I’m almost afraid to write about this for fear of jinxing it, but we have finally embarked on a kitchen remodel. We’ve been talking about redoing our kitchen almost since we moved into our house (a little over 10 years ago), and we just started the first phase of the project which is removing a load-bearing wall between the kitchen and living room so that we can have an open-plan kitchen, living and dining area.

It’s going to be a major ordeal. In order to remove the wall, we have to put a new beam in the ceiling, and we have to pour a new concrete footing under the house to support the column that will support one end of the beam. Eric’s been digging the hole for the new footing, and in order to facilitate that process he cut through the floor of our coat closet which is conveniently right above where the footing needs to go. This way he can at least sit up part of the time that he’s digging. He also threw down a carpet scrap to keep the dust down and make it a little more comfortable down there – although comfort is relative when you’re digging in a 2 foot crawl space and hauling dirt out in buckets…

Yesterday when I got home from work, I found that Eric had moved an entire section of our kitchen into the dining room. We want to be able to use the kitchen for as long as we possibly can during the remodel process, so this was Eric’s solution. It may not make for the most efficient work triangle, but I think it’s pretty ingenious.

And so it begins…I’ll be carrying a tape measure in my purse for the next few months as we make our final decisions on appliances and so on. It’s fun and nerve-wracking at the same time – everything ties together and I worry that one wrong decision will screw up the whole process. I’m trying to just stay focused and not stress over it too much, but since we’re just at the beginning of the process I expect it to get more difficult as we move forward. I’ll post more pictures as we make progress. Wish us luck!

One of my ongoing goals is to organize my home/life. I tend to start this project several times a year and then get completely overwhelmed and quit without accomplishing much, and sometimes having made things worse. This year I’m trying something different: as much as possible, I’m tackling small projects and doing them from start to finish. Today I organized my bookshelves.

Since I started working in libraries I don’t buy nearly as many books as I used to, but I still have quite a few. Many of them are in storage, but the ones in the house tend to get disorganized pretty quickly. When I don’t have places to put things I just start stacking, so today I was sorting through piles of books and other stuff and putting them in order back on the shelves.

It’s very dusty work, so I weeded and cleaned as I went, and I’m quite happy with the result. I have room for all the books I want to keep in the house plus a little extra for growth, and everything is in order and visible. I am one happy librarian!

I decided that I’m going to try to post a daily recommendation – might be a book, movie, website, song, whatever. I’m considering this a target and not a moral obligation, so there will inevitably be days missed, but I thought it would be fun to talk about some of the new stuff I come across along with some older favorites and thereby resist the temptation to post about what I ate for lunch just because I can’t think of anything else to say. So, with no further ado:

Although I don’t make resolutions, this book seems like a good fit for the beginning of a new year. It’s All Too Much by Peter Walsh is a handbook for clearing out the clutter in your home and organizing what’s left. There are lots of practical tips and how-tos, but what I really liked about this book was Walsh’s emphasis on how clutter and the proliferation of stuff affects your quality of life. The entire book is informed by the idea of living the life you want to live instead of being controlled or overwhelmed by stuff you possess (or stuff that possesses you).

I am not a fan of resolutions. I like to take the end of the year and the beginning of the next one as a time to evaluate and so on, but resolutions just seem like a set-up for failure so I avoid them. In fact, I studiously avoid starting anything new (exercise routines, organizing systems, what have you) on January 1st, even if it’s something I really want to do. I either start before January or later in the month just to avoid the psychological association with resolutions and failure. (I don’t know how much good that actually does, but…).

Having said that, I was totally inspired by Merlin Mann’s posts on clutter and feel like using the New Year to get control of this area of my life. Merlin posted links yesterday to a good Ask Metafilter discussion on literary clutter (Librarians, take note!) and his series on his own “War on Clutter.” The one that really kicked my butt: Never “organize” what you can discard – oh my gosh, how many dollars I have wasted at the Container Store doing exactly that!