The "if you give a mouse a cookie"* nature of my life

I have a dirty little secret. There is a daybed in my office, and somehow when we were unpacking 2 years ago, it became the landing pad for all manner of crap that just didn't have a place. Over the years, the pile has shifted and morphed like some sort of clutter dune, but never has it gone away entirely. This was the state of the bed at the beginning of August:



Right about then, I got inspired to clean up the Daybed from Hell, but it has been very slow going. This is mostly due to my propensity for getting distracted, kind of like one of those "Family Circus" kids who, when told to go get the mail, has to wander the whole neighborhood, stopping to pet dogs, run through the sprinkler, chat with a friend, buy an ice cream, and so on and so on. The following story is a vivid example of what I am sure is adult-onset ADD.

I unearthed from the pile of clutter the minutes to this month's high school PTO meeting and decided that, as part of my ongoing quest for Total Organization, those papers should really go into a binder dedicated solely to PTO business. So I went up to the attic and grabbed a 3-ring notebook. (Still on task and working hard.)

This notebook has a pocket on the front so that one might put a title page in it. I thought that perhaps if my binder were neatly labeled, I might have an easier time maintaining my motivation to use it. I suppose I could have simply written "PTO" on a sheet of paper and stuck it in the see-through pocket, but I wanted something a little nicer. (Mostly still on task.)

I fired up my hand-dandy Photoshop Elements and typed those 3 letters in a nice large font. It just seemed so plain though, and before I knew it, I was at the Photoshop Elements User website looking for ideas to make my binder cover a little more interesting. I found a tutorial for making letters that look like the varsity letters kids sew onto school jackets and thought how cool it would look if my "PTO" were made out of varsity letters. I got right to work. (Kind of still on task.)

An hour or so later, I had my varsity P, my varsity T, and my varsity O, and I was feeling quite pleased with myself. I supposed I could have hole-punched the minutes, stuck them in the binder, and moved on to some other part of the mess, but something just wasn't quite right. Yes, my varsity letters looked cool, but they were rather stark against a plain white background. At this point, I enlisted the help of my aunt and Photoshop guru Suzie. She helpfully sent me links to digital scrabooking websites, and at one of them I found a collection of school-related items that would work perfectly with my varsity letters. (Task? What task? I am now a woman with a mission!)

Several hours and several good ideas later, I had my notebook cover finished:



What about the bed, you ask? Well, it has been downgraded from Daybed from Hell to Daybed from Heck status. I am seeing some progress. I'm sure it will be much better once I've made a cover for my Band Boosters notebook . . .

*If the reference to mice and cookies leaves you scratching your head, go here.