The List, With Chocolate on the Side...May the Force Be With You...

      ...As with each new year I sat down and created "the list".  Resolutions to change bad habits and to create new good habits dominate my list.  I sit and stare at the list, hoping to somehow scrunch up new energy and resolve to make the projects ahead of me become a reality.  The curse of flat surfaces is everywhere with strong ju-ju mocking me.  "I will not put up with this any longer!" I announced to the four winds.  Pitching and sorting, I began a brutal triage of old papers, bits and pieces of buttons, pens, tacks, trinkets, etc.  Feeling much like Indiana Jones searching for the Ark of the Covenant, I persevered digging through the piles of accumulated paraphernalia stacked on my kitchen table. "There's a table under here, I know it.  After all, something with a flat surface has to be holding up all this stuff!"  An hour later, I began to hyperventilate from the stress of all the decisions of sorting and pitching the stacked contents of the table.   A short break was in order.  After a timely cup of tea and a bit of chocolate I resumed the battle.  The day is sunny.  Sunlight helps with the battle against clutter, that and chocolate...  "I AM winning," I told myself.  I had taken my ginkgo and multivitamins, my holy basil, I was physically and psychologically bolstered up for the battle. When I returned to the kitchen for another assault on the table I found that one of my cats had chosen to curl up in the middle of the stack of papers for his afternoon nap.  "The force is strong with this one," I thought.  I retreated briefly for another bit of chocolate.  Feline sensibilities know better than to fight the force of chocolate.  He gracefully stood up, stretched to scatter a few bits and pieces from the table to the floor and jumped down with an attitude of "Who cares?  There's always another stacked flat surface somewhere around here..."  At this point I view the kitchen table as my Guadal Canal, my Pork Chop Hill, my Battle of the Bulge...wait a minute, that might be due to all that chocolate...never mind, I will be victorious in this skirmish.  "Take no prisoners," I declared.  "If it hits the floor, it's out of here!"  One helpful technique on conquering the clutter is the sideways shuffle. Part of the reason it takes me so long to clear the stuff off my table is the items that fall into "the grey zone" of triage.  Outdated paraphernalia I can easily toss with wild abandon. (So why didn't I do it sooner..?)  The keeper stuff goes into a bin for future classification and storage.  Easy enough.  But then, there are the things and papers that I can't decide what I should do with them.  Grey zone material...The sideways shuffle comes in hand with shifting the yet-to-be-determined items to another flat surface.   It may not be pretty, but it helps when trying to create a single uncluttered flat surface.  After all, one must pick one's battles.  I am determined to once again dine at my kitchen table. ... And then, I must go out for more chocolate for the next battle...