Entryway Maintenance [...]]]> When I went to containerize my entryway last week, I noticed that things had slipped a bit. To the right of the front door, there was packing paper spilling out of the recycling bin, and my bike was still in the back corner because I hadn’t gotten around to selling it yet:

Entryway Maintenance is slipping a bit

To the left of the front door, there was a huge pile of cardboard on the floor from various mail orders. This is an ongoing problem with our entryway. We get a fair number of deliveries, and we never get around to breaking down the boxes and recycling them. Recycling gets taken out once a week, and since we usually forget to deal with it until the last minute, we inevitably forget to deal with the boxes. They can pile up for months, tucked in the corner where they soon become invisible.

Cardboard Fail

I got two containers to try as day pack solutions last week. The wider, shallower of the two was perfect for the packs. Since I still had the other one, I decided to try it as a “home” for cardboard boxes to be recycled. When we get a package, the box is broken down immediately and put in its new “home”.

So far, I’ve been pretty good about this; but M has been out of town since we implemented this system. He gets back tonight. We’ll see how it holds up with both of us here.

Yesterday I started the fifth step of organizing the entryway: Containerizing. Earlier in the week I went to The Container Store to get supplies. I got two clear acrylic sweater drawers, a set of matching clear dividers, and two plastic bins to try out [...]]]> Welcome back to the series, “How to Organize an Entryway”.

Yesterday I started the fifth step of organizing the entryway: Containerizing. Earlier in the week I went to The Container Store to get supplies. I got two clear acrylic sweater drawers, a set of matching clear dividers, and two plastic bins to try out as backpack storage.

Here’s the closet before containerizing:

The Closet, Before Containers

The cold-weather hats, gloves, and scarves, are in a leaning stack, threatening to topple out of their stop-gap container. The backpacks are in a pile on the floor of the closet. Some of the everyday hats are in boxes, but the others are stacked on top.

The cold-weather accessories have a home, but it’s not a good one; the backpacks don’t really have a home at all.
I know from personal experience that if this continues, the piles will eventually metastasize and merge. Pretty soon we’ll be back where we started — with a big pile of vests, gloves, backpacks, and hats on the floor of the closet.

Clockwise from top right: scarves and gaiters, hats, gloves and liners, ear-warmers

I put the spare vests in one of the sweater drawers. Next, I put the drawer dividers in the other sweater drawer, and used it for cold weather accessories. Gloves and gaiters have a space, hats have a space, gloves and liners have a space, and my ear warmers have a space.

My next task was to solve my backpack problem. We have three day packs in different sizes as well as a fanny pack. Depending on where we’re going and how long we’re going to be out, we might need to take a different pack — the large internal frame packs for rugged hikes or short overnight trips, or the small ultralight day pack and the fanny pack if it’s short hike and we’re just carrying water.

The back packs have never had a home assigned to them before. They wind up in whatever closet is most convenient, stuff gets piled on top of them, and then we need to use them we have to do a mad search. I decided that the ideal way to handle this was to find a way for them to stand up on end in the entryway closet, almost like vertical files. But how would I do this?

Since I was at a loss, I took up the first offer of help extended to me by a friendly Container Store employee. I described the problem to her. She thought for a minute, and then her eyes lit up. “I’ve got it!” she said. “Come with me.”

I followed her to a corner of the store I’d never noticed before. “This is all stuff that’s on clearance, either because it’s been discontinued or damaged out. A lot of what winds up here are bins that don’t have lids. If you stand your packs up on end, the container will keep them from falling over, but you don’t need a lid — so why pay for a lid?”

SCORE! I found two possible candidates, both at 70% discounts. I decided to take them home and try them both. I could either return the one I didn’t need, or use it to solve another organizing problem.

The smaller of the two containers turned out to be perfect for the back packs. They all fit, standing up on end, and they’re clearly visible, allowing us to grab a pack and go. What’s more, the day packs now have an obvious, official home assigned to them, making it easier to put them away after hiking.

Containerized closet! Everything is visible, accessible, and easy to put away.

So there you have it. A neatly containerized closet. So my entryway is done, right?

Well, no.

Remember, I still have some used clothes to mend, alter and sell. I also promised myself I’d sell the old bike I never ride. And then there are the casual hats, living unsustainably in bins in the corner of the closet … oh yeah, and there’s the cat box, still in front of the door, which I need to move to the side. In order for my entryway to be “done”, it needs to be functioning more or less the way I want it to. Here’s what I need to do to make that happen:

1) Sell or donate bike, accessories, and skis
2) Sell or donate used clothing
3) Alter clothes that need to be hemmed or taken in
4) Solve hat storage problem — wall mount hat cubbies, perhaps?
5) Move cat box to the left of the door
6) Get shoji screen to put in front of cat box
7) Consider whether the entryway needs a “mission control” area — a place for bags, keys, library books, outgoing mail?

I’m giving myself a deadline of November 20th to deal with the sale/donation items and the alteration/mending items. If I haven’t listed the items by then, I’m calling up the VVA and arranging a donation. As long as I’m setting deadlines, wouldn’t it be nice if I could have company over the Thanksgiving holiday, and not have them greeted by the cats’ litter box as they walk in the door? I think I’ll set the goal of fixing the cats’ litter area by Thanksgiving weekend. As for the hat storage, I’ll keep looking for a solution, and hopefully I’ll find one by the end of the month.

Will Addy reach her goals? Will she sell her used stuff like she’s been meaning to, and make a few extra bucks, or will she slack off donate it to the VVA? Will her cats’ litter box we greeting her guests until the end of time? TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR THE CONTINUING SAGA OF … THE ENTRY WAY!!!

I had set myself an e-mail reminder for yesterday morning, reminding me [...]]]> I was on my way out the door today when I happened to check my text messages.  I’m glad I did; I was alerted to the fact that the Vietnam Veteran’s Association was coming by to pick up the donation pile from my entryway.

I had set myself an e-mail reminder for yesterday morning, reminding me that this was upcoming.  I read it and told myself, oh yeah, I need to remember that.  I had set myself an SMS reminder for 11 pm last night, reminding me that this was coming.  I didn’t hear it because I was charging my phone.

So this morning, trying to make a streetcar that was due in less than ten minutes, I had to haul several boxes outside and label them for the VVA.

The thing is, I’ve achieved a general level of organization such that this was no big deal.  I grabbed some paper from the office, a sharpie and some tape from the mail center in the kitchen, got the boxes outside and labeled, and I even (if barely) made my transit connection.

Why, then, was I cursing myself out as I boarded the streetcar?  Beating myself up for my chaotic ways is just such an ingrained habit, I start in on myself without realizing it.  Besides, it’s not like I would have been the only person, EVER, in THE ENTIRE HISTORY of the VVA pick-up service, to forget to set out a donation.

I did good today.  Even though my system failed me, I was able to compensate because of the strides I’ve made over the past few years.  I don’t need to expect perfection from myself.  “Good enough” is plenty good enough.

I came to this realization in a round about way because of the mice.  As I mentioned last week, my house has been invaded by rodents. The good news is that they’re not roof rats like I thought; they’re house mice, [...]]]> Or, Why I $%#@ing HATE Palm Trees

Today I realized that palm-trees are not ADD-friendly.

I came to this realization in a round about way because of the mice.  As I mentioned last week, my house has been invaded by rodents. The good news is that they’re not roof rats like I thought; they’re house mice, which are certainly a problem to have living in the walls, but they’re not significant disease vectors either. I had no idea mice could be so darn LOUD.

To make a long story short, in order to trap the mice, I need to clean up my yard. Yard work isn’t so bad once I actually start doing it, but it’s one of those tasks where I have trouble getting started. My yard is ringed by mature trees, many of them tropical species.  It’s very shady so I can’t plant my own stuff, which means I’m not motivated to take care of plants I planted.  I’ve got several trees, most of which I wouldn’t have chosen, and none of which will be overcome by weeds. I think the last time I cleaned up my yard was … 2005? Seriously.

Which gets me to the palm trees. Weeding my yard wasn’t even the bad part. It didn’t take me much time to finish the first third of my yard, and I could easily see what I’d accomplished:

This part of the yard had weeds that came up over my knees. I cleared it in an hour.

So today, I went out to finish the other half. The important half. The half that the pest control people will need to access in order to set their traps tomorrow. After three and a half hours of work, it looked like this:

The whole yard used to look like that super-green area toward the back. In front is a very leggy butterfly bush.

Yeah, that’s right. Clearing the same amount of space took three times as long. Why? Because of those #@$^&%@ palm trees!

In truth, it’s not just the palms, it’s all the tropical plants in my yard. There are four different types of palms (some of them much skinnier than others), a few banana trees (that don’t produce fruit because it’s too cold, but there are some very weird-looking flowers on them), and a calistemon or “bottlebrush” (a tree native to Hawai’i, with a weeping growth habit). In order to get to the weeds, I had to prune the calistemon severely, and then hack my way through wilting palm fronds and banana branches. Then I had to clear the fallen fronds from the ground. Then, and only then, could I actually start weeding. On Friday, I spent an hour filling our two 32 gallon compost bins and two 33 gallon compostable yard waste bags — that’s 130 gallons, for those of you keeping score at home. Today, before I could even start pulling weeds, I filled both compost bins and three yard waste bags.  That’s right.  163 gallons of palm tree detritus, before I could even start weeding.

The bin in back is 32 gallons, the compostable yard waste bag in front is 33 gallons

These are the banana branches I had to hack through in order to get at the ground to weed.

A large pile of banana leaves. My tiny lens does not do it justice.

It got me thinking about how much I hate tropical plants. They’re all well and good when they’re in the jungle. Jungles, by definition, are overgrown. My northern California yard should not be. Furthermore, tropical plants grow all year round, which means they drop leaves and fronds all year round. Many of them are too big to just rake up, which means you have to collect them by hand. For someone with ADD, this presents one of those barriers to action which keep us from getting started on the task at hand.

Older branches (the grey ones) slowly collapse until they're in the way of foot traffic. The stalks of these fronds are very hard, sharp, and serrated. This is not good.

So my advice to you, if you have ADD and are planning a landscaping project, is to avoid the tropicals. Pick trees that drop their leaves once a year, so you only have to rake once a year, or plant conifers. Pick plants that have open, upright growth habits. If you like trees with a weeping habit, like willows or some varieties of flowering cherry, be sure and plant them far enough away from other trees that they don’t become tangled and forbidding. Check a gardening book for trees to plant near swimming pools, as these trees are selected because they’re less messy. Double check with your local plant nursery or garden center.

Having ADD doesn’t mean you can’t have a beautiful outdoor space. Just be sure and find plants that are low-maintenance and ADD-friendly.