theHword.com

Remember that bill that didn’t get paid because you never received it? What about the gift magazine subscription that ran out because you didn’t receive a renewal notice or the important newspaper clipping that disappeared into thin air?

The key to reclaiming sanity about lost objects turns out, for me, to be a desk-cleaning frenzy. I decided to clean off my home desk this week, and found the Hastings Utility bill from November in a “bills to pay” file…perfectly logical, except that I’d forgotten I made such a file. Yep, the gift magazine subscription renewal for our daughter-in-law… that was there, too, meaning she didn’t get the news of a part of her Christmas present. The newspaper clipping? Well, here’s a thank-you note from the person I mailed it to, so that’s a relief!

I used to be (and in some ways, I still am) an extremely organized person, but these lost items drive me crazy and I spend far too much frenzied time looking for them when I could be more productive just putting things in the correct place right away, rather than making piles to be sorted through at some future, less-hectic time. A time which, usually, never materializes.

The little desk I purchased at Eakes really has been helpful in my organizational efforts. It doesn’t hold too much “stuff,” so I’m forced to winnow out the old and unnecessary pretty regularly, and it doesn’t have a lot of flat surface, so my old “file by pile” habits are (somewhat) curtailed.

We also have a Governor Winthrop-style desk we bought in our first years of marriage. We needed a chest of drawers, an older couple was selling the desk, and we purchased it from them in their home and filled it with underwear and tee shirts after taking it home to our little apartment. That desk is now a centerpiece of our living room, and holds travel information, medical info, tape and paper clips, stamps, envelopes and other typical desk contents. It has held up remarkably well, except for Emmett’s cat-claw scratches from his wild leaps to its top, where he delights in systematically knocking off the coins, nails, and washers that are sometimes found there.

I used to think that one desk was all I needed, but its cubbies have been taken over by items which have no other logical place to reside. The organization of the Governor Winthrop wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but to my strange mind, it’s “organized” just right. Shouldn’t everyone store bills over the past nine years from Hastings Utilities in their desk?

The Governor served as the inspiration for the desk Jack hand-made when our daughter-in-law requested a desk to help with her organizational skills. That desk was a labor of love, and, even though two of its drawers have been given over to grandgirls’ art supplies, it is proudly serving as an organizer in St Paul, MN.

So, the two desks we purchased live in happy compatibility in our home, even looking favorably upon the recycled desk in the basement that Jack calls his own, and his artist’s desk in the garage. There are stories behind the recycled lives of both those desks as well, but I’ll leave it to Jack to relate at a later date their return to beauty, organization, and serviceability.

 

About the author: Judy Sandeen

Born in Loup City, Ne, Judy Sandeen is a Registered Nurse who has held varied nursing positions throughout her career, most recently as Director of Campus Health Services at Hastings College. She is currently in her third year of retirement, and remains interested in public health and social justice issues. She is married to Jack Sandeen, and their children are Amy Sandeen, who now lives in Hastings, and son Eric and his family, who live in St Paul, Mn.