My lovely wife writes for several local publications. The editor of one assigned her a new story, one that made me jump for joy and go into sarcastic-husband mode all at once.
The assignment is for my wife to hook up with a professional organizer. The organizer would proceed to invade my wife's office and get her life organized. My wife would, in return, write a story about the experience.
My first thought was to ask if the magazine editor had a secret webcam pointed at my lovely wife's desk. How else could the editor know what a perfect candidate she was? That one didn't quite get me a slap across the face, but it did get me a "bite me" and a nasty look.
I've long ago accepted the fact that my lovely wife is the yin to my anal-retentive yang. If we had geeky organizational nicknames, they would be "file" and "pile". I file everything. She performs this precarious balancing act of paper, books, and other materials upon various strategic corners of the desk, floor, and any other flat surface. Once a month or so I go on a tear and clean things up, after which she berates me for throwing something important out. But don't get me wrong...I'm not perfect either. I cannot follow a schedule, remember an important date, or do basic math, whereas she can tell me exactly how many hours are available between Friday at 5pm and Monday at 8am and how few of the items I've put on our list for the weekend could possibly happen without disrupting the space-time continuum and creating a wormhole in our cul-de-sac. In a sense, we complete each other.
Needless to say, I am looking forward to this project. It involves cleaning, filing, and possibly the construction of one or more shelves. This should be quite an experience.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query organizer. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query organizer. Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Monday, September 03, 2007
Pottery Barn Dreams on a K-Mart budget
With our house renovation behind us, we've lately been spending lots of time hemming and hawing about furniture. Well, maybe more hemming than hawing. As you can well imagine, after dropping a boatload of cash into construction, lately we get a little queasy when we look at the prices of things like dining room tables, couches, and office furniture.
Luckily, none of our needs are immediate. We've got a dining room table, though it's too small and doesn't match our decor (early neo-retro-classic with an art deco-country flair). We've got office furniture that's functional, but reminds me of my college dorm days (hmm... probably because it's the desk from my college dorm). We've also got an entire living room to furnish, but for now that room is the storehouse for Fisher Price's western Pennsylvania showcase.
As I mentioned in a recent post, my wife had the opportunity to hire a professional organizer to create an organized environment for her at-home writing career. I'll write some details on that another time, but suffice it to say having a clean, organized office has given me the bug to do something about furnishing it. So I've started hunting around for office furniture. I've found that the choices out there really, really, really suck.
Unless you like particle board, there isn't much to choose from. My repulsion for semi-disposable furniture automatically knocks anything from Ikea, OfficeMax or the like immediately out of the running. That leaves us with professional-grade places or fancy-schmancy places like Pottery Barn. We also crossed off the professional office furniture places, because we really don't need our home to look like a dentist's reception area.
One of the few places in the world that seems to sell good quality and decent looking office furniture is Pottery Barn. No surprise really. Everyone knows their stuff is gorgeous though pricey. I was recently browsing though their catalog (yes, I was on the john, of course. Bet you're glad I mentioned that) when I discovered this line of "modular" furniture for home offices. I showed Hilary, and she loved it. But as is usually the case with PB, I was horrified by the price. A simple two-drawer file cabinet was $250! Extrapolate that out and we could easily furnish our office for about the same price as a year of tuition at Carnegie Mellon. Not really an option. But I felt I had to go to PB and see this stuff in person, to understand exactly what magical powers this office suite possessed enabling it to garner such a high price.
So I went. And I looked. And you know what? It was very nice. But more importantly, I realized that the design was ridiculously simple. Clean lines, no fancy routed edges, absolutely nothing special (which is why we liked it so much). So, I decided it was time for my next woodworking project.
A half hour later, I had the basic cabinet sketched out in Sketchup.
One trip to Home Depot and $38 later, I had the lumber I needed. Tomorrow, a trip to Rockler (my new favorite store) for some additional components and a can of some good wood finish, and I have what I need to build a proof of concept. I figure if I can make a file cabinet as nice as they can (okay, 75% as nice), then I have all the skills I need to completely furnish our office and have enough left over to send the kids to trade school, at least.
I'll keep you posted.
Luckily, none of our needs are immediate. We've got a dining room table, though it's too small and doesn't match our decor (early neo-retro-classic with an art deco-country flair). We've got office furniture that's functional, but reminds me of my college dorm days (hmm... probably because it's the desk from my college dorm). We've also got an entire living room to furnish, but for now that room is the storehouse for Fisher Price's western Pennsylvania showcase.
As I mentioned in a recent post, my wife had the opportunity to hire a professional organizer to create an organized environment for her at-home writing career. I'll write some details on that another time, but suffice it to say having a clean, organized office has given me the bug to do something about furnishing it. So I've started hunting around for office furniture. I've found that the choices out there really, really, really suck.
Unless you like particle board, there isn't much to choose from. My repulsion for semi-disposable furniture automatically knocks anything from Ikea, OfficeMax or the like immediately out of the running. That leaves us with professional-grade places or fancy-schmancy places like Pottery Barn. We also crossed off the professional office furniture places, because we really don't need our home to look like a dentist's reception area.
One of the few places in the world that seems to sell good quality and decent looking office furniture is Pottery Barn. No surprise really. Everyone knows their stuff is gorgeous though pricey. I was recently browsing though their catalog (yes, I was on the john, of course. Bet you're glad I mentioned that) when I discovered this line of "modular" furniture for home offices. I showed Hilary, and she loved it. But as is usually the case with PB, I was horrified by the price. A simple two-drawer file cabinet was $250! Extrapolate that out and we could easily furnish our office for about the same price as a year of tuition at Carnegie Mellon. Not really an option. But I felt I had to go to PB and see this stuff in person, to understand exactly what magical powers this office suite possessed enabling it to garner such a high price.
So I went. And I looked. And you know what? It was very nice. But more importantly, I realized that the design was ridiculously simple. Clean lines, no fancy routed edges, absolutely nothing special (which is why we liked it so much). So, I decided it was time for my next woodworking project.
A half hour later, I had the basic cabinet sketched out in Sketchup.
One trip to Home Depot and $38 later, I had the lumber I needed. Tomorrow, a trip to Rockler (my new favorite store) for some additional components and a can of some good wood finish, and I have what I need to build a proof of concept. I figure if I can make a file cabinet as nice as they can (okay, 75% as nice), then I have all the skills I need to completely furnish our office and have enough left over to send the kids to trade school, at least.
I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
A hero gone
Sorry, it's been a while since the last writing, but I would be remiss if I were to not post something about this week's celebrity loss, George Carlin.
Growing up, I had two role models in my life: Kermit the Frog and George Carlin. Sure, you might ask, "what about your dad?", but I would point out that in my twisted memory of childhood Kermit and my dad were the same, um, person. Ask my sister and she'd say the same.
I grew up with Carlin. I said my first dirty words with Carlin. Some day I will find out what a few of them actually mean.
I was introduced to George in the 80's with Carlin At Carnegie. I distinctly remember standing next to the TV sometime around the fifteenth viewing of the special, my finger poised on the "record" button of my cassette tape recorder (the one I also used to plug into my Timex Sinclair 1000) so I could record the audio and listen to it over and over again. And I did. Over and over again. Back then I could recite the first 90 or so words from George's complete dirty words list from memory. And I did. Over and over again. Somewhere in the basement is the complete list, but no matter. This week I confirmed that Carlin At Carnegie is forever available on YouTube. Enjoy.
If it wasn't for George, I wouldn't know what to say when I opened the refridgerator and came across an empty plate (Did something east something else?).
If it wasn't for George, I wouldn't have known that the Mexican Hat Dance was written by two people.
George made me snicker every time the flight attendant said, "please check the overhead compartments for any belongings you might have brought on board with you (well, I MIGHT have brought my arrowhead collection).
George taught me that the object of baseball was to GO HOME.
George taught me that woodpecker was the tragic next stage of pussyfoot.
George taught me that a fart's a fart, and that's that.
Ironically, this week I've been introducing my daughters to Season 1 of The Muppet Show on DVD. Timeless classics. As an adult, I have a new found respect for Kermit, and see how he did in fact shape my life. Kermit was the leader, the anal retentive organizer, trying to make sense and order of the weirdness around him. That's me. But I also noticed one thing I had never realized watching the Muppets as a kid.
Kermit was quite the horndog.
Forget about Miss Piggy for a moment. In two of the first three episodes of Season one, Kermit and his cohorts hosted Juliet Prowse and Connie Stevens. Both babes. And Kermit could have had either one of them. Had it not been for the G-rating of the Sunday night show, he would have. he's just that charming.
Somehow, I didn't pick up that trait growing up.
Growing up, I had two role models in my life: Kermit the Frog and George Carlin. Sure, you might ask, "what about your dad?", but I would point out that in my twisted memory of childhood Kermit and my dad were the same, um, person. Ask my sister and she'd say the same.
I grew up with Carlin. I said my first dirty words with Carlin. Some day I will find out what a few of them actually mean.
I was introduced to George in the 80's with Carlin At Carnegie. I distinctly remember standing next to the TV sometime around the fifteenth viewing of the special, my finger poised on the "record" button of my cassette tape recorder (the one I also used to plug into my Timex Sinclair 1000) so I could record the audio and listen to it over and over again. And I did. Over and over again. Back then I could recite the first 90 or so words from George's complete dirty words list from memory. And I did. Over and over again. Somewhere in the basement is the complete list, but no matter. This week I confirmed that Carlin At Carnegie is forever available on YouTube. Enjoy.
If it wasn't for George, I wouldn't know what to say when I opened the refridgerator and came across an empty plate (Did something east something else?).
If it wasn't for George, I wouldn't have known that the Mexican Hat Dance was written by two people.
George made me snicker every time the flight attendant said, "please check the overhead compartments for any belongings you might have brought on board with you (well, I MIGHT have brought my arrowhead collection).
George taught me that the object of baseball was to GO HOME.
George taught me that woodpecker was the tragic next stage of pussyfoot.
George taught me that a fart's a fart, and that's that.
Ironically, this week I've been introducing my daughters to Season 1 of The Muppet Show on DVD. Timeless classics. As an adult, I have a new found respect for Kermit, and see how he did in fact shape my life. Kermit was the leader, the anal retentive organizer, trying to make sense and order of the weirdness around him. That's me. But I also noticed one thing I had never realized watching the Muppets as a kid.
Kermit was quite the horndog.
Forget about Miss Piggy for a moment. In two of the first three episodes of Season one, Kermit and his cohorts hosted Juliet Prowse and Connie Stevens. Both babes. And Kermit could have had either one of them. Had it not been for the G-rating of the Sunday night show, he would have. he's just that charming.
Somehow, I didn't pick up that trait growing up.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Room Empurgement Day
Once every few months (or, once every other day according to my lovely wife), I get a burr in my saddle about the state of clutter in the house. Usually I get stirred up after my wallet becomes submerged under a ream of kids' artwork that's collected on the kitchen counter, or when I need to reach something in the back corner of the playroom and realize the only way I'm going to get to it is with a pound of C-4, a Hazmat suit and a roll of paper towels. And when I get stirred up, that's when the soonest available Saturday becomes Room Empurgement Day.
Sometimes I get smart, and provide some incentive to my daughters to join in Room Empurgement Day. "Come on girls! Let's find the floor of the basement so we have a place we can put a new Foozball table!" Other times I just use threats. "I'm walking into that room with a plastic garbage bag, and I ain't leaving until it's too full to tie closed. If your collection of broken Harry Potter wands ends up in my path, so be it."
I recall recently where I happened to strike just the right cord (don't ask me how) to get the girls excited about the prospects of a clean playroom. The elder child, showing off a few drops from her dad's anal retentive gene pool, was extremely enthusiastic about organizing, sorting, and purging. Her younger sibling just nodded her head in agreement and confirmed that, whatever she was going to be doing, mommy would need to be no more than three feet away at all times.
It was a great start to Room Empurgement Day. In theory. We were going to be like one of those families you see on the DIY channel who hire the professional organizer and sort their entire collection of belongings into eight color-coded storage boxes, an alphabetized file cabinet, and a wall-hanging photo montage containing the pictorial story of their family's life events through the ages. I could just picture myself in our spotless home, relaxing in the cushy leather chair by the fire, reading the latest issue of The New Yorker with my faithful labrador at my feet while my wife cooks up a fresh batch of scones with homemade marmalade and my children built me an ottoman made entirely of popsicle sticks. Wait...where was I? Oh, right...reality.
Here's what actually happened. Saturday morning breakfast, 5 episodes of Hannah Montana, and a Spongebob later, I finally managed to peel the kids away from the TV and announce it was time for Room Empurgement Day to begin.
"WAIT!" yelled Jessica. Now, 99.98% of the time you ask Jessica to do something, that's the answer you get. "WAIT! I'm not done putting my squishies to bed!" Okay, so I'm not quite sure what squishies are, and I don't know why they need to hit the sack in the middle of the day, but we certainly weren't going to get any effort out of Jessica until the little varmints were tucked away for their nighttime slumber. So while Mom bought some time putting the dishes away so Jessica could put her squishies to bed within tugging distance from her mother, I took Thing #1 upstairs to tackle the mess in the playroom.
Once upstairs, it wasn't long before distraction set in. I asked her to sort through a pile of stuff in the middle of the floor. As soon as a long lost plastic bathtub from her Barbie dollhouse was discovered, Natalie left the pile intact and migrated to the Dream Home. I pulled her back in by asking her to return her collection of fancy scarves draped across the playroom TV back to her bedroom closet, and found her ten minutes later sitting on her bed revisiting a book on how to draw cartoon puppy faces. That's when the moaning and complaining started. Then the crying. Then the tantrums. And Natalie really, REALLY hates when I tantrum.
Soon Thing #2 came upstairs with her mother, and I put them to work sorting books. This of course led to the realization that, no matter how destroyed a book was, no matter that the pages of the book were stuck together with 5-year-old dried up baby formula, it was not going to be leaving the house without a fight.
It's about this point where my lovely wife and I realize, yet again, what every parent already knows. Clean the room when the kids are gone, throw everything out, and hope to god that the kids never think to ask what ever happened to that old Dora The Explorer backpack that's now sitting in the bottom of the garbage bag. Another successful Room Epurgement Day complete.
Sometimes I get smart, and provide some incentive to my daughters to join in Room Empurgement Day. "Come on girls! Let's find the floor of the basement so we have a place we can put a new Foozball table!" Other times I just use threats. "I'm walking into that room with a plastic garbage bag, and I ain't leaving until it's too full to tie closed. If your collection of broken Harry Potter wands ends up in my path, so be it."
I recall recently where I happened to strike just the right cord (don't ask me how) to get the girls excited about the prospects of a clean playroom. The elder child, showing off a few drops from her dad's anal retentive gene pool, was extremely enthusiastic about organizing, sorting, and purging. Her younger sibling just nodded her head in agreement and confirmed that, whatever she was going to be doing, mommy would need to be no more than three feet away at all times.
It was a great start to Room Empurgement Day. In theory. We were going to be like one of those families you see on the DIY channel who hire the professional organizer and sort their entire collection of belongings into eight color-coded storage boxes, an alphabetized file cabinet, and a wall-hanging photo montage containing the pictorial story of their family's life events through the ages. I could just picture myself in our spotless home, relaxing in the cushy leather chair by the fire, reading the latest issue of The New Yorker with my faithful labrador at my feet while my wife cooks up a fresh batch of scones with homemade marmalade and my children built me an ottoman made entirely of popsicle sticks. Wait...where was I? Oh, right...reality.
Here's what actually happened. Saturday morning breakfast, 5 episodes of Hannah Montana, and a Spongebob later, I finally managed to peel the kids away from the TV and announce it was time for Room Empurgement Day to begin.
"WAIT!" yelled Jessica. Now, 99.98% of the time you ask Jessica to do something, that's the answer you get. "WAIT! I'm not done putting my squishies to bed!" Okay, so I'm not quite sure what squishies are, and I don't know why they need to hit the sack in the middle of the day, but we certainly weren't going to get any effort out of Jessica until the little varmints were tucked away for their nighttime slumber. So while Mom bought some time putting the dishes away so Jessica could put her squishies to bed within tugging distance from her mother, I took Thing #1 upstairs to tackle the mess in the playroom.
Once upstairs, it wasn't long before distraction set in. I asked her to sort through a pile of stuff in the middle of the floor. As soon as a long lost plastic bathtub from her Barbie dollhouse was discovered, Natalie left the pile intact and migrated to the Dream Home. I pulled her back in by asking her to return her collection of fancy scarves draped across the playroom TV back to her bedroom closet, and found her ten minutes later sitting on her bed revisiting a book on how to draw cartoon puppy faces. That's when the moaning and complaining started. Then the crying. Then the tantrums. And Natalie really, REALLY hates when I tantrum.
Soon Thing #2 came upstairs with her mother, and I put them to work sorting books. This of course led to the realization that, no matter how destroyed a book was, no matter that the pages of the book were stuck together with 5-year-old dried up baby formula, it was not going to be leaving the house without a fight.
It's about this point where my lovely wife and I realize, yet again, what every parent already knows. Clean the room when the kids are gone, throw everything out, and hope to god that the kids never think to ask what ever happened to that old Dora The Explorer backpack that's now sitting in the bottom of the garbage bag. Another successful Room Epurgement Day complete.
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