5 Great Tips for Organizing--Even After That Big Trip!

So you just took the trip of a lifetime, but the packing beforehand and the aftermath of stuff that needs to be unloaded has left your room messy and your life feeling like you'll never have control of even the smallest fragment of what happens to you ever again.  Like your life has become a Bog of Worry and a Swamp of Slime, full of Stuff and Things that you are sinking into and can never hope to escape from again.  Don't worry, there's an easy way out! 

So  you just got back from that amazing vacation where you connected with friends, came together with a vibrant community, had time to spend focusing on nurturing yourself, and had an all around amazing time!!

But now, you're feeling isolated and lonely, and to top it off, there are piles of things waiting to be put away.

What to do???

(Oh, the humanity!  Look at all that stuff!!???!!!)

 

The things that are covering your room may feel like an impenetrable mass of doom that threatens to swallow you up if you look at it for too long, but never fear!  We have some great, easy steps to get you out of this mess!

 

 

#1 First of all, make your bed.  Small steps in the squalor can mean more than you expect.

(seriously, though, do this...)

 

Next, pile up that sh**!!  Piles make everything better.  Stack your crap as high as you possibly can without it falling over.  That will get it out of the way!  I promise!

 

If your cat is in the way, pile her up, too!

She'll love the way you show dominance over her, and incorporating her into the cleaning process is sure to make her feel loved and appreciated.  She will never jump onto the bed and meow at you at 5am again!

 

#6 Pile all the things!  Just move it to the nearest corner and pile it up!!!

 

Step 3: Pile some more stuff.  If you already have piles going from when you were packing and threw things around, as you see in the costumes and laundry here, just go with it and keep piling.  Notice how the laundry basket is artfully stacked here atop boxes.  I've masked the boxes with sequins and other dress up pieces, so you hardly notice any of it is there!

 

Next off, we will tackle closet space.  Here's your teaser:  For a great, well-organized closet that you can just wake up to and grab what you need, I have all the best tips!  Just look at how easily accessible all my work clothes, coats, and a few fun things are.  Extra storage in drawers  and hanging shelves with shirts crammed into them makes everything so much easier, even when you're cramped for space!

Thanks for reading!  I hope these tips have helped you in your journey to uncluttering your life and unpacking from trips!

 

For more tips and tricks to life, the universe, and everything, follow our blog!!!  Yeahh!!  Doesn't that make you happy???

Transitions

I just returned from Charlottesville, Virginia, and have just a little time to put some thoughts down before I go to work at the restaurant where I have been employed for the last year.  It still seems barely real that in a few short weeks I will be starting a new chapter in C'ville.

Where is all this coming from?  I wanted to write a blog to explain some of the things that I know I will otherwise be repeating in stories to people.  The summary, I got a job with Habit for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville and will be doing work that combines Family Services and outreach in the Southwood community.  My experience as an AmeriCorps with Chatham Habitat for Humanity will be greatly at play, along with relationship and trust building in a unique setting.

A little about C'ville Habitat and why I'm SO excited to be joining that affiliate.  Charlottesville suffers from the same high land costs that exist in many areas, which make building affordable housing extremely difficult.  C'ville Habitat has been on a journey of change from home-building and selling under the traditional Habitat for Humanity paradigm to a shift toward innovation and constant change.  The most relevant aspect of this to my current story is that they have been working to develop two trailer parks into Habitat housing.  They are the first Habitat affiliate to attempt this, and they did not go into it with all the answers, but rather with a moral obligation to help people who were going to be displaced from what was already sub-standard housing.
Sunrise was the first community to be developed, and while work remains to be done, there are a number of duplexes and an apartment that have been built there, with a combination of partner families who have purchased homes, and residents who have been placed in secure, affordable rentals.  Oh, did I mention the promise not to displace residents?  Speaking of taking on moral obligations without knowing how exactly to fulfill promises...  C'ville Habitat made a promise to anxious trailer park residents that they would not be displaced, both in Sunrise and the much larger Southwood community.
Southwood is where I will be working.  It is the Hundred Acre Wood that would make Winnie the Pooh cry, if you'll forgive my metaphorllusion...  The former manager/owner was ready to retire, heard that Habitat had bought another trailer park, and asked them to consider purchasing the land, which holds over three hundred trailers full of individuals and families (many of the trailers being very overcrowded with people, often times more than one family--up to 14 people in one trailer).  This is housing of absolute last resort--if displaced, many of these people would face homelessness.  The former owner was not able to properly maintain the land, but wanted someone to help the residents.  The Board of Charlottesville Habitat took a leap of faith and bought the trailer park, saving it from developers who would surely have developed fancy stuff and caused the displacement of all the residents without a second thought.  Greed lost against compassion on that round. 
C'ville Habitat staff are working very slowly, trying to keep in contact and communication with the residents to continually assess what they want for the community even as Habitat tries to figure out how to develop, how not to displace, how to build community, and how to find answers to the sustainable ending of generational poverty that no one really knows.  Did I mention it's a slow process?  They bought Southwood back in 2007, and don't expect to break ground until at least 2014.  But true change comes through relationships, not programs, and they are doing something no organization or housing developer has ever done.

Speaking of leaps of faith, did I mention my job doesn't have a title or a description?

Time for the story.  I know I just made a huge run-on paragraph, so I'll attempt something more succinct.  It's a pretty random story, though...but most certainly a series of events that was clearly meant to be.

A couple of months ago my Grandad celebrated his 80th birthday.  At the party in Mt. Airy, I met his cousin, Judy, who has a non-profit called CHIP that works in the C'ville area with children's health.  Mom and I visited her shortly after (she's awesome, by the way, and her non-profit is pretty rad, too), and during a tour of the city she drove us past the Sunrise (largely developed from a trailer park to Habitat housing) and the Southwood (still a trailer park at this point) communities.  I was impressed, and also struck by how much I miss meaningful work, and how much I like things about Habitat for Humanity.  That night I found a position listed on the website and wrote the fastest cover letter ever, which I submitted the next morning (take that, anxiety and perfectionism!).  Even though that position was quickly filled with someone local, they were still interested in my application, so I had a phone call which apparently gave a good enough sense of my experience and passion that I was kept in mind when the Family Services department started being re-organized.  A second phone call, which I expected to be a check in about whether I wanted to be included in the pool of applicants for the newly-being-created job, ended up being a job offer.  Whaaaaaat.  After a few hours of reflection I officially accepted the job---all these things leading one to another, how could I have any doubt that this is my next step?

I am super excited.  Charlottesville Habitat seems to be very dynamic, very willing to analyze and change and restructure.  I am elated to get the chance to get back into work that means something for the world, whatever piece I can contribute.  And I am happy that I will be moving into something that will continue to build valuable experience as I figure out what to be when I grow up (is Astronaut Artist still a viable option?).

I have learned a lot in the last year, and have also been reflecting on my time in between "grown up jobs".  Pittsboro has been good to me these two years, and as I start a new chapter, I hardly feel that I am closing an old one.  Fortunately, I am only going to be about four hours away from the Triangle (which means you should come visit me, too!!)..

There is much that I continue to process, but you're probably tired of reading by now, so I'll just have to make another blog sometime (:  I also have a good bit of family traveling this summersend while trying to pack and move, so there will be many people I will not be able to see for the next few weeks before I move.  Remember, I'm only moving a few hours away, so weekends are still totally possible!!

I am so excited about this.  Everything I have heard about C'ville Habitat seems dynamic and amazing.  All the people I have met thus far are super nice.  Everyone I've talked to about the move seems to speak well of the area, and many have connections to friends, fire spinning, art, and other great things, and I feel confident that the pieces will continue to fall into place.

I'm thankful for the support of friends and family in this last year, including those I've had the privilege to work with at the Pittsboro Roadhouse and General Store.  The staff there will always be my Roadhouse family, and I very much respect the owners, Greg and Maria, and the kind things they do for their Chatham community, often under the radar.  If you live in the Triangle area and especially in Pittsboro, I encourage you to support that little family business and community center off of the roundabout.

If you want to come hang out with me while I'm packing my stuff in the next little bit, you should totally do it.  I like being kept company while I clean and sort....keeps my mind off of how overwhelming all this could be, and on the exciting parts!  And come visit me once I'm settled in Charlottesville.  Hooray!

Day of Retribution

I don't even think I can stand to read more than the tiny bit I have seen on facebook and from the first part of an article on the shooting.  Sickening, horrifying....  I wonder about men in general, and women in general, and then I bring it back to myself for reference and wonder if the men in my life realize the way that I intake this type of thing, the way I automatically imagine myself in situations of violence against women.  Violence against myself.  (I imagine my female friends know what I'm talking about.)  Surely they can't understand it, quite...the realness.  The real possibility.  It frightens me.  I try not to think about it, just like I try right now to shut out all of the bad things that overwhelm me about the world.  For all the circles of good people I keep around, what about that bad apple, known or not, who thinks I am his property and that he has a right?  It's not the dark alleyway at night, it's the entirety of everything in a society that turns people into property, men and women, but especially women.

FEMINISM

used to be this thing that I was told was bad, that involved burning your bra and hating men.  That message was complete and utter horseshit and it continues to affect so many men and women.  The point of feminism is the same as the point of every single fucking movement for equality.  EQUALITY.  Jesus.  It shouldn't be this difficult for people to grasp that if one group of people is regarded as lesser, everyone suffers.  Why is that so difficult?  Yet this basic fucking concept plagues every aspect of our entire fucking planet.  Immigrants are just illegals who should be kicked out, regardless of their own dreams for a better life for themselves and their families.  Women should stop whining and just make a sandwich already, they deserve it for showing off those legs.  The gays are creepy, who would want to do that with their butthole? and if I don't like it it must be wrong.  I worked hard, put in the hours and the investments and I deserve that third home and fourth car, and I don't have to care about those lazy assholes who aren't working hard enough.  It's not my fault if they can't feed their children, why am I paying for those benefits?  Just let me enjoy my american dream.  The planet's resources that other people need to survive don't matter as much as my company's ability to make money, who cares if they run out because I'll be dead then.  My purchase of an item that was made under questionable circumstances doesn't matter because I don't know for sure that it was made by child or slave labor....just ignore it.

It's this convoluted mess, this monster that we keep feeding...and I feel like there are a few of us standing on the edge SCREAMING our pleas for everyone to just calm down for just a second, look around, and stop self-destructing.

The point of feminism, as I have grown to understand it and to claim it, is that everyone is lifted up, that all of us have the opportunity to seek our happiness and our best, to have deep, complex relationships with each other that allow all of us to put forth our needs and find the compromises between personalities that let us enjoy the beauty of life.

Sort of the point of any movement, no?  If you can't share the waterfountain or sit on the bus with someone, you'll never learn what kind of person they actually are.  Instead of friendship, resentment.  Instead of relationship, fear.  And violence.



----------------------------------------------------
Here are the things I've been reading, which sparked me to write down some of the thoughts that were already churning.


This quote from the nerd article I think applies far beyond just nerd culture...  When we see women, and anyone as not just people, but something to be won in any way, we lose humanity.
"But the overall problem is one of a culture where instead of seeing women as, you know, people, protagonists of their own stories just like we are of ours, men are taught that women are things to “earn,” to “win.” That if we try hard enough and persist long enough, we’ll get the girl in the end. Like life is a video game and women, like money and status, are just part of the reward we get for doing well."
 ALSO THIS "How much longer are we going to be in denial that there’s a thing called “rape culture” and we ought to do something about it?"
 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/27/your-princess-is-in-another-castle-misogyny-entitlement-and-nerds.html

This was suggested under the nerdy article, and I thought it was important as well.
http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/gay-men-and-their-not-so-cute-misogyny-problem

Aaand reading this...
"Except...men and women both need both physical and emotional intimacy, as anyone with any understanding of humans knows. And the two do not always go hand-in-hand, as anyone with any understanding of humans knows."
"You see, a Nice Guy® isn't nice, and never was. He wasn't your friend. He didn't even like you. He was just a guy trying to get in your pants."
 http://www.shakesville.com/2007/12/explainer-what-is-nice-guy.html

Also, found this and have perused just a bit, but it seems nice.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/YesAllWomen?src=tren

Gotta add another to finish reading after work...
"
And here’s the thing: the Friend Zone as we know it? Doesn’t really exist.
I know, I know. “Whaaaaaaaat?!”
The cold hard truth of it is, when you’re hearing “I just want to be friends”, “I like you but…” or the equally dreaded “it would ruin our friendship”, you’re not being thrown in the Friend Zone. What you’re hearing is generations of social pressure telling women that they can’t risk being direct for fear of offending someone. The words may be “You’re just such a good friend to me,” but the intended meaning behind it is “I don’t want to sleep with you.”"
http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2011/06/friend-zone-myth/

A song for NC 64 in the Spring

A Poem For Spring

Don’t “hey” me out your car window

Don’t “hey” me by my short skirt, the curves of my bare legs

I am not dressed like this for you

The spring day and the celebration of fresh air on my skin drew me into this skirt and tube top

I never dress for you

I am not made beautiful for you

Don’t “hey” me

I am not your friend

Keep your lusty admiration to yourself

Four Score and Twenty Years Ago

When I was in elementary school, homeschooled, my mother had me memorize the Gettysburg Address.  I can never quite remember past that first sentence, but it is somewhere in my being, waiting to resurface.  A torn nation, with less social media, but as much pain; brother against brother, that biblical brother-will-betray-brother idea of horrific division.  Really, we are all each others' brothers and sisters, but the least sign of adversity gives us self-righteous permission to forget.  You lied to me.  You made fun of me.  You told me off and it hurt my feelings.  You didn't do what you said you'd do.

...I'm completely 100% guilty of this, any of those, but I think it's important and beautiful to be reminded that we can do better.  I will never, ever ever agree with a lot of people I know and have known, on many a number of subjects, but have been realizing that we all want to be happy, want our families and communities to be happy, and that's it.  Everything can spring from that.  Really, everything does spring from that.  The desire for personal and mutual well-being.

And I know that's idealistic, utopian, and whatnot, but that's how my imagination works, and I have come to terms with the fact that maybe that will never change, and maybe my purpose is, in part, to remind people that things can be better.  That we can make the idea of "heaven on earth" a reality, now, no matter what people believe about spiritual realms.  We can take care of each other, eliminate the need for greed or lies for survival, and eliminate most of the bad that happens.  I don't have illusions that crafty people won't cease to exist, but I do believe that much of what people do is based out of subconscious fear that they won't have what they need, which translates into meaningless lifetimes of greed, trickery, whatever.  If we have what we need we have time to catch the few people left who are being jerks, because most of our time will be in caring for and loving one another...and probably also eating delicious, fresh, organic food and sipping fresh-brewed craft beer.....   (;

Again, maybe I'm too idealistic, but I freely admit I know this won't happen in large scale in my lifetime.  I'm ok with that.  It doesn't mean I don't still believe it's some part of what is meant to be.

Anyways, Abraham Lincoln.  Surely not perfect, he was a person (I haven't studied him in my adulthood so I've no idea), but part of what we consider to be the most pivotal periods of our history.

And, yet, our country still has so many things that are messed up that weren't fixed by that war, by the emancipation of slaves, that we can't talk about (LET'S TALK ABOUT RACE YOU GUYS BECAUSE IT STILL AFFECTS OUR DAILY LIVES oh wait that's not ok because we're afraid of confrontation or finding out we might be doing something wrong and need to change (even though it doesn't have to be that scary)).  Things that are still a part of the overall crazy divisions going on, but that have historical bases and that could be changed if we would just recognize that they are there and figure out why and how to change then.  Anyways...

I'm the Queen of Rabbit Trails, I believe.

Four Score and Seven Years Ago

The basis of these thoughts.  So.  What I originally was going to post to Facebook as a status update:


It feels at times that we are engaged in a new Civil War; one that is political and ideological, born, for the most part, out of media-manipulation that keeps individuals and communities from realizing that they do not, in fact, disagree quite so much as they are told they do.  The governmental methods must be forgotten, for they are all flawed, in one way or another.  We believe that our nation was conceived under the idea that all were created equal; we have developed that belief to include women as well as men, people of color as well as white people, and are in process of recognizing that the way we love should neither affect our equality.  I am sad that so many military members sacrifice and sometimes die in this present age for what I have come to believe is mostly the greed of powerful corporate and government forces, because there are so many people (including dear friends of mine) who truly serve out of love; for country--for community--and because the whole idea is to advance the conviction that all are equal, and that a society can thrive under a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The famously brief, marvelously pithy, speech of President Lincoln.  My imagination sometimes strays to what that day may have been like, humid and cloudless, sweat pooling under fine suits, the weight of the ghosts of the fallen shifting around; no one would have thought about "history" being made, any more than we think about in our daily lives.

So here it is.


Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htmc

a couple of decent rooms and a bath

Over the past few months of working with Habitat, I have become more aware of my own stereotypes regarding poverty and race than I had dreamt possible, in part because I didn't realize I had them.  I suppose that's a large part of the power of stereotypes, is that we don't realize our part in believing and upholding them.

I think that the last time I saw It's A Wonderful Life was in France.  I was visiting a friend who was studying in Aix-en-Provence, and we went to a Christmas celebration with the little protestant house church group they had gotten involved with.  That same trip, there was a hymnsing in the little cathedral there.  I was asked to videotape, so I stood in one of those little pulpit things on the side, about midway down (there I go, showing my vast understanding of Catholicism), with a videocamera in hand, trying to not be too shaky.

There's something to be said for getting rid of waste, for eliminating societal oppression, and for how super fancy buildings are often included in such ridiculousnes
s.  That said, that admitted, I must protest.  I also love beauty, and cathedrals are beautiful, at least in my experience.  America does not have many cathedrals.  Europe does.  Even small, tiny ones such as this one in Aix-en-Provence, a tiny quaint town surrounded by mountains, are beautiful.

I don't remember all the songs sung, but the finale was Silent Night, elaborated with the slow lighting of pulpits full of candles.  As the dark, arching room became illuminated by the golden flickering, I felt one of the keenest senses of the Presence of the Divine that I had ever had.  I remember the tingle, the awe, even now, so many years from then.  I can close my eyes and see that moment, that candle-lit melodic moment in time.

There's a quote from the movie which struck me recently on a very different chord than four years ago.  Now that I work with the housing aspect of social justice, the movie seems even more relevant.  Now that I find myself constantly thinking about injustice, about a living wage, about mistreating nature, about immigrant abuse, about domestic abuse, about rape culture, about violence at home and abroad-about so many things I can't sometimes focus...I am often desperately trying not to despair over so many things in this world that are despair-worthy, bringing myself back to the beautiful and hopeful, to the good things that are happening and being done.  Now that my mind is in that kind of 50 different places at once, I find that advocacy for the least of these has become a fairly consistent theme for me.

Here's George Bailey to help me finish up.  This quote hangs beside my desk, over a picture called Jesus in the Breadline by Fritz Eichenberg.

"Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about...do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.  Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?"