Organizing

I spent the entire day organizing my desk. Now for a woman to spend that many hours organizing one little desk, said desk has got to be a dreadful mess.

I have to admit it was terrible. There were papers and books and cards and letters and bills and a calculator and pens and vocabulary cards and so on and so forth - clutter and mess. Sigh.

It is always my intention to be organized, to be consistent in decluttering and filing. However, I get busy and the next thing I know, there is a pile here and a boxful there. Part of my problem is that I like to KEEP things, just in case. I also am a lover of books, and can never bear to part with any of them. I tend to buy books at garage sales or secondhand book stores, and of course at conferences or special events. Most of my books are in good order on my very organized shelves(thanks to Linda!), but my desk often becomes a place to pile books I intend to read for my own pleasure or edification, as well as books I plan to read to the kids, or have them read.

I have been praying as I have organized my house, top to bottom. God does hear and answer prayer, often in unexpected ways. Matt and Joanna, for instance, spent the day after New Years' Day cleaning and organizing my living room. They got rid of the tree and all of the decorations, threw out junk, and rearranged the furniture. It looks terrific!

Then my dear friend Darlene sent some dressers she no longer had room for. They came exactly at the right time. I put them in my classroom and used them for storage. Two of the drawers hold hanging file folders - perfect! One thin drawer has all of my maps and posters. I used the top drawer for confiscated items (it is full of lego at the moment), and I have yet to fill two other drawers!

God is so good and so gracious. I looked at the disaster that I called a classroom at the beginning of the week, and I despaired, feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work that lay before me. But as we sorted and moved and cleaned and dusted and filed, my spirits have lifted and I really can visualize how great it will be to have the entire room in order. Our schedule will be far more easy to follow if we don't have to stop to look for that Latin book, or that set of math cards, or pencils and pens.

Now if I could only figure out how to post a picture, I'd show you what it looks like. But for now, I just am rejoicing as I sit at my CLEAN desk, and I am energized to finish up the last few things to get the rest of it done! YEAH!

Janet