Saturday, November 25, 2006

the tucker method of organization

I am partially organized. I am always partially organized -- some parts of my life go exactly where they should – my socks, my underwear, my spices, the recycling and trash, books for the most part, the dishwasher is always precisely loaded and when emptied stuff always goes exactly where it belongs. BUT, there are things that balloon out of control--like a life raft they explode and no matter how hard I try they just don’t fit!! It is never the same once you turn them loose!!

My crafts are explosive I fit all the bits and pieces into boxes with labels except one or two things that don’t fit anywhere and the next thrift store or craft store spree brings in ten more misfits and suddenly I have a mess and I don’t know where to put it so I think “I will tuck’er there until I come up with a plan.” And suddenly the room is restful again because there is nothing for me to obsess about and so I don’t!! If I let my mind stop obsessing, it promptly forgets tuckered out from obsessing it takes the out-of-sight-out-of-of-mind approach to messes.

The tucker method works beautifully...until I am ready to start a new project. This morning, I decided it was time to make sunbonnets for the girls. I am making them both full prairie girl costumes for Christmas. I’ve been planning them for awhile but I stayed my hand until the Christmas cards were ready to mail and all the gifts sent. I am done – there is one small gift to ship and the cards need to be dropped off at the post office. My birthday will be sweet – I can relax and enjoy Christmas after my birthday with only a bit of sewing and a tad of quilling before Christmas. So I spread out the fabric and discovered that tucker had lost the patterns. I emptied and organized two tucker baskets still no patterns. I looked in all of my favorite tucker stashes. I found two other dress patterns that I probably won’t get to until after the beginning of the year. Finally, I pulled out an embroidery drawer and found them as well as K’s last record of height and weight and head-circumference from her last well-visit to the doctor. The nice thing about the tucker method as it always yields surprises. Now where did I tuck those gift tags I bought two years ago?

5 comments:

  1. Oh, I am so glad to find out that my method of organization has a name!

    I finally found my fall decorations. I was right. They were under all of the Christmas boxes. Turned on the side, spilled out all over the lovely pink fiberglass insulation.

    My art room is disgusting. Sadly, I feel most at home in there.

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  2. LOL I always seem to have "trash" that I think will be useful for crafting and it's very hard to organize.

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  3. Finally, I have a name for my style of "organisation".

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  4. Anonymous3:11 PM

    lol! I have applied this very theory to my tidying tonight. Everything in the living room just got thrown into a huge toy basket! out of sight out of mind :)

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  5. I love the idea of the tucker organization method. I have been doing it for years and years and never knew! I have a whole room for crafts. I do all kinds of crafts and like you I make sure to hit the bag days at our thrift store. $5.00 a garbage bag and all that you can stuff into it. I have about 1000 or more feet of purple zipper teeth. No pulls or ends, just continuous zipper. I have been looking for a craft to do with it. I used the tucker method to organize it. In an egg box it went freely and I left the one end hanging out the hole. But the box does not fit anywhere. How can we crafters win? Half of the time I can not get into my craft room for all the tucker organizing. Got any ideas on what I can do with the room?

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