Organized Time

If you'll allow me, I'll begin with the platitude that there simply aren't enough hours in the day. Is this true for you? Is this untrue for anyone? I constantly marvel at how many things one can do in a single day; this thought is generally followed by astonishment at how many things have not been crossed off the to-do list. And somehow my lists become so long that they're almost comical. Once a list requires more than a single sheet of paper, I think it has crossed the line into short story territory. For instance, here is my story for the day:

3 loads laundry

Vacuum 5 rugs

Pick up basement

Sweep patio

Tear out vegetable garden

Make cookies

Help friend locate baby sitter for weekend

Look up recipe for cider

Import receipts and bills to budget

Finish making cape for Halloween costume

Make three pillows for family room

Make 5 beds

Clean sticky goo off poster tube

Send out minutes from last meeting

Post to blog

At 10:30 am, I am completing task 3. Hmmm. (And for the record, when did I get so stinkin' busy that I have to put "bed making" on the list?!?!)

I'm sure I'm transparent enough that you've figured out I am going to try to buy myself more time by cataloging an hour. In my busy, fevered state of mind, I think this just might work...

An Hour /

by Father Time.

Description: 60 mins. : 3,600 seconds.

Summary: A unit of time in which one may complete a multitude of small tasks or read several chapters of a really good book.

Copy/Holding Information

Location: While one cannot pinpoint the exact location of an hour, one may track its course in our home via the dining room cuckoo clock, the family room grandfather clock, my wristwatch and the kitchen battery-powered wall clock.

Collection: 24 hours of a day

Status: In high demand, but short supply

Call No.: 1-24.

Copies: 24, but we're adding another 6 or so. (Do you think that is enough?)

Topics

Relativity-When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. Albert Einstein

Oration-Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour. Thomas Jefferson

Philosophy-The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. C.S. Lewis

Poetry-Time and the hour run through the roughest day. William Shakespeare

Common Sense-Since thou are not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. Benjamin Franklin

Arranging plumage

My business partner, an avid follower of all things elegant, informed me that Sotheby's is auctioning off the world's most expensive book later this year. So, I ran a little search and discovered that not only is an extremely rare copy of John James Audubon's "Birds of America" up for bid, but so is another little volume of Shakespeare's plays... first edition. An exciting day (December 7th, incidentally) for book collectors-well, for the extremely rich book collectors, anyway. (Had my last scheme worked out, I may have been able to classify myself with those collectors. Alas, I must resign myself to the avid spectators category.)

Of course, it is very unlikely that I will ever come within spitting distance of so rare a book (the reference to "spitting" alone is likely to get me banned from all rare book exhibitions), but I can claim a little piece of that greatness by creating my own record for said folio.

Title: The birds of America /

Author(s): Audubon, John James, 1785-1851.

Publication: London, Pub. by the author, 1827-38

Description: Audubon described this book as a "double elephant folio." (I.e. It's huge.)

Copy/Holding Information

Call Number: QL674 .A9 1827

Copies: If you have more than one, you are entirely too wealthy.

Cost: If you lose this, you might as well throw in the shirt off your back. (The last copy was sold by Christie's for 8.8 million.)

Related works:

There aren't any.

Related links:

Sotheby's

Yahoo News

John Audubon's rendition of the State Bird of Nebraska

A slideshow of the book on the block

Registering money

Did you know that money doesn't grow on trees?!?! No really; It doesn't. It's fabricated, not grown!

I can only imagine the circumstances under which this knowledge was imparted to me: Four-year-old Autumn has decided to carelessly chuck quarters into the fountain. The afore-mentioned is quoted by a well-meaning parent and elicits the response, "Yes, but I though water might cause expansion." Hmm.

So maybe that isn't exactly how I learned that money must be earned, but it makes for a much better story than the age-old I-went-to-college-then-graduated-and-had-to-pay-back-student-loans narrative. So however it happened, I have developed a new strategy since then and am ready for implementation. Are you ready?

I will create a record for money and then add multiple copies. It's as simple as that. (Don't you wish you were a librarian now?)

One Dollar Bill /

by The National Treasury.

Washington D.C.: Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1862.

Description: 2.61 x 6.14 in. : green.

Summary: Featuring a portrait of George Washington, this denomination is the most common of all United States currencies. While the most humble, the dollar bill is the most popular of the bills. Consequently, it has the shortest life span at 18-22 months.

Copies: Millions and millions

Copy/Holding Information

Location: bank : wallet

Collection: financial

Status: circulating

Call No.: $1

Alternate titles

Bill

Almighty Dollar

Greenback

Cash

Single

One

Bone

Subjects

Collection

Distribution

Counterfeiting

Investment

Resources

http://www.moneyfactory.gov/home.html

http://www.ustreas.gov/

http://onedollarbill.org/index.html

*If this doesn't work out, I suppose I'll have to console myself with some words of wisdom via Warren Buffet: If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians. Wow. I feel like a millionaire already.

Taking inventory

My closet is obnoxious. Not in and of itself, you understand; it is actually quite inoffensive and spacious. It is my favorite room in the house, actually; I take my coffee in it.

However, through no fault of the closet's, it is the most ridiculously organized space in my house. (You will have to humor me with this one because I love talking (and typing, I suppose) about organization, clothes and my closet. Combine all three and this might get terribly wordy.)

To start, pants, skirts, dresses, blouses, shoes, hats and handbags each has a designated space. I'm sure you'll agree that this is essential and requires no defense.

Beyond that, each space is organized by color. My clothes (and shoes and hats and bags) follow the precepts of the color wheel. First white, followed by grey, black and brown. Then red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. (Again I argue that this level of organization is necessary if one is hopeless when it comes to putting together fashionable, well-structured outfits.)

Beyond that is the length of the sleeve, leg, heel or hem. (I really haven't quite touched "obnoxious" yet as weather demands certain allowances when it comes to clothing. If grey ankle-length trousers are on the left side of the grey section, I don't have to spend any time searching for cooler pants on a steamy day.)

Then, as pertains to the blouses and dresses, the neckline or collar followed by the number of buttons on the placket. On the odd chance that I have two items that may vie for the same spot(such as two yellow, short-sleeve, scoop-neck t-shirts), the printed will follow the solid.

In this manner, literally every single thing in my closet has a unique place. As I am so passionate about my closet and about organization, I thought I might cross the line into obnoxious territory by cataloging my closet:

The obnoxious closet /

by Autumn.

Omaha, Neb: California Closets, 2006.

Description: 81 x 57 in. : carpeted.

Summary: Irritating, through no fault of its own. Light blue with cream trim.

Contents: Shoe shelves -- Handbag ledge -- Sweater dividers -- Three hanging rods --Vanity with mirror.

Copy/Holding Information

Location: bed room

Collection: American classic

Status: circulating

Call No.: 1940s

Alternate titles

Boudoir

Dressing room

Haven

Wardrobe

Subjects

Obsessions

Trends

Vintage

Retro

Class list

It all started with a pencil. (Don't you think that a positively loaded first line? Where on earth am I going with this?)

Actually, it all started with the search for a pencil. Now, everyone has a pencil somewhere in his/her home. It is also true that he or she can never find that pencil when (s)he needs it. (In an era of hypertext, the act of handwriting is falling by the wayside. In light of this, why on earth was I trying to write anything, anyway? But I digress.) So I couldn't find a pencil. And it occurred to me that I could catalog my pencil and then I'd always be able to find it... or its metadata, anyway. So, if I create a record for my pencil and update it regularly (when it has been checked out and to whom, location, that sort of thing), then, in theory, I'll never again lose said pencil. Yes. I think this may work.

So, here goes:

No. 2 : HB /

by Musgrave, James.

Shelbyville, Tenn: Musgrave Pencil Company, 1916.

Description: 19 cm. : eraser : sharpened.

Summary: Yellow, useful, perpetually missing. A graphite core surrounded by cedar.

Copy/Holding Information

Location: desk drawer

Collection: office supplies

Status: lost

Call No.: 2

Similar titles

Charcoal Pencil

Colored Pencil

Mechanical Pencil

Golf Pencil

Quadrachromatic Pencil

Sort of

There doesn't seem to be any interesting way to phrase this, so I'll just out with it: this is a blog about organization. Now before you write this off as some sort of strange librarian thing, this obsession with cataloguing everything under the sun, consider what you have sorted today. You may have sorted things as mundane as laundry or bills. On the other hand, you may have sorted people or (dare I hope?) books. Like many, most of my day is spent sorting the former. However, as I am a strange librarian, I get a kick out of the latter; I enjoy classifying things that one may not typically classify. So, I issue a challenge. No, that sounds a bit too confrontational. I issue a request: that you send your items for classification. Let me know what interests you and I'll organize it. Or, if you tend to wax confrontational, try to stump me.

I cannot promise that I'll be completely serious, but rest assured that I'll take each suggestion seriously. I will create a record for each item and will expound (likely to great extent) on the various tags that I've applied.

I won't pretend that organization is a war, but to quote Marcus Aurelius, "The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious." But who am I to categorize your definition of organization? Oh. I am a librarian who loves this stuff.