Clean the Fridge, Find Lunch

I hate to admit it, but chaos had been growing at my place. For one thing, I work. Which I love, but it reduces my time for dealing with the demands of daily life.

Fortunately, my Dinner for Eight group was scheduled for an early supper at my place last night. Social obligations like this are sure-fire starters for my cleaning instinct.

I spent two days getting through the paperwork. As a writer, I have pages everywhere, filled with my thinking. Plus the paper that arrives, for me to deal with or file, from my employers, my financial guy, my mortgagee, my attorney, my tax preparer -- good grief!

Once I got through it, my house looked so good. Plus, I made a bright yellow paper folder and scrawled "calendar" across it in red, to hold my 12 monthly calendar pages I printed up on the Web. In the pockets, I put stuff I need to attend to. Underneath, a red folder holds my recent written pages. Together, they look neat and colorful stacked on the desk in my living room.

But there was more to be done. Today I tackled the fridge, taking everything out, washing the shelves and drawers, putting it all back. Usually I find stuff to discard, but today, hardly anything. A pint of half and half from before Thanksgiving, when friends came to visit.

Those visiting friends had brought gorgonozola, and I found a tiny piece of it, all wrapped up in plastic. Another friend, I don't remember when, had brought me "fig bread," a flat loaf made of mashed up figs; its remains had slipped to the back of the fridge. I scraped the extra mold off the cube of cheese, sliced the fig bread really thin, and ate it for lunch.

A tangible reward for doing my cleaning.