The Difference a Door Makes!!!

The question isn't whether I have Too. Much. Stuff! The fact of it is I have a very tiny house and no place to put the stuff I have -- which makes me wonder why I bother ever to buy anything new.

See... clutter gone wild!

I built this cabinet, heretofore referred to as the Mother Of All Cabinets (MOAC), because all that stuff you see living in it now had previously no place to live at all. There are cleaning supplies on the right and office supplies on the left. If it weren't here it would be... everywhere. Piled, stacked, shoved into corners, spilling out of drawers. The upper left houses excess baking pans (like I bake!!! ROFLMAO!!) The center is Command Central -- TV- computer-printer. What more could a person need? Not to see it all hanging out all the time would be nice.

Even with the MOAC built and in place and filled there is clutter spilling out everywhere. Aaaaaaaaagggghhhh. There I am, still in a complete shambles all of the time. I am not built for this kind of mayhem. At this stage of the game, and I am loathe to admit this, who I am is a "place for everything and everything in it's place" kind of girl. There, I've said it. My name is Jenny and I like, no, I require, an organized life.

When I moved into this house there were exactly two closets. Neither one of them in the master bedroom. One was a coat closet in the dining room -- an afterthought of a thing wedged into a corner built for the primary purpose of hiding a radiator pipe. The other "closet" was tucked under the eaves of a second bedroom. It is what normal people in normal houses would call a cubby hole.

Before moving into this house I never before thought about stuff, excess or otherwise. If I needed a new pair of pants I simply went out and bought them. I didn't stand in the store and wonder what on earth I would do with them once I got them home. But in this house, everything has to be thought out. Printer paper? Ammonia? Dog leashes? Where, oh where, am I going to put it?

And there I was with this big expanse of wall... standing there doing nothing. Eight feet of blank space...

Building the cabinets themselves was not particularly tricky. Any four-year-old understands the concept of a box, which is what every cabinet is. Other than the lumber being very unwieldy -- a concept not at all understood by the people at the lumberyard who sell it to you. "Little lady, wouldn't you really rather have 3/4" ply?" Well, yes, the Little Lady would but the Little Lady can't freakin' lift it, so we'll just muddle along with 1/2", thank you very much.

The tricky part was the doors. But they are the most essential part too. I don't have the right tools -- or the wherewithall -- to build doors. Oh, thank heaven for brothers. My brother has not only the right tools, but the know-how. Hooray! Hooray for brothers. Hooray for doors.


There. Isn't that better? All nice and tidy and tucked away. A person can walk through the room without being assaulted by a barrage of stuff.

Clearly I am still deciding on color.... Black? White? Medium glazed amber beige? I will think about color tomorrow. Today I will open my little TV/computer cabinet and simply breathe, calmly, in and out. Ahhhhh.


Doors. Don't you just love them?

Support Your Local PBS Station!!!

I've been watching PBS forever -- haven't you? I know, I know, some folks think this is strictly a high brow thing to do, like yachting or joining the Junior League. Well, maybe other folks don't watch PBS the way I do. I started watching PBS when it featured the indomitable Julia Child -- and not because she made a first rate coq au vin. I watched her because I was nine years old and she talked funny. I had a secret private my very own TV and I was the only one in the house who could get the "UHF" stations and so I watched. I watched Julia and Big Bird. I watched Alistair Cooke and there was nothing high brow about it.

PBS took me to China and Alaska, it explained things the president said and it brought me Kukla, Fran and Ollie. I LOVED Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

And so I do this tiny little thing of donating to their Action Auction. The thing I have in abundance are doggie accoutrements -- a bed, a carry-bag, a water bowl, a collar and leash. This year the bed is paisley. Pink. And green. Last year it was red plaid.

Isn't the bed cute?

It's even cuter with Talia in it... but I draw the line at donating Talia. She's mine all mine.


See, the stuff I watch on PBS isn't high brow at all. In fact, I watch a lot of dumb stuff -- bad mysteries, old movies, woodworkers, seamstresses, painters. I once spent an entire rainy Saturday watching ANNE OF GREEN GABLES from beginning to end. The wonderful thing about donating to our local PBS is that when I am watching my favorites (or parking my grandson in front of Big Bird exactly the way I once parked his father, my son, in front of Big Bird) I don't feel one bit guilty the way I would if I didn't offer up so much as one thin dime.

Talia likes donating to PBS too -- she'll gladly trade in this bed and settle instead for a place on my bed. It's big of her.

So what's your favorite can't miss PBS show?

Bloom Where You're Planted

Surely, I am delighted to have laid not one, not two, but three lengths of fabric cloth in the Children's Garden. That's 150 feet of garden fabric stretched, overlapped, pegged and trimmed. This is the garden fabric so carefully fitted so's errant plants and weeds don't come bursting through...


And yet, how to complain about Daffodils... I should be thanking my lucky stars that they were determined enough to bother.
And these little daffodils popped unexpectedly in the lilly bed


My guess is this is the work of an industrious squirrel who must be thinking this compost bin is sort of an outdoor pantry.

However they got here, wherever they grew, I've gathered daffies from all over my yard for a beautiful indoor bouquet.