Who’s On First vs. Who Cares

When Melissa’s not organized she is almost certainly in a BAD mood. I am almost the complete opposite of this. When someone decides that I need help in order to get myself better organized it’s almost certain to put me in a bad mood. If you sense that this could be pretty awkward, you’d be correct but most of the time we are able to find some middle ground in this muddle. However this week it’s definitely my turn to be in a bad mood because Melissa is in organizational overdrive mode. It’s almost like those shark frenzies that you see on TV only in this case I am definitely not the shark.

I can usually sense this is coming when I start to see several page long printed “to do” lists littering Melissa’s desk. I was pretty sure this week was going to be a doozie when I counted six pages of to do’s. I actually saw several more pages but I decided to stop counting to save my own sanity. I knew it was going to get rougher when she came home with a dozen three ring binders and enough paper to wear out a printer as well as a trunkful of clear plastic tubs, all the better to label and organize our farm stuff.

I was wrong about it being rough. It wasn’t rough at all. It was EPIC. The three ring binders are FULL. Everything you would ever want to know about each horse is neatly filed in a three ring binder, in alphabetical order I might add. Along with lists of every phone number we’ve dialed in the last 5 years or so, and all sorts of other information. Of course it is all neatly organized in the three ring binders with tabbed and labeled dividers.

The plastic totes are full too. And labelled. In excruciating and painstaking detail. I’m proud of her for doing all this and I’ve said so when prompted (Melissa here – he has said so only when prompted – otherwise he has complained about it ENDLESSLY), and it sure seems to make her happy now that it’s all done. (Melissa again – yes it does indeed make me very happy.) She’s also right when she says that I didn’t know where all the stuff was before she started organizing it. I made a lot of happy discoveries this week which were mostly accompanied by statements like ” Huh ! Haven’t seen that in years.” when I’d discover some mislaid item in an odd and/or unforeseen place.

But the tradeoff is that now everything is labelled and put away we have SO MANY plastic totes that it’s actually worse than it was before, at least for me. I don’t know where ANYTHING is, and finding any single item will take me hours of sorting through totes and cross checking labels. (Melissa here; actually his true complaint is not that it will take hours to find something, but now he has to take the time to put things back instead of just leaving it in whatever odd place that happens to be convenient.) At least with my system I knew where SOME THINGS were and I could lay my hands on them in a few seconds.

At least there is no arguing that the farm is gleaming, clean and organized. We ought to be posting pictures of it. I wonder what’s coming next. 🙂

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Chimano and Silver enjoying some horseplay; Fonzi, Romeo, George, Gus, Asterik and Winston are in the background

Clayton and Rocky playing while waiting for breakfast

Leo and Thomas were also having fun

Leo and Thomas