Was that a Corner We Just Turned?

Angel, Isabelle, and I moved into our new home just about a year and a month ago. Of course the home was just barely inhabitable at that point. It was about seven more months before the house was done enough to call for a final inspection. What with the mess of construction and the partially organized chaos of moving, it almost seemed as if the components of our life had been dumped into a gigantic container and shaken. And shaken some more. And then divided into blobs and distributed around the property.

Big, well-labeled things were organized quickly. So were basic need-type things: cooking utensils and clothes, for instance.

The garage? Oh, don't go in there.

The basement? Piles of boxes of books waiting for the bookshelves to go in. Other piles of boxes that probably should have been placed in the garage.

The yard? Piles of construction wood scrap. Much of it useful. At least useful as firewood. But so much of it. And just everywhere.

Little-by-little, mostly on weekends, we've been nibbling away at this chaos. That's Angel and I doing the nibbling. Isabelle yawns on her blanket by the window and covers her head with a paw as if to say, "Can you guys be quiet? I'm trying to take a nap here."

Boxes in the basement are reopened for the 12th time, but now inspected carefully. Oh that's where the yoga mats went! Piles of stuff -- really just stuff -- finally sorted through in the garage to uncover... a GIANT container of some kind of caulk. A five gallon can that had originally contained paint but now holds a paint roller hopelessly stuck to a grate and about 3" of dried paint sludge. Empty paint cans that the painter or the contractor should have removed. A carpenter's much-abused sawhorses, left behind for someone else to deal with. I may cut them up for firewood too, by golly. Other things are found. Sorted. Discarded. An end to mysterious boxes. Or at least a decline in them.

The last couple of weekends seem to have brought us past a corner, however. The yard, while still far from completely landscaped, looks like something's being done with it. The garage mess finally sorted through sufficiently to clear a space in the shop area where one can walk and work on things without stepping over & around ladders, paint cans, garden tools, boxes, boxes, (did I say boxes?)... the list goes on. But now most garage stuff is stacked neatly on shelves or hanging on the wall or in racks. One can visualize a kind of ordered state. Or perhaps a state of markedly reduced disorder.

In short, we have passed some nebulous point and are entering a region where the chaos seems to be declining. We are entering a place where one may imagine doing things without constantly wondering where the right tool or fastener might be hiding. We identify where we'd like that hoe, rake, shovel, mattocks could reasonably reside when not in use.

It is good. It is very good. And about time.

Oh, and lest I forget to mention, the weather was nothing short of gorgeous.