The Idea of Order

A few months ago we seriously considered buying another house. The house had big pluses and small minuses, but when we looked at the inspection report from the previous purchase, we realized it had very big minuses, and just said no. The salutary result of this experience was that we fell quite in love once again with our current house, kind of like when you flirt with someone else and it makes you realize that your boyfriend is the right person for you.

We also resolved to make the improvements that our house needs to be perfect (here's where the boyfriend analogy falls apart, because you cannot make the improvements that a boyfriend needs to be perfect--and truly the house won't be perfect either, but few things are). We have reconceived our renovation plans so that they are more practical, i.e. affordable, and even though we'll lose the big kitchen, we'll gain lots of other spaces and have room for guests galore. (I'm also resolved to make one very impractical renovation and turn the enclosed sunroom into a real porch, which is the kind of backwards thing I'm known for--like quitting a job other people would sell their souls for and moving from one of the most affordable parts of the country to one of the most expensive.)

Renovations are still a few months off though, so for now we're dealing with the little things that drive us--OK, me--nuts. Like the CDs.

I'm not sure you can imagine the CD situation, if you haven't seen it. We have a small sunroom (not the porch-to-be) off the living room which is currently TV room, guest room, and music room (this would make you laugh if you saw it, because really it is so small) (post-renovation it will just be music room, and I can't wait!). It had two CD shelves that held maybe 1100 CDs. But the input of CDs to the house is enormous and unstoppable, plus there is a bad habit (note passive tense) of not putting away CDs, and the result was that the floor and the windowsill (lovely wide shelf-like windowsill) were piled with stacks of CDs. Maybe a dozen stacks? Maybe 30 or 40 CDs per stack? Maybe falling over approximately weekly, leaving the floor tiled with CDs? You can imagine my frustration, disgust, and annoyance, which I tried not to channel at others...OK, I didn't try very hard.

But yesterday the perpetrator of things CD annoying transformed into the perpetrator of CD goodness, bought a new CD shelf (plain, at the unfinished wood store, of course), and put away all the CDs! My joy it is unbounded. Except that, believe it or not (oh, believe it), all three CD shelves are now full, and I fear the cycle only begins again. For the moment, though, I will rejoice in order restored.