floor. I even researched what kind of milkweed grows in our area and where to purchase the milkweed seeds. Milkweed is what monarch butterflies munch on as they pass through from here to there. When I was a kid, monarch butterflies were a common thing to see around...

Rattle, rattle, rattle.  This afternoon, I pulled a little red wagon down our driveway to the end of the street, around the corner, and over to the next block. The Husband walked ahead of me, looking for the house in front of which 20+ red bricks, three 18-inch scalloped bricks, and one half-circle of scalloped brick laid waiting for us. All free, courtesy of a recycle-friendly lady who we've never met. Yesterday, an email popped into my box from the local freecycle group to which I subscribe. Usually, there's nothing that I want. Well, actually sometimes I do, but then I hear the Husband's voice in my head say, "What are we going to do with it? We still have a storage room full of stuff that we need to deal with." I heard him say that in my head as I read about the free bricks, but my inner voice overrode it. Bricks! These bricks can come in handy. I quickly wrote a response and asked if the bricks were still available. Yep, they were. I wrote that I wo...

The map of the world hangs on the wall above my cluttered desk and my more-than-often-than-should vacant mind. Above the map hang a few cobwebs. I'm sure Molly the Cat would be fascinated with the cobwebs if she would look up. Fortunately, the desk is too cluttered for her to find a spot to park while I work. The map? Yes, the map. I like maps. Except for topo maps, I can read a map. Reading maps, even street maps, are fun. For me. When I think of Africa, I see the number seven in a serif font. Australia makes me think of a terrier. On this world map, Greenland is orange. As are Brazil, Saudi Arabia, India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Korea. I see no key for colors so maybe it means nothing more than that's what the creator of the map wished to color those nations. You would think I'd gaze at that map a lot. Nope. I put it up to inspire me. But, it only reminds me that I haven't traveled more than I would've thought I would by now. If I think long a...

Don't you just hate it when you can't find find what you want? And, you know it's where it ought to be. Back in April, I wanted to start reading Craig Ferguson's memoir, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot .  ( Click on that link and it'll bring you to Amazon. Just saying. ) It was one of the books that the husband and I got for ourselves last Christmas. He finished it at the beginning of the year and placed it on my pile of books to read that I stacked on the recliner in the bedroom. Because I got tired of feeling bad that he had to move all the books onto the bed when he wanted to sit on the recliner to read, and then back again when he was done sitting, I thought I'd switch the books elsewhere. I did in February. I brought the pile into the office and wrote a blog post ( not an amazon.com link ) about what I was not reading.  I must have been still in a got-to-be organized mood because I stacked them neatly away somewhere. I ...

The mama is a professional reuser and repurposer, and she doesn't even know it.  See the photo of different types of containers. I picked all those things up from behind her seat at the kitchen table the other day so I could mop the floor. That box is not empty. It's loaded with empty peanut butter jars. I'm sure I could find at least a dozen boxes full of empty jars stashed in the garage and the tool shed. Maybe one of these days, I'll take some of the boxes down to the recycling center. For as long as I can remember, the mama has saved jars, worn out clothing, boxes, paper bags, bread ties, containers and trays that food come on, tree branches, wood, linoleum tiles, and so on and so forth. She turns them all into functional things such as dust rags, garbage bags, seed containers, and plant saucers. The mama has a lot of soft kitchen towels that she made out of rice bags when rice was sold in white cotton sacks. As for tree branches, she keeps the sturdy tall ones that...

My recipes are written on scraps of paper and backs of envelopes that are messily piled together on my designated cookbook shelf in the kitchen. I also have jotted recipes and stored them on my computer, which I will only find again by accidentally stumbling upon them.  Computers are definitely not the place for me to keep them.  In short, I need to go back to using recipe card boxes. Recipe card boxes are neat. I love finding them at garage sales and thrift shops. I just don't use them for their original intentions. The one on my desk holds business cards and all my library cards from different cities, for instance. Anyway, I think the day for transferring my recipes onto cute recipe cards is coming sooner than later. Earlier this month, one of my favorite cooking and crafts blogs—Skip to My Lou— began offering printable recipe cards for free. Yep, f-r-e-e!  Who doesn't like free stuff, especially when the things are cute and useful.  Thank you Cindy, the creative c...

One of my latest projects is divesting myself of stuff. See the photo of the snake pen. It’s inkless. Shall I: a) throw it away? b) toss it into one of my boxes of mementos, which I’ll open another day to decide whether I’m ready to dump what’s inside? c) keep it forever and let my executor dump it after I’m dead? I bought this pen years ago when I was going through a period of “Ooh, how cute. I’m a snake, I must have it.” Fortunately, that was a short phase and I have only a meager collection of stuffed snakes, snake figurines, and picture books featuring talking snakes. No doubt, unknown readers, you understand my snake reference, one of the 12 signs in Chinese astrology. According to the Chinese Zodiac.com web site , “…When it comes to decision-making, Snakes are extremely analytical and as a result, they don’t jump into situations....” Yep. This snake pen has been lying on my desk for several days, ever since I went through my cup of pens and threw away the inkless ones. But un...