Start Small
Minor headway into the chaos. I’m thinking a small victories approach is the right thing. There is, for instance, a very nice moment happening on the mantle.
These little vases are charming, yes? My mother gave them to me at Christmas. The “you = love” is actually a belt buckle made out of bronze — jmags will tell you about it sometime, I’m sure.
I’ve been thinking a fair amount about messes. I asked jmags what he thought our worst areas were, and they were a little different than mine. This just shows that different things bug us. We agree on recycling (argh!), papers with no homes (and really anything with no designated home. Have I mentioned that we have five laptops for three people?), and the kitchen (I would say the refrigerator, especially).
Bright spots exist — we have implemented a few systems that have been complete successes.
Canning jars. Beautiful.
Work mornings, when I’m making coffee in the Technivorm, and all is dead quiet and dark (I don’t even like to turn on the light some days), I find the unscrewing of the sugar jar — the slight initial resistance of the seal, and the smooth slide of metal that follows — very satisfying. Small things.