a desperate desk

This is Anna.

She's wearing my dress. That's what sisters do.

Sometimes Anna scares me.

When your little sister is stronger than you, you really have to watch out.

But really, Anna's desk scared me a little.  And she didn't like it much either. So, she recruited my help.  (She gets my services for free since she's family and all/has no money.)

Though I'm not an early riser by any stretch of any extremely imaginative imagination, on the day we were going to organize Anna's desk, I got up at 8:30.

Yep.  That's how excited I was.

I knew that this organizing project was going to be really satisfying. I also knew that it was just the right amount of work (although near the end I got a little sluggish...).  Some organizing projects do take longer than a couple hours and those need to be conquered as well and will certainly be satisfying, but they're not my favorite.  It's hard to stop when it's not done.  

So this is what we started with: 

 

When you organize one area, sometimes that leads to organizing other areas.  In this case, it was Anna's bookshelf/window seat.  The girl has a lot of books.  

And then she also had these books for a class she's taking and they had no home! How sad!

 She could have at least stacked them up though right?  (Hahaha. Anna's gonna love this post.)

Our main focus was getting all her books to fit on the 2 designated shelves and making a place that would be easily accessible for the school books.  We also worked on cutting down clutter.  See how well we're doing so far?

I took down the wire with pictures clipped up (which you can barely see in the first photo due to the blurriness) and I also took down the pictures propped up on top of the little white shelf to the left of the desk.  I taped them all up, along with a collection of fortune cookies fortunes, on the wall behind one shelf.  It's organized clutter.  :)

There was also a significant amount of paper purging done.  Anna decided to use a big ziploc bag to store cards, invitations, and all the little bits and pieces she likes to save, but doesn't have a place for.  Everything has to have a home.  That's what I always say.  Well, that and "same with same."  (I talk about organizing a lot.) If something doesn't have a home, it will cause clutter.  It's home also has to be easily accessible.  You won't put it away unless you can get to easily and then it might as well not have a home at all.

For example, say you have a coffee table in the living room.  You have a pretty plate with some candles and other accessories on it.  Whenever you sit there you also make lists in your notebook so you need your notebook and pen.  It's also where you cut your nails. It's also where put on lotion while you watch TV after a shower.  Every night if you don't go put each of those things away somewhere else, you'll wake up to clutter in the morning. SOOOO, why not have a little box or basket with a lid and keep those things in the basket?! That way, you just toss them in after you use them and the coffee table is instantly de-cluttered.  (This whole paragraph is going to go in my book called, Molly Saves the Day, oh wait, that's already a book...I'll have to think of a new title.)

But that's getting away from the point.  Here are some after pictures. 

Sorry about the poor picture quality! Bleh! I think I was playing around with settings on Anna's camera and didn't know how to fix it.  (Notice how I borrow things and mess them up?)

The necklaces look like they are sort of randomly hanging there, but those nails were already there so it's just a temporary thing. Do Not Worry.  

Here's a picture of the picture shelf I was describing.

  And then her window seat/bookshelf for all the non-fiction books.

Now, many things will change I'm sure as Anna MOVES OUT to go to Iowa City where she got A JOB!!! Hooray!!

Anna has discovered that though an organization might have a great mission, this does not mean that they will have great organization.  

During the process of interviewing/waiting/calling/waiting/calling/waiting/waiting/interviewing/waiting/waiting/calling/being disappointed/interviewing/waiting....she usually looked like this:

Poor thing.  Or maybe she just felt like that.  But now, she's back to her happy, cute, self, although I'm sure she's a little nervous for all the changes.

It's going to be fabulous Anna!! And most importantly, we can virtually crash your new (yet to be discovered) apartment  right here on this very blog!!!

Please note: This is not an example of Anna being her cute self. (Or me.)