We don' Need No Steenkeeng Plans!

2022-05-20

Ignore that heretical title! I started with a framework:

• Get the clean laundry folded and put away

• Get the electronics sorted out and put away

• Get the farms sorted out and put away better

• Dispose of the recycling and trash

• Anything else? Put it away.

Jennifer Crusie has posted a Questionable (a post that answers a question and invites comment for clarification. Questionable: What’s the Difference Between Plot and Structure? After reading the post, I say that the framework is my structure for spring cleaning. The plans to actually accomplish those tasks are the plot.

Jenny says she is a character driven writer, not a plot driven writer, and then illustrates the difference. When I wrote, I was character driven. I went where the characters took me. But now I'm trying to make my abode more livable and... clean(er). That's more plot driven, though there were characters. So I made plans.

I planned to use a bookcase and storage boxes to act as a dresser. I have no closets, no dresser, just a free-standing clothes rack that I had to shorten to fit where it is. I bought cube-shaped storage boxes. Amazon cancelled my order for a bookcase, so I turned to Walmart and bought a cubical storage unit. See? A revision. I bought a Better Homes & Gardens storage unit instead of a Mainstays storage unit. It's bigger, has a larger footprint, wouldn't let me add on. A revision. I mounted magazine racks on it. A revision.

Revision after revision after revision. All the best Home Organizers have some Plan where you get rid of things you don't need. Marie Kando says, "...keeping only those things that 'spark joy'. " I follow Alejandra Costello on YouTube. I subscribed to But First, Coffee , also on YouTube, because another poster on Jenny's blog (Jinx) shared the link.

Some revisions are minor. I took a load of kitchen appliances to Goodwill last evening. I had lunch bags that were in the donation piles. I also had small tools rolling around loose in the trunk. They all fit in a lunch bag. So that would be Revision P.1, not Revision Q.

Here I am decluttering, and somehow (my left hand hasn't explained it to my right) I acquired a third MiracleGro AeroGarden Harvest Hydroponic Unit. I named her Seble. She wears a hydroponic burka. Her mere existence requires a revision to the location of her brothers, Harvey and Harvey Too, and their associated Aerovoir reservoirs. That is Rev Q. It will happen, but it won't be easy. OTOH, maybe Seble can shed the burka and change her name to Teresa. (Rev R)

There will be more revisions before I declate The Plan for Spring Cleaning complete. Plan on it and endure.