What would Martha do?

Craig recently brought home this book. Oh boy! Everything you ever wanted to know about managing a home. Cleaning, organizing, and examples of knives and forks I never knew existed. Just looking at it I feel like an unorganized slob. Perhaps it will motivate me to develop routines to ensure my home is always tidy and neat & clean! I find that if you let things slide they turn into projects instead of simple tasks. My closet right now is a giant project. The 5 loads of laundry I need to do, project. The list goes on.

Love her or hate her, Martha is pretty amazing. She has built an empire on explaining to people how to cover a foam ball with moss, and fold a fitted sheet. I still can't fold a fitted sheet. I try and try, and I still get a ball of some sort. I used to subscribe to Living, and had many years of issues displayed neatly on a shelf. I thought I would refer back to them to now and then. I rarely did. When we moved to New York I gave them all away at a yard sale. Or Tag Sale as Martha would say. Her move to the Hallmark Chanel has left me a bit lost. I can never find the Hallmark Chanel, and watching her perfect set, with the perfect guests and audience, may put me over the edge, well on the way to obsessive compulsive behavior. I've heard if you attend a show, there is a strict dress code so everyone looks nice and coordinates with the set. Solids only, in soft bright colors.

I can be a bit anal retentive. I need my workspace to be in order, clean, and everything must be in it's place and on the appropriate angle. The above photo makes my skin crawl, and the one below moves me to tears. The stapler, pad of paper, and phone all need to be just so or I get frazzled and do not work as efficiently as possible.

The same goes for my Outlook. I purge my inbox consistently. You will never find messages piled up. I read them, act on them, file them, or delete them. When I leave work for the day my inbox is empty.

Over the next few weeks I am going to do some before and after posts. On my list of things to tackle are my medicine cabinet, closet, and locker at work. What are some things you are working on to get more organized? Does Martha motivate and inspire you? I do enjoy her when she is on David Letterman.