Get Organized You Lazy Bum!

Writing articles for the local small town newspaper has been really fun in a creepy kind of way. I cringe whenever someone says, "Oh, you're Lara Gallagher? You're the one who writes those articles for the newspaper?" My eye brows try to jump off my face and my voice gets really tiny as I squeak out a, "Yeeeeees?" Then I wait to find out if they're going to tell me what an idiot I am for telling the world all my deep dark organizing secrets or if they're going to start crying over some inspiring (don't laugh) thing I wrote.

Actually, none of those things has ever happened but there is always a first so I am trying to be mentally prepared. Most people just describe a particular article that they liked and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

People do send me e-mails saying that such-n-such article I wrote made them cry but I tend to think they're fibbing to me. Ok. Maybe they thought about crying but did they actually cry? ("My eyes bleeding!" as my two year old would say.)

Some day I want to see some real honest to goodness, "Thanks for sharing your organizing story because if you can do it then clearly everyone in the entire universe is capable of getting organized and realizing that has changed my life," kind of tears.

Today at the park a friend told me that she was sitting in an organizing class given by her Church when the teacher pulled out one of my articles and started reading from it.

Can you believe someone actually quoted me?

No.

I simply cannot believe that.

If it is true then I hope it was something really profound like, "Your house isn't too small. You just have too much crap in it," or, "Get that junk room cleaned out you lazy bum!" Oh wait. I didn't post those in the newspaper. Those were pep talks I was giving myself yesterday.

Well, now that I've written them down, feel free to quote me as much as you like and then the next time I see you in town we can cry and hug each other while we share touching stories about how we can finally love ourselves now that our closets are organized by color.

Snort.