T Minus 18 Hours

18 hours.

Three hours a day for six days.

That's how much time I have set aside over the next week to clean my office. Seems like a lot, doesn't it? Well, if it does, then you haven't seen my office.

Lest you think I'm exaggerating, here are some "before" photos...

This is what you see when you first enter my office. That pink thing all covered with stuff is a large chair. I bought this chair when my 14yo Sandy was a toddler, and it used to reside in my bedroom back when I was a single mom and it was just the two of us. It's where I would sit and do my quiet times in the evening after he went to bed. It is where we'd snuggle and read. It's the chair we would sit and watch VeggieTales when he woke during the night with a fever of 103, waiting for the Motrin to kick in.




When Herb and I married and we moved into this house, I put it in my office. Herb and Ian even painted the room pink and beige for me to match my chair. For most people, it's a little much, but hey. It's mine, and I like it.

I had visions of the kids sitting in it, peacefully reading or doing homework while I worked. Um ... not so much.

When we got our dog Brenna in December, there were a couple of weeks there that she would come in and sit on the chair while I worked. That didn't last long. She was slowly crowded out by stuff.

This is what it looks like now.

Look closely. The chair is in there. Under all that stuff.

• Wrapping paper. Christmas wrapping paper.
• A violin case containing Herb's old quarter-size violin.
• An old wine rack.
• A gillion papers.
• More than a few blankets.
• A pennant from Fenway Park that I just got on vacation this summer that will be hanging on the wall before this adventure is over.

Now let's pan around the room and see what else is there, lest you think that the chair is my only dumping ground.

This is the other side of the room.

Notice the clothes baskets on the floor and on the chair that are full of "stuff."

Notice the desk with all horizontal surfaces completely covered.

Notice that the desk chair is covered with papers. Get the idea that the chair isn't often used for sitting?




If you want to know if there is a bright spot in all of this, here it is...

This is the one open spot on the desk. It's where my laptop sits on those rare occasions when I must work in my office. For obvious reasons, I usually work in the living room, my bedroom, or at the kitchen table. However, when I have a conference call with a client, this is where I huddle with my computer.

I know there's a ton of stuff in my office that doesn't need to be there any longer or should never have been there in the first place.

I have homeschooling books on the shelves. I haven't homeschooled in three years.

I have an exercise ball and exercise bands that have never been used for their intended purpose. The kids, however, have had a blast with the exercise ball out on the trampoline.

In the filing cabinet, there are all sorts of papers and paint samples from a house I no longer own, medical records for a dog who died a year ago (we miss you, Titan!), and a million other things that were important at one time ... but not any more.

In the past, my idea of "cleaning" my office has merely been to clear off the horizontal surfaces to create a work space. It usually took about 3 hours, and my office looked respectable at the end (if you didn't look in the corners where I would hide things ... like this.)

This box of kids' art projects, greeting cards, and other things of sentimental value was put in this corner during a previous office clean up. I'm guessing it was about four years ago.


A year or two ago, I even went so far as to come up with a paper "filing" system for my desktop for client projects I was working on, kids' school papers, etc. It was lovely and organized and respectable when I first started using it.

 Here's what it looks like now.

So, why is cleaning my office this time going to take 18 hours (or more)? Because I'm finished with doing a half-assed job. Like with a serious home renovation, I'm taking my office down to the studs.

Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Finish Well.