I need order.  I crave it.  I go crazy when I don’t have it.  I am a professional organizer.  I put order to chaos every day for a living.  I love it.  Its probably a bit of a control thing – the need to prepare myself (or anyone around me) for any potentiality is my religion.  I pray to the god of listmaking.  I thrive on tools to further organize my world.  I’m 43 years old and I know this about myself.  I’m a planner, a preparer, an organizer.  Want to make me crazy?  Then put me in a place where I can’t organize my way out of it.

And that my dear friends is precisely where I am right now.  Mid-renovation on an insurance claim.  I’m beholden to the schedule of several contractors (and we all know how reliable they can be) and an insurance company (enough said, right?).  My house is upside down with boxes all over the place, dust in every crevice and appliances spread willy-nilly throughout my living room.  The past month has been a series of plans, then amendments, then cancellations, then new plans, then someone dropping the ball, then disappointment, then freaking out, then yet another new set of plans and so on and so on.  It has been a constant re-calibration and its making me crazy.

So much right now is so far out of my control.  Add to that the madness that is back to school and the usual September shenanigans as we all clamber back into the swing of non-vacation life.  And all I want to do is cry.  It probably started with the white chalk debacle of 2015, moved swiftly into summer travel busy-ness and then this piece of sh*t reno situation.  The real drag is that we’re not even getting something new and exciting.  We’re repairing something that went wrong and its in the whole house, so we’re upside down in every single room.

And here I am, trying to wrestle back some semblance of order and control over what feels like a runaway situation.  I can’t seem to get a schedule from anyone or a clear answer on what still has to be done.  So all I can do is try and re-establish some organization.  If that means scrubbing the toilets to do it, then that’s where I’m at.  Cleaning.  Scouring away any hint of a manicure while I curse the misogynistic world of construction and quietly try to rinse away any of the bad vibes these dudes have left in my home.  As I climbed the counter top to wash the walls and ceilings, wondering what these jokers have in store for us next I realized how smart it would have been to invest in a good pair of rubber gloves.

The cathartic nature of a good solid cleaning session, coupled with a mantra to accept what comes my way is where I’m trying to be.  But in the meantime I’ll make sure I have the name of a good lawyer in my back pocket just in case… and a manicure booked for good measure.  Wish me luck.