New Room October 25, 2004

After more than nine years in our house, we finally have color on the walls in our bedroom and bathroom. We’ve been slowly working through each room, starting with our guest room in January 2002, study in September 2002, the marathon painting session of foyer, dining room, kitchen, living room and hallway in October 2002, Ben’s bathroom in March 2003, and Ben’s room September 2003 (the third paint job for his room). The master suite is the least public room in our house, so it fell to the bottom of the list – though thankfully it made the cut before our laundry room. The stack of paint swatches was an inch thick before I finally settled on a color, helped along by the duvet I just ordered.

I’ve decided that the author of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie must have used home improvements as her inspiration for this children’s classic. For the last two weekends, I’ve been living the logic in this book…because the painting means you’ll need to move the furniture, which means you’ll want to clean in the places where the furniture used to be, and you might as well empty out cabinets to make things easier to move, which means you need to sort through what you empty out, and as long as we’re moving furniture around, let’s make better use of this room and move the cable jack, and now that we have this fresh new paint and a new duvet, we’re going to need new window treatments, which means we’ll need new curtain rods….I could fill pages with all the branches on the home improvement tree, but you get the idea. It’s extremely rewarding when it’s all done, but it always involves so much more than I think it will. I’m not sure what the alternative is, though I’m guessing it would entail some sort of project plan mapped out a month in advance. We still have a few steps left to go, but I’m looking forward to that sweet feeling when I look around and sigh with satisfaction, “Done!”

Until the paint in the guest room starts looking a little dingy….

Blogfeld October 4, 2004

I’ve been wondering lately if the people who first developed weblogs were Seinfeld fans. I’m coming down on the side of yes. Remember the episode where Jerry and George are trying to write the pilot for “Jerry” and they eventually stumble upon the idea of writing a show about nothing? “You mean I’m waiting for a table at a restaurant and that’s a show?” “That’s a show!” “I’m trying to find my car in a parking garage and that’s a show?” “That’s a show!”

“You mean I’m cleaning off my bookshelves and that’s a post?” “That’s a post!”

When I first outed my blog I got intimidated about coming up with posts that would have a broad-ranging appeal. But I’m finally getting that weblogs aren’t about that – we have commercially viable magazines, newspapers and websites for that. Now I’m realizing that my blog is a place where I can jot down a few thoughts that would otherwise be fleeting – the glimpses of understanding and bits and pieces of days that pass by all too quickly in what we love to refer to as our fast-paced society. Because these small moments, regardless of the speed in which they pass, really do add up to a lifetime. If I stop to take a verbal snapshot now and then, it just might force me to slow down enough to get the picture in focus.

Liberating My Bookshelf October 3, 2004

As Brian and I plan for re-doing our bedroom, I’m going through the process of what I call de-crapifying. Our bedroom became the catchall room by default when Ben started taking piano lessons in our guest room. Now, the Baileys are not big clutter-keepers, but I think everyone has a certain amount of stuff they just really don’t know what to do with, like the throw that matched the old couch, a good-looking frame without a picture to go inside, etc. But the gig is up. I’ve read that the master bedroom should be the most peaceful, serene room in the house, and it’s time to take action to make that happen. So, along with the fun of ordering a new duvet and picking out paint chips comes the hard work of simplifying, streamlining….de-crapifying.

The easiest thing to tackle first was the bookshelf. Well, maybe not the easiest, but most logical. How hard is it to put some books in a bag and take them to Half-Price Books? And the majority of the books on my shelf aren’t pretty to look at – they are old, tattered paperbacks, many of which were used when I bought them in the first place. As I pulled, evaluated and added to the growing stack of books to get rid of, I wondered what had taken me so long to arrive at this point. I looked at the pile and found several distinct categories, each with their own emotional draw.

Women’s studies books from college – From The Feminine Mystique to Sisterhood is Powerful, these were texts from a series of women’s studies classes. I loved the statement these books made on my shelf. I am a Strong Woman, so watch out! I won’t be oppressed! If you know my husband, I hope you are laughing right now. I have the least sexist, most supportive, share-the-workload husband I know. Yet, I spent so much of my late teens and early adulthood fearing that I would lead an unhappy, subservient life. But the reality is, I’m not. I’m finally confident enough in that blessing that I can let go of something that wasn’t going to defend me anyway.

Gift books – You know the type. I bet you have been the recipient of one of these pretty books at least once in your life. A sentimental graphic of some sort adorns the cover (a dusty roadway during an autumn sunset, a painting of a mother and child, a black and white snapshot of an adorable cat or dog) and the subject matter is designed to appeal to the faithful friend/mother/cat-lover in our lives. And that’s pretty much where the effort to create the book stopped. The words inside are as soft as the misty artwork on the cover and lack the substance to make any real point. The only reason these books are on our shelves is guilt. Getting rid of a book is hard enough, but giving away with a book that’s been inscribed to me has been seemingly too cold-hearted to contemplate. Until today.

Journalism textbooks – I kept books from classes I really liked, thinking that these texts filled with useful tools and facts would come in handy some day when I need to launch a new career or polish up for a stint of freelancing. I’m rather embarrassed to admit that up to this point I really thought that 12-14 year old books were still relevant. Sure, words are words and nouns will be nouns 20 years from now, but desktop publishing from 1992? Not so much. And when did libraries and bookstores vanish from existence? I think it took me finally having a job I love to let these go.

High school literature – The first Shakespeare I ever read, books I did term papers on, classics we discussed in depth…these books made me feel smart. I love the memories associated with these small volumes marked with underlining and exclamation points. But I don’t read them any more. There are new worlds to conquer and things to learn, plenty of classics still un-read. With all the books that I want to make time for, what makes me think I’m going to get an inkling to go back and dive into Lord of the Flies again?!

Baby and child-rearing books – Our son is nine already and we aren’t planning on having any more. It’s a safe bet that I don’t need to have the developmental stages of an infant handy any more.

The common thread with all these books is that I’ve been clinging to them for what they’ve meant to me. As with almost all clutter, we think that in some way it defines us. That we, or at least life, won’t be the same without it. The gift someone gave us that we really don’t like, the clothes that don’t fit anymore, things we keep just in case we can use them some day – none of them reflect who we truly are. Stuff…clutter…junk just doesn’t have the power to do that.

So the $13.56 I received for two bags of books today seemed like an incredible deal. With the freedom I experienced, I felt like I should have been paying someone to take them away from me.