Everyone should read Voltaire

Or maybe just this quote: "The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out."

I spend my day designing.  I am a graphic designer by trade, and everyday I am faced with piles of information (many that end in exclamation points!!! and requests for bursts ...gah.)  And I am asked to arrange it, rearrange it and make it all make sense.

As a graphic designer I am, in many ways, an editor and filter.  I have to look at twenty pieces of information and not just make them visually pleasing with a fresh perspective, but also discern what is most important, what is second, third, etc.  And, most difficult, what is unnecessary.  Then, of course, I have to pepper in the answers to requests for this or that thing to "POP!" (shudder).

But, in design and in life, we can't include everything.  We must edit.  I fill my life with activities and people and projects, (it takes a lot to keep me busy ...I don't know if you've noticed) but I still have to schedule time (often) to sit down, take stock and decide on a hierarchy.  I can't do everything.  I know, you're all like, "WHAT?  Of course you can!  Have you met you?  You make cheese and sew buttons!"  (raucous laughter and a bit a milk comes from the nose...)

But seriously, as my lists of projects and responsibilities pile up, I need to take a moment and heed my own advice.  Look at it with a designer's eye.  What is most important?  What can be discarded or moved to the bottom of the pile?  Not everything can "POP!", and if you try to cram it all in, you end up with mush.  A big scary, muddled mess where no one knows where to look or what to do.  I walk this line, teetering to either side on occasion, realizing that eyes are glazing over as I relate my endless list of activities...  until I remember those words of Voltaire, and the one thing I never want to be is BORING!

So, Yes! to fun and interesting projects with my kids.  Yes! to hanging out with my husband and mother.   Yes! to this wacky, wandering blog.  Yes! to show choir.  Everything else... you may be edited.

Let's talk about shoes.

I was reading a post on Ohdeedoh this afternoon that got me thinking about shoes.  The main picture in this post is this quaint little basket of summer footwear, carefully styled, and residing by what is clearly a main entrance.

This is where my mind began to wander to my own house.  I know, it's sad, the basket of shoes is not really the point of the post at all, but the sight of it pulls me to a constant annoyance I carry, and have carried, ever since my husband and I moved in together over 10 years ago.  I can be a bit of a festerer, I admit, but I have not come to a suitable solution, and I am flummoxed.

My apologies, shoes seem to be a bit of a theme this week, since my earlier post involved the stinky kind.  But this post is simply about numbers.  We now live in a lovely house with a proper entrance.  It is a luxury we have not had EVER, and, I assure you, I am thankful for it each and every day as I shove the door open with one hip – a baby on the other – 5 bags, a sippy, a blanket and my keys in my hand as I shout to my wanderer to "hurry up and get inside before all the cold air gets out!"  – Wait, I'm pretty sure I have heard that line before somewhere...  Hmmm.  Nevermind.  – And for the first time, I can enter my house and fully turn around without knocking something off the wall or slamming into another door.  It really is dreamy.

But then I look down and slowly up the short flight of stairs to the living room, and what do I see?  SHOES!  EVERYWHERE!  This is not a new phenomenon.  Even when our entryway was a 3' square, there were piles of shoes spilling into every available space and making it so that the door would only open about 8".  – I assure you, a pregnant woman does not do well in these conditions –  But now, not pregnant, able to completely open the front door and rangling two shoe-wearing little creatures, I am still welcomed every night by a cascade of shoes.

I admit, it is a very lovely thing to have the kids trained to remove their snowy/muddy/wet/salty/stinky footwear at the door.  And I take no responsibility for said feat.  My husband is the "no shoes in the house" nazi.  (I save my neurosis for other areas of the home.  Towels on the rods folded in perfect thirds, please!)  But the consequence of this mandate is an ever-growing pile of stinky/dirty shoes at the front door.  "Welcome to my shoe store!  It's all used, but very cute."

Brett was trained well, and, in a house with light-colored carpet (although we mostly have hardwood), it makes a lot of good sense.  I assume, however, the second part of the training was to also carry said shoes to your room and put them away, but I don't know.  We never had the "no shoes" rule when I was growing up.  Maybe because my whole family spent most of the time barefoot anyway, I don't know, I'm from Iowa.  But until that first apartment where shoe racks were installed at the DOOR after we moved in, I had never experienced this phenomenon.  (At least in the apartment they were organized.)

Mom thought maybe if we put a basket by the door of our new house, then the shoes could at least be contained.  But, no.  They have filled the basket, spilled to the floor, and are slowly marching in organized pairs up the front staircase.  What is a girl to do!?

I refuse to be the mom that just cleans up after everyone all the time.  What lesson does that teach other than, "Please tip your waitstaff?"  And you know, my husband has impeccable taste in shoes, but I would much rather see them on his feet than under mine.  (Love you, honey.)

So, that's the shoe rant.  What is the solution, friends?  More baskets?  Cubbies?  A sign that says, "Please keep your shoes on until you are within throwing distance of your closet?"

Your sage advice is welcomed.  And please, if your feet are cold, come on over, we have shoes to spare.

The Paper Trail

I sat cross-legged in my downstairs office a couple of weeks ago knowing it would and should be the first room to pack.  Since I started my full-time job last September and then we were gifted an iPad by my husband's employer last Christmas, we just don't use it much.  I looked at the piles of papers and books and wondered A) where on earth I should start and B) where the heck did all this crap came from.

I knew the answer, of course, this is the one place I can not blame the clutter on the kids, and the few random sheets with my husband's microscopic typewriter scrawl hardly counted as a pittance.  It was me.  It is me.  I make the piles and the stacks towering from one shelf to the next.  You could stand in the room and slowly turn and see books on everything from gardening to child birth, magazines and catalogs that have been dog-eared within an inch of their lives and scraps of fabric mixed with piles of marketing materials.  This is my haven.  This is where my sickness lies.

I think it started in middle school.  I would buy every last magazine - from Teen Beat to Vogue - and tear out ads and spreads that really "moved" me.  I would tape up pictures of my dearest celeb crushes next to reproductions of paintings and a cute swimsuit for summer.  Looking back, it seems I have been making inspiration boards my whole post-Crayola and Barbie Doll life.

But, now, in my near-manic state of purge and cleanse, I was faced with a monumental decision, "Do I keep my precious inspiration?  Or do I suck it up and recycle?"

Enter my 2 new best "virtual" friends: Pinterest and Evernote.

Let me start with Pinterest.  I was turned on to this site by my darling friend, Brad, and I was so excited.  This is an amazing tool for a picture hoarder like me (and even more so, Brad).  Essentially, once you sign up for an account, you move a little "Pin It" button into you Bookmarks Bar at the top of your browser.  Every time you see an image that you like, you click the button and add it to one of your pin boards.  You can have any number of boards, so you can organize things by theme.  It's awesome.  This little tool has saved me lots of ink and paper, as I would usually printout groovy images so I could save them "forever".  Now, I just "pin" them up, and I have them in a single spot for not only my reference, but anyone else who happens upon them.  You can look at mine here.  Each pin you post must be described, and within that description, you can enter @mentions, URLs, #tags and prices.  It's pretty sweet.  Then other people can "like" your pins or even re-pin them to their own boards.

There is just one shortfall that I can see.  You can't pin up entire articles, just the image within.  So, what's a girl to do?  I am nothing without my myriad articles about backyard chicken coops and how to make your own wallpaper!

But, never fear, that's where Evernote steps in.  This one has a lovely little bookmark bar button too.  And you can clip entire articles, bits of text, just URLs... really, whatever you need to save!  But, even more, it has a desktop application that allows you to write yourself notes, lists, reminders, ideas, whatever!  The notebooks are not universally accessible, but you can share them out on Facebook, email or via link.

These two applications combined are exactly what I need to let go of all my half-written in journals and Post-it flagged mags.  I am so happy.  I don't have to try and change who I am and what I need to get through my day - namely, a constant stream of ideas and creative inspiration.  And I can keep everything in one (OK, two) accessible places, so I can also decrease the number of crazy emails and phone calls with which I barrage my poor mom and husband that all start one of 2 ways - either "I NEED AN OPINION" or "I HAD A BRAINSTORM!!"  I'm certain they both cringe at the words.  Although, my mom is a little more used to it, she's been dealing with it for much longer.

...I wonder how long it took her to get all the tape residue off my walls after I moved out.

Regardless, I have parted ways with the bulk of my collection.  I have retyped the important things into Evernote, and those things that were just too irreplaceable have been moved into binders.  A few binders is much better than the towers of paper from before.  So, now, the new office can look more like an office and less like a manic trash heap.  Of course, I am getting my own "Mom Cave", so I guess we'll see how it goes.  Once a piler, always a piler, but at least I am making progress. Right?  Right?

Garage Sales, Cragslist and Consignment... OH MY!

What's the best way to get rid of stuff?  Tell people you have it.  At least, that's what I've found.  This weekend we really started our purge.  Brett and I spent most of Friday night sorting and boxing some of our stuff.  This was after the boys were in bed, of course because who can get anything done with one constantly trying to toss himself down the stairs and the other DEMANDING we play Zombie Dice "NOW!"?  By Saturday morning, we had one pile to take to consignment shops, another to donate and yet another to take to our friends' garage sale that morning.

In the process, I spent quite a bit of time gathering all the pieces of one of our china sets and tidily packing it into two diaper boxes.  (Classy, I know.)  Brett and I had picked up the set at a garage sale ourselves, and the plan was to load it up and sell it at one again.  We paid $60 for it, so we figured someone else might too.  For added bargaining power, I decided to hop on ebay and see how much it was going for there.  Well, I discovered it was going for A LOT more than 60 bucks!  More like 10 bucks a plate!  Our sorting stopped for a while as we discussed what to do.  We really want to get rid of extraneous stuff before the move, but we also would love to have some more money to spend on our decorating projects.  What to do?  What to do?  After a debate, we decided to go ahead and move the plates and put them on ebay ourselves.  It's a gamble.  We'll see what happens.

The rest of the stuff got packed up with the boys in our little Scion XA and hauled over to South Minneapolis where we made a whopping $5.  What a days' work!  The rain and cold kept the buyers at bay, and Brett and I realized, we're really more garage sale shoppers than havers.  We re-packed the Scion and donated the lot.

Next stop: Craigslist.  After a small discussion about, "what will we sleep/eat on," I listed our table and bedroom furniture on this amazing site.  I have had a love affair with craigslist for years, and it never fails to amaze me the things the practically fly out of your house and the things that leave you hauling them to the curb while scratching your head.  The table was gone in a day, the boys' blue dresser took about a week.  The couch is still in the garage...  And, anybody need a modern bedroom set?

Amazing.

So, now at least we have a nice, open space to pile boxes in the dining area.  Does this mean I can start more packing?  JOY!  I love progress.  I want to see less and less stuff and more and more floor/cardboard.  Onward and upward, family!  Onward and upward!