what color IS my parachute?

If you're not familiar with this book, 9 million other people are, so I'm not sure where you and I have been hiding out. I have tried to read this practical manual for job hunters and career changers, but I'm still hunting and changing. It's a very large book of complex exercises with confusing diagrams, calculations to compile and a giant flower in the middle with lots of petals that are all supposed to represent different things. The drawing used to be a parachute but they changed the design as the book has been reprinted almost every year since 1970.

I still don't have any answers as to what color my parachute is, but after radio silence on the blog for a month, figured it was time to say something. I've been doing a whole lot of thinking about what I like, how I spend my free time, what bogs me down (taxes and recipes with more than 5 ingredients for example...) what energizes and puts an instant smile on my face and creates a higher pitch to my voice. My good friends have always told me that I talk with a higher pitch when I'm talking about something exciting or something that I love, so I figure that's a good place to start. Then last night I had dinner with some friends who told me about a NY Times article they had just read. I loved it! I couldn't agree more with this woman's thinking. "Your receptacles are the death of you", and on baby toys that people keep just "in case" someone comes over with a small child she says, "you're not running a day care center here". Ha Ha. So true Barbara. She might have been a little bit harsh in some areas, but in general she is freeing people's minds by helping them to declutter. I'm all for it. I want this job! 

Abandon All Nostalgia. The Organizer Is Coming Over. -N.Y. Times 

Then, I came home and through a series of random You Tube searches--dangerous-- found myself mesmerized for several hours at the behind the scenes production details of the recent movie, "Black Swan". I want this job too!  Is it so crazy to think that I could go back to school for this kind of work? It sounds crazy to me. But even watching the videos makes my thoughts high pitched. There is something here for me to continue to explore. 

Feelin the music

Tonight I went to the Mary Chapin Carpenter concert at Chastain Park. I grew up just down the road from there so it brought back memories of the middle school days when friends and I would stand outside the gate hoping to get in at the last second for cheap, back when no one really good came to Chastain, and my brother was off in the woods with his friends smoking a joint at the same time (now he's graduated from seminary so I feel like I can say that about him). I wasn't sure if I knew any of her songs, the ticket was free and it looked like rain. Ended up having a fun evening with a really nice dinner, great wine and the place all to ourselves. The music wasn't amazing- too many slow songs, not loud enough- but the people watching was first class. First class in a really self righteous way.  It was quite a crowd and us four girls were in the minority on multiple levels. I found myself welling up with pride around a mostly sloppy bunch of Indigo Girlish, socks with sandals sort of crowd and wasn't believing how deep and far my own thoughts could go into arrogance and just a general sense of lifting myself up above them all. I can't believe how quickly any moment can reveal the depths of what junk lies in my heart and mind about other people and how far I am from love. I am not even aware of it most of the time because it is more of a condition of the soul of constantly sizing up the people around me, placing them in their "proper" categories and then exalting myself (or conversely feeling lowly or not good enough, when in the opposite scenario). I looked out over the crowd of people and thought that if I could see their souls for only a second, could I have compassion. Only Jesus can look upon any crowd and instantly love them, and really mean it.

Mary said a few things herself tonight before introducing one of her songs. She talked about believing that every single person on this Earth was made for a very special purpose and that your life's mission should be to figure out what that purpose is. I have no idea where she was really going with that or what she believes is the answer, but that is definitely a question that has to be pressing on the hearts and minds of all people if they are honest. My mind started to wander about how to figure out what I was made for. I really honestly and truly can't think about what it is exactly.  Everything that I think about liking or enjoying naturally seems like such a shallow thing. I like to make things more beautiful. Fix them. Clean them up. Organize them. Help them (people) with their clothes. Make a room look better, brighter, more open, more comfortable. I also like color and texture, patterns and designs. Is it wrong to have interests towards things that are not directly spiritual in nature?

"Whatever therefore you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. "

How to organize the average closet

Step One: Look at it. Don't be afraid of it and take a picture to own it for what it is. It's a mess and the door won't close most of the time. I usually shove something in there right before guests come over and if I'm lucky it stays closed. Unlucky and it pops open while they are standing right beside and it startles them.

Step One point Five: Get comfortable. No need for restrictive or fancy clothing here.

Step Two: Take everything out! Even if you know it is going right back in. You'll then have an empty closet and a floor or table full of junk.

Step Three: Don't panic that it now looks worse than it did before. Just set a timer for 15 to 30 minutes and then group everything you find into categories. Throw away things that you don't want or need, and make a give away pile for things that could be taken to GoodWill or repurposed.

Sometimes you end up discovering things like...you have four Blockbuster cards and two Movie Gallery cards and those places will soon all be out of business so you can toss them thanks to Netflicks and Redbox!

The latest version of your resume is on a disk that looks like this. How will you get it back? My computer certainly doesn't have a disk drive.

You find a cute Crate & Barrel French Press Carafe still in the bag which was someones wedding gift. Sorry someone.

Eight great black and white postcards of rural village scenes that I brought back from China and forgot about. Will most likely mat and frame these. Nice find.

A collection of Minton Rose China with some unique serving pieces lovingly given to me on behalf of my grandmother Alice Francis McEwan. Beautiful!

Two great quotes that I will blog later...

Now on to Step Five: Find any empty containers, baskets, boxes or items that you could use to help with the organization as things go back into the closet. You really don't have to run to Target at this point. You have things that you can use, just have to look around for them.

Step Six: Begin placing items back into the closet based on categories and use the containers that make sense for the size of your pile. (Is this stuff too obvious?)

Step Seven: Make labels if that helps you or your family to know what goes where. I found 15 pages of different cute tags on line here but then decided it was easier and less time consuming to just draw a fake tag on half of a note card. You can get as creative as you want with it but remember that the goal is to organize the closet, not spend three hours on a tag. :)

Take a picture of your finished product to remind you of what you accomplished. You can even stick the picture on the inside of the closet door (before and after) to help you if it starts to get messy again. Do you see how much space is left now that it is organized? Well, I did cheat a little bit by not putting the vacuum cleaner back yet, but now it has a space too and the door will still close.

In the end we collected

three bags of trash

one strange pile of odds and ends

leftover paint and Christmas stuff to put up in the attic.

BEFORE

AFTER