Face Lift

So I spent the day feeling depressed about the impending election and hostile toward friends who did or were planning on voting for the spoiler candidate, until this afternoon I had a revelation: why should I care any more about who is elected governor of Maine any more than, say, Arkansas? So I lose my job (hopefully by getting spectacularly fired for insubordination) and C's business dries up and they double class sizes and start teaching creationism in public schools? So what? It will be a career opportunity--a chance to finally travel the world like I've always dreamed. I hear Costa Rica is the happiest place on earth. Though my kids love winter best, so we might have to set our sights on Sweden. I'm sure both countries have a dearth of middle-aged women with no marketable skills.

In the spirit of NOT GIVING A FLYING FIG about politics and the demise of the world as we know it, I'll continue with our regularly-scheduled program of fluff, that is, another post about Andrea trying to bring some semblance of organization to her life and home. I know you just sit on the edge of your seat waiting for my next re-org post.

One major "hot spot" in our home is the "art table"--the area where I try to keep art and craft supplies at hand for the boys to use at any time (when I was a kid, my mom kept the crayons on top of the refrigerator, and we were never allowed play dough, and paint was only a rare--and later--option, so I like to keep stuff in my kids' reach for whenever the creative urge strikes). But it does tend to collect clutter and get messy.

Exhibit A:

We have a lot of cans of various pencils and writing implements that crash to the floor at least once a week, scattering their contents, when someone squeezes between the art table and the dining table. We also have this cute art caddy which I bought for M when he was four, but we had not been using it effectively. M, who had a graffiti artist's urge (if not skill) to cover every surface with his scribbles at that age (one down side of keeping the art supplies at kid level--lots of crayon and pencil on walls, cabinets, windows, etc.), had thoroughly decorated it with tape, marker and pen, and it was filled with those stupid holiday-themed erasers that we acquire everywhere somehow, broken pencils, pencil shavings, glitter and other miscellaneous and unused junk.

I decided to clean it up a bit and make it more attractive to use to replace all those cans that come crashing down on a regular basis. First, I threw away (in that trash!) the erasers and anything broken or not usable (yes, as the hoarder this is amazing, but really, we'll never use them and I'm sure they're made of PVC and full of phthalates). Then I gave it a coat of paint (the color from the boys' room), and filled the slots with just enough pencils pens, colored pencils and scissors, putting the majority of them--we had dozens--in a box in the basement.

Ahh, I feel more relaxed just looking at it. Maybe I'll even bring it with us to Costa Rica.