Diary of a Newlywed....Uninspiring January

I recently heard on the news that the middle of January marks the highest rate of suicides committed...morbid?? Yes!! But I have to tell you I can sort of see why!! The high of Christmas cheer is over, we've all packed on a few extra pounds of winter insulation so our self confidence is shot, and probably worst of all, our credit card bills arrive detailing every bit of our holiday excess line by line. And lets not forget those NYE resolutions we've all made but secretly know we'll break by February. We take down the bright Christmas lights, the sparkly, shiny Christmas tree, (or if you're us you leave it up until Easter), and if you live in Michigan you realize you have at least 3 months left of gray skies, the inevitable tire and wheel damage from countless potholes, and hours of shoveling snow ahead of you. And to make matters worse, there are no three-day weekends for months!!! Unless you're a teacher and get winter break, (and in that case I hate you) the rest of us will be slaving away, 5 days a week for the next 12 weeks straight, oh the misery!! I think the furry critters really have it right with the hibernation thing, that sounds pretty amazing to me right now, a long, cozy winter's nap!! Anyway, when this time of year comes round I do a couple of things in hopes of surviving the deep freeze with my sanity in tact:

1. I begin spending 25% of my computer time searching for warm weather vacation deals and dreaming of palm trees, steel drums, and frozen daiquiris

2. Drink, drink, and then drink some more, I usually go through a wine phase right about now

3. Register and actually pay to run a half marathon (this will be my 3rd year running, my 2nd time in the Country Music Marathon in Nashville this April)

4. Actually finish some home projects since there's nothing else to do...2 years ago we painted the entire basement, last year I painted the whole upstairs, and this year is the mother load: The Manhattan Project:

A reorganization project of massive proportions!

Because Nick lived in his house which is now "our" house for the last 4 years and because we had planned to put the house up for sale until recently I stashed my belongings wherever I could find a place when I moved in without really merging all of our stuff together. This has resulted in closets, dressers, every available surface filled with each of our belongings in no orderly or logical fashion. I have sock drawers in the room next door to our bedroom and t-shirts in another guestroom dresser. So it is with great ambition and a great deal of trepidation that I set forth on the quest for total home organization. My biggest challenge will without question be Nick. I've recently figured out that I have to find ways to outsmart his natural laziness. I have to make it the easiest and most logical thing for him to drop his boxers in the place I really want them (FYI, that's not the bathroom floor!) and the CD's...oh the Japanese Mini LP's! I've accepted the fact that his collection of mini LP's is on a neverending growth trend and that he refuses to store them in the basement, the location of the Great Flood of 07, when the water heater exploded. So I bought a nice looking CD storage cabinet and put it together, with the help of my sister, over the weekend and voila! he got really excited to organize and put away all of his mini-LP's! I might be onto something here, not that it's any brilliant revelation, I just have to think one step ahead of him and set up storage and organization systems that make it obvious, convenient, and effort free to keep things organized and put away. More obvious then the neon colored sticky notes I was leaving all over the house reminding him to put his coat in the closet and check the dishwasher to see if his dirty dish can go in there! You know, the more I think about this the more I realize I should probably hire a kindergarten teacher to help me with my strategy, because that's the level of his organization skills!! Look at the colors and neatly stacked shelves in the pictures, they do teach kids how to organize an put stuff away!!! Nick was probably hiding the latest issue of Cream magazine underneath his desk during that lesson...

Anyway, I have a lot of work ahead of me but I have no excuse because there's nothing else to do around here while we endure the arctic frost coming our way!! Wish me luck and please send any tricks I might be able to use on Nick!!