GoVo, It's NaBloPoMo!

I thought I was hilarious when I realized that if you're at Starbucks and want to order a product that includes milk, and you want to be sure the milk does not contain the bovine growth hormone, you could order a Grande Skim Latte, NoBoGroHo.

I don't think anyone else thought this was as clever as I did.

Anyway, apparently this is national blog posting month (NaBloPoMo), which means those of us with blogs are supposed to post at least once a day. I think this is great, but it didn't exactly coincide with my recent lifestyle changes. Meaning I'm apparently five posts (or so) behind.

What else is new.

The point I suppose I'm making is, Hi! Welcome! I'm a regular blog poster again!

And I'm at work! In my livingroom! And I don't have to feel guilty for taking time to blog!

And I can vote whenever I want to!

:::PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:::

Go vote today. Regardless of your political affiliation, I think we can all agree that having the right to vote means having the obligation, duty, and
responsibility to vote.
It matters.

Now back to what I'm sure you're all dying to know about -- the state of my "live/work" space.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

No, no, okay. Let's be serious. I know that I have maybe not been so much with the "tidy" way of living. Oh sure, I put forth a pretty impressive effort in the first few months of this year (remember my vow of No Joy in '06?). But it was not enough.

It is not enough to put things in bins. It is not enough to put things in stacks. It is not enough to reorganize, when all you're really doing is moving all your shit from one arrangement to another.

Turns out that is not so much cleaning as it is lying to yourself.

So now that I have to really live in my place, it's another story. If I am going to be in my little apartment all day long, I have to be able to move around. I have to have a place to put things.

That's really key, you know. It doesn't matter if you have a place for everything you already own, what matters is that you have a place to put things that come into your home.

For example. Last go-around, I neatly compiled and "put away" all my old magazines that I didn't want to throw out. The new issues were stacked on the lower shelf of my coffee table. It looked nice!

But I soon discovered that solved no problem at all, because there was nowhere to put any new magazines that arrived. And before I knew it, I was back to having all my storage space full, all my surfaces covered, and nowhere to put the things I'd acquire.

This time, I had no choice. It was time for an official Pitch & Bitch. That's what my mom always called it when it was time to purge. We'd all complain ("but I want to keep that!"), but when all was said and done, we never missed what we got rid of.

Anyway, now that I'm working from home and writing about it, and the lines between my home/work/blog life are completely blurred, I figure I may as well share with you what my apartment looks like. Why not?

(Well, aside from the obvious reason of my apartment just not being that interesting. But whatever. Hi.)

* * * *

Here is some idea of what my closet looked like "before."

And the bedroom, after my closet had thrown up:

Here is my hallway, which is actually even more full now because all the stuff I'm donating is currently lining the walls. Eventually, I might even hang the pictures that are lining the chair rail!

More stuff to purge:

Ikea to the rescue! Pink boxes! Helpful Ish!

And now?

Here is my bedroom, plain though it may be:

And my new "office":

And my very helpful assistants:

And my view from my desk of my livingroom, and of the beautiful flowers Ish sent me to say congratulations on my first day of my new endeavor...