Moving

No, I'm not, moving that is. At least not in the near future, but after an evening of hunting for my hole puncher so I can move ahead on the edits of a first draft, I'm not sure that even near future is late enough. Hey, I'm a creature of habit. What can I say?

It all started early this year. We have 3 bedrooms, the largest a very nicely converted garage that Mallory, my youngest, occupied. I had the other 2 bedrooms, one on the small side, the other fairly roomy. This all came about after the other 3 daughters had moved out on their own. My bedroom aka sleeping space was in the larger of the 2 rooms, while my office occupied the smaller. I began to wonder why. I spend more than 2/3 of my life in my office (and the bathroom and the yard chasing grandkids, etc.) and only sleep less than 8 hours in my bedroom. My office was crowded, especially when the playpen was set up for the youngest of the g-kids. And I inherited (although I'm adopted) my mother's penchant for hoarding. There should be a AA-like org for that, believe me. The logical thing to do was switch rooms. I did, which brought about the second breaking of my poor desk, but I rectified that with a broken yardstick and nails. Don't ask. It was a fast move made on a weekend. Remember, I'm switching rooms, not expanding. Furniture and boxes were moved from the bedroom to the living room, then from the office to the bedroom, and then the living room to the office, now the bedroom. It was a nightmare, and I was slowly---very, very slowly---beginning to sort through boxes and toss the junk. Key word? BEGINNING.

Then Chelsea moved home. Chelsea and Mallory get on like cats and dogs, meaning not at all, especially in the confined space of a bedroom, no matter how large or whether on separate planets. They fought, I stressed, until I finally gave in to Mallory's pleas to let them have my office and bedroom. Separately. Blessedly. Luckily, we have an abundance of beds and other furniture. (See "hoarding" above.) I had come to love my office in the bigger of the two bedrooms. I was comfortable, things were within easy reach, and except for the boxes that yet needed to be sorted and tossed and filed, everything was perfect. It had the right "feel". I switched again.

With a hand-drawn floorplan, I mapped out the placement of my things. It looked good. The sleeping and working areas were seperated by furniture (shelves, mostly), and I thought it would work. It didn't. I had to move everything around again, even my poor, pitiful desk, which is nailed together completely now and probably sturdier than it was when I first got it. The room(s) still isn't right, but I'm stuck with it. My back is to the door when I'm at my desk. Bad Feng Shui. Very bad. But at least there's a little room to move. Very little.

And that's where the lost hole puncher comes in. I'm not a neat, compartmentalized person, so when clearning my desk for each move (3), I tossed things into boxes and baskets and bins. None of those moves ever afforded me the time to replace things where they needed to go. The hole puncherer is among those things.

I have no room. I'm surrounded by boxes of my stuff, her stuff, and her stuff, and real moving would be the only thing that would straighten that out. No, I'm not moving, not in the near future, but if I could be blessed with one small miracle--finding the hole puncher--I would be eternally grateful.

Guess what I'll be doing this weekend, while the girls are gone playing?