Channeling My Nervous Energy

With the election approaching, I've been feeling a bit anxious. "My Guy" has lost in the last two Presidential races--I must be a jinx! Rather than spend any more time fretting over whether America will see things as clearly as I feel that I do, I thought I'd focus my energy on visualizing the outcome I hope for and getting down to some long-overdo organization projects at home.

The wet weather has arrived. Did I mention I live just outside Portland, Oregon?

It rains here.

A lot.

We have a "mud room" but it's been an organizational nightmare ever since we moved in. Now with the wet weather, we really need a place to drop our wet gear before we step inside. This is the entrance to the house/mud room from the main garage where we park the cars. I bought this stainless shelf for our wet/muddy shoes at IKEA for a bargain. The coat rack came from IKEA also.

Here are our rain boots... I don't imagine they will always appear so organized--but one can hope right?

Once you step inside, you enter the mud room. It used to be a dropping station for just about everything (and I'm sure without effort, it will become this again). It was difficult to even see the wood bench before because it was literally buried under a PILE of sweatshirts, shoes, coats, and purses. I cleared out the outerwear down to a sweatshirt and warm coat for each member of the family (the rain coats are hanging in the garage--see above). Our "everyday" shoes are in a large basket under the bench. The scarf/glove hanger was a treasure I picked up at IKEA. Our hats and some of my purses are on the top shelf; the kids' hats and gloves are in the dry sink on the left. The wet sink is actually being used to "hide" the Halloween candy from the girls (too bad that trick doesn't work for me too!).

I wish I had thought to take a "before" picture of our coat closet. This is the closet that utilizes the space under the staircase. When we were house-hunting here, we saw this space and immediately knew we would use this as our new downstairs "playroom." The girls were young enough that perhaps they wouldn't notice that it was 1/10 the size of the playroom they had in California (and they never did)! As you can imagine, it is usually a disaster... a "catch-all" for all the toys downstairs. However, I've captured it on film in a pristine state (enjoy--the moment is fleeting).

If you step inside and look to the left you see the rest. The girls call this space "the cottage."

This is how I spent my time yesterday avoiding any nervous thoughts about the election.

Today is actually election day... I've decided to tackle my personal closet. I figure I can concentrate on that while half-listening to the returns come in on TV (not FOX). It will happen. It must.

Stay tuned for my results...

(Yes, I remembered the "before" shots this time!)