My brother and sister-in-law just moved in September, and already their new home is painted, decorated and organized.

I’m sure most of the work has been done for a while; this weekend was the first time I’d visited since helping them move.

We have lived in our house for five years. Only three rooms have been painted, and I’ve been stripping and repainting the kitchen cabinets for over three years. It could be close to four.

There are only a few pieces of art, and no cohesion to the placement of accessories. Actually, since we have limited surfaces that are safe from cat traffic, we tend to have knick-knack overload.

I would love for everything to be neat and organized. Problem is (a) not everything has a place, and (b) I don’t make time to put the things that do have places in them.

In my bedroom, I’m on my second closet organizer, which should provide me the means to neatly store my clothes. I suppose it’d be easier to access the long hanging section of my closet if I didn’t have to stand on my toes while climbing Shoe Mountain to get in there.

I do have some hanging shoe storage, but I haven’t rotated spring/summer footwear for winter/fall yet, so nearly all my shoes in regular rotation end up in the pile instead. I also need to rotate the spring/summer clothing selections to the back, so I can finally put away the months of clean laundry waiting on top of the dryer.

Junk mail had piled up to a point that I *had* to go thru it the other night in order to have room to spread out on the couch. Every time I repeat this process, I tell myself I have to start throwing away mail every day as it comes in. It probably lasts a day or two at best.

I guess I have to start small, and clean out a cabinet or something, and move from there. I just never get around to it. I can’t remember how many years my New Year’s resolution has been to “get organized.”

Maybe 2007 will be the lucky year?