The Clean Office

I should have taken a 'before' photo so that you could first see the chaos that was my office these past months: piles of papers, piles of books, piles of notes.  Towering piles. Toppling piles.  Piles from Switzerland. From England. From the States.

In any case, here is the 'after'--after cleaning, purging, ruthlessly tossing or filing:

And my favorite cabinet, with doors that now close:

After a few months away from a manuscript, I'm preparing to return to it, and this is part of the ritual: clear the decks, re-establish order, realign the brain!  

And while I'm in the office, here are a few of my favorite things.  First, I love these Jill Bliss notebooks:

The larger one is 5 x 7" and the smaller one is 4 x 5-1/2". The pages are smooth and inviting, either unlined or graph-i-cal (block paper, graph paper, you know what I mean?)  I use them to jot notes, titles, names, phrases. Sometimes I include favorite cartoons (lots of Harry Bliss ones). When I'm on the phone, I doodle in them or color the images.   

And then there are the pens and markers. My weakness. Alas. Here are some:

In another life, I would like to be an illustrator, one with much more talent than I now possess.

But: the office is clean, the desk is clear:  bring on the manuscript!

Land of the Young

The grandchildren were here this past week.  In photo above, granddaughter is in center, grandson at right.  At left is their friend. Within minutes of arriving they dove into the playhouse (an outlying one-room cottage we renovated several years ago--it's filled with dress-up clothes, art supplies and games) and emerged to perform a skit they made up called Celebrity Beach Party. Very funny, these kids.  I think Celebrity Beach Party was my favorite skit.  I didn't so much enjoy the one with the farting bear.

They also like to do 'movies': they come up with a sequence, pose stuffed animals, I take the photos, and we set up on the Mac as a slideshow.  Some of their skits were: Four Doggies; Animals at Play; and Friends on the Dock.  My four-year-old grandson likes for the animals to engage in fierce battles; the girls prefer that the animals all get along.  We used both indoor and outdoor settings.  Here is one photo from Animals at Play:

They are climbing the fence into the raised vegetable bed.  They want the blackberries.

I'm still finding remnants from their visit:

And:

Sure going to miss those kids!