Everything in Its Place

BE HAPPY ALONG WITH FIORELLA! She has made another massive step forward arriba en su officina. She had already pretty well tossed what she wanted to get rid of, but that left piles of various sorts around the room, and every time she started diving in again, she had to re-identify everything. The solution was staring her right in the face: the file cabinets, the ones she had bought years ago and had only used half of. Now, please excuse Fio while she makes up some file-case tags.
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One whole drawer in the cabinets is labeled with her father's family name. Many, many years ago, when Fio was visiting her Pennsylvania relatives, she gathered a lot of information about that side of her heritage, then tucked it away in the shelves in her office. Well, the wife of one of her cousins is interested in genealogy so Fio is sending her photcopies of her own research. This could be interesting because genealogists have so many more tools available now.
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Another drawer will be dedicated to all Fiorella's lost manuscripts, the ones she never finished or that are now out-of-date. She'll also start keeping her WIPs in their own drawers. And then there's her poetry and journalistic endeavers. Organized at last--is it truly possible?

The Household

Fiorella is methodical. She lives by systems and lists. Husband is more of a free spirit, which means Fio never knows where the phone is till she hears it ringing. Grrrr!
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The east creek bed has yielded some very nice rocks, but its footing is more treacherous than the creek to the south, where the rock tree was, and the overgrowth is scary. Who knows what lurks in Fiorella's back woods?
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Has Fio told you that the sages on the west side of the house are being consumed by a fungus? She used her pruners to cut down one of them and ended up with a twenty-minute coughing jag. Allergy? Who knows, but she's planning to use a chainsaw to take the others down with one fell swipe apiece. That is, if Husband can find where he put the charger.

New Year's Resolution

Piece by piece, Fio is taking down her Christmas decorations.  The fireplace stocking are unhung, and the mantel has been liberated of its winter scene and miniature lampposts.  Red ribbons no longer bedeck everything bedeckable. The "Twelve Days of Christmas" bells are packed away. The multiple tinsel garlands have been retrieved from the driveway and the house, wound into sparkling balls, and placed on the dining room table, which functions as Fio's command central. The wreaths and the stray fake greenery fronds are stacked on the table too, and THIS YEAR FIORELLA WILL ORGANIZE AND LABEL ALL HER PRETTIES BEFORE RELEGATING THEM TO THE GARAGE!

Yeah.

Celebrate with Fio!

OMG, Fio finally has her lists organized!

Yes, those multiple paper tablets stuffed with ideas and comments and dialogue and poems and domestic to-dos and everything else under the sun.  It took her three hours, but she now has her conglomeration down to six sets of clipped pages--Phillipa, Lolly, Leah, Leah, Carolee, marketing, and notes--plus four sets of to-do lists she's taped to one side of the mantel and a reminder for tomorrow she's taped to the other side.

Now to dive in and accomplish everything she's committed herself to.

Truant

Where has Fio's tablet gone--
The one that she's been writing on
The one which holds her long, long list
Of times and dates that can't be missed?
It's not on the couch, not in the chair
Not in her office, not anywhere
So please forgive if Fio runs late
She didn't mean to make you wait.

Queen!

Fio spent all day yesterday in the den organizing her thoughts--literally, since she jots down almost every inkling that comes to mind, mostly on little scraps of colored paper left over  from her various art projects, then sticks them in the shelves besdie her desk. But now she's organized in files: writing, landscaping, craft ideas, poetry inspirations, TV ideas, character ideas and their clothes (torn out from ads), ideas for the poetry and romance classes she'll be teaching this fall, and, of course, topics for FIORELLA.  She  carried a lot of other stuff up to her study and dropped a couple of armfuls in the workroom, which doubles as crafts room and laundry.  She also filled three trash bags.

Onward, Fiorella!  If you can organize your mess in the den, you can conquer the world!