My New Office

I have wanted an office for a long time.  I want an office like this one.

This is Betsy's office.  Have you met Betsy?  She writes over at My Five Men.  One of those men is her husband.  The other four are her sons.  That's right, four sons.  All teenagers.  Wait, it gets better.  Three of them are sixteen-year-old triplets.  Did I mention that the triplets are autistic?  Crazy right?

If I were Betsy, I think I would skip the office and get a padded room.  She may have one of those, too.  I have no idea.  She has never written about it.  In fact, I have never heard her complain at all, which I find amazing.  Not so much because of her situation, but because I can complain about anything, and regularly do.  Like the fact that it takes three weeks (not the alleged twenty four hours) to defrost a whole four pound chicken in the refrigerator, the way they say you are supposed to.  They can eat my shorts.  Or, my undercooked chicken.  They can choose.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  Betsy's office.  Isn't it lovely.  It is at one end of her kitchen, so she can multi-task and keep an eye on her men.  She runs a business from there, too.  Catering and gift baskets, I think.  Oh, the baked goods she has written about.  And, she uses a coffee maker as an alarm clock.  Anyway, go visit her if you get the chance, but not on an empty stomach.  And, not now.  You're busy reading this.  Focus, would you!

I do a lot of stuff, too.  I parent and write and keep a home.  I want a place to go, where it will be clean, and orderly, and out of reach of children, where I can think and function, and find everything.  I want an office.

I want an office, but I don't have an office.  What I have is a corner of the kitchen.  The counter is too high for the littlest hands to reach, and, as I keep the room cordoned off most of the time, it is fairly safe from the peanut butter and jelly crowd.  Unfortunately, until last week, my corner "office" looked like this.

Truly unacceptable, I know.  It was just stacks of this, and piles of that.  I couldn't find anything.  Nothing was in it's place, because nothing really had a place.  So sad.  I hate clutter, and not only was I living with it, I was trying to work with it too.  I had had enough!

I declared war on that corner.  And, now.  It looks like this.

Thanks to the Staples Desk Apprentice Turbo.  Okay, I added the "turbo," but I felt that such an awesome cube of organization deserved a superlative.  Did I mention that it rotates?  I wish it weren't black.  If I find the time, I might try to girly it up a little.  Until then, I am organized!!!!!!  Which, considering the "before" picture, is no small task.  (I swear to you, everything in the first picture, is in the second picture, except the butter dish and the iPod.)

[I have not been compensated by the Staples corporation in any way for this endorsement, so I feel free to tell you that the on-line price of $39.99, is a total rip off.  I got mine at the good old brick and mortar place for only $25.99]