"Spring" Cleaning

Well, its still feeling like Spring only off and on here, but according to the calendar, the season of flowers and new life is here. Now, my family has never done even an unofficial "Spring cleaning" - Mom is an incredible housekeeper, and if there was ever enough dirt in this house to warrant such a drastic measure, I think she would break down and cry. I however, am not an incredible housekeeper, even though my part of the house is only a very small bedroom. I consider it evidence of the creative that I am - others in the house consider it just a plain old mess, and sometimes a fire hazard. Either way, I have been in need of applying what organizational skills I have for a very long time. Enter the last few days...

It has occurred to me (rather unwillingly on my part) that I am leaving home in about 3 1/2 months. This has caused a number of things to happen (besides me freaking out), including a fairly extensive reorganization of my life. Shocking, I know! It has been way out of my comfort zone, but, being that type A, goal oriented person that I am, has also felt very good once I see that I'm accomplishing something. It also appears to have made the organized members of our family quite happy ;-).

First came my books. I love my books. My books are more important to me than my clothes - ok, that's not saying much coming from me, but you get the point. Our library has these shelves of books for about 50 cents that I have become almost addicted to, which means I literally had three stacks of books knee high on the floor of my room. My shelves (an entire seven foot bookcase) were a wreck, and it was time to purge and reorganize. Well, I made an Excel spreadsheet of all my books. The result was all of them organized by category and then author's last name all in one bookcase (except cookbooks) - I will admit, it is wonderful! Mom was extraordinarily happy that they were neat, Birdie's happy that she can find my fiction, and I'm happy that all my books look so happy on their shelves.

Then came the filing. I don't do filing. I do piling. Dad has been trying very hard to get me to stop that, because he used to and knows how important it is to not. His attempts didn't work, until it occurred to me that many of the random papers that were on almost every flat surface of my room need to go with me to school. [insert me having a 10 second freak session before surrendering myself to the inevitable] So, off to Office Depot we went, got two file boxes, returned home and I now have a filing system (that no one but me would understand, but hey, I'm the one that has to use it, right?) and a much cleaner room.

(Actually, the "off we went to Office Depot" wasn't quite so simple. First Dad and I went pawn shopping for a number of things, including a filing cabinet, and discovered you can't get a decent two-drawer for less than $90, which was out of our price range. Pawn shopping is one of the only experiences where you can be called both "babe" and "madam" by a sales clerk within an hour of each other, depending on which shop you're in... but I digress)

Anyhow, I am now off to clean out my clothes (many of which really need to be passed on to Birdie and SRM), desk drawers and CD's/Tapes. Yes, I mean cassette tapes, like the kind you listened too in the '80s and '90s - some of the best Christian rock ever recorded. I guess Spring cleaning - whether intended as such or not - isn't such a bad idea after all.

Post-Christmas Post

Merry Christmas!

We had a very nice Christmas, just the five of us. Our Christmas Eve play and evening program went very well, Mom and Dad LOVED it! I got another book from Lamplighter Publishers. I would have read it by now, but I have 3 1/2 books sitting on my night stand that I'm reading (one of them I'm reading for the third or fourth time, hence the "1/2"). I decided I have to finish at least one of them before I start another!

It has been officially announced that I have very good taste in clothes. You see, Birdie, Buddy and I went to a mall near here to do some Christmas Shopping, and Dad tells me, "If you see a nice sweater for your mom, get it, I'm not going to have time to go out myself for that". I came home with excellent deals on two sweaters, and Although one of them just plain didn't fit Mom right, she really liked the other one! Then, a first time experience for me, Mom and I went shopping early on the day after Christmas. It was actually kind of fun, especially since I was clothes shopping for someone else who was placing her clothes choice in my hands.

I would like to note that this DOES NOT, I repeat, DOES NOT imply that I now enjoy shopping, or that I like figuring out styles and trends, or that I am now a fashion consultant/personal shopper etc. It only means that Mom and I can go shop and actually enjoy it.

Happy New Year!

For New Year's, Aunt J and Uncle A came to visit us, arriving the evening of the day after Christmas. We did a little touring around, they did some things on their own, we had some other family from somewhat north of us come to visit, played games, watched movies (Bourne Ultimatum was excellent, even for the fourth time through) and generally visited.

This, coming on the heals of the Christmas Week preparations, really did me in. I wasn't really feeling so good before Christmas because of all the things we were doing. I made it through Christmas Eve and Day alright, just pushing through on adrenaline, but that can only last so long.

I really just need to take a month off from life, but that isn't going to happen. But, I did have a really nice time over the past weeks, even though daily naps became a necessity and all that tiredness is rather depressing.

Now, I'm dealing with the "finish" syndrome, talking about bio's and pictures for graduation (oh, the scary word), and doing my best to actually be done when graduation pronounces me so!

Well, that's the update for now, hope everyone had a nice Christmas and New Year, and God Bless America (by saving her from herself).

Prayer: Guidence for Short Story

I recently wrote a short story (about 2,000 words), that I really like, called The Storm of the Soul. In many ways it encompasses many of the things I have learned over my years of struggling with health issues. It is a good story. I think it will appeal to many different people in many different situations. I believe it will glorify God. It's main character is a man, which I find easier to write, so I was more comfortable writing the character, and I hope that made him more understandable.

With all of these things I like about it, I am seriously looking into the best way to publish it... or I was. Then, I found out about a short story contest that this story will probably do well in. The contest requires that the story not be published. So, I'm waiting until after the contest, hoping that perhaps I can win and get a little extra capital to start this venture with.

I really think that I ought to do something with the story, publishing it or somehow getting it available to people, and it would be nice to have a small source of income from it as well.

All that said, I would really appreciate prayer on what I should do with this story, and also that I can win the contest.