The organization woman

This move will be my third in nine years, and although I always hire movers, I do all my packing myself; it's one of the few parts of the process that I enjoy even slightly. It's time-consuming and I hate having half-full boxes all over the place for days, but I enjoy the knowledge that everything I own has to pass through my hands at least once and be reevaluated, however briefly. I find the process of weeding through my possessions to be extremely satisfying--even therapeutic--although that's not to say that I'm great at the business (that's why I still have a green flannel shirt that I haven't worn since college and a weird 1980s cocktail dress that I bought at a thrift store eight years ago, wore out once to a bar, and persist in believing that I'll wear again).

I don't move for weeks, so I'm not packing yet, but I've taken my impending move as a reason to go on a shopping and organizational binge. Over the past week, I have bought:

• New bed linens for the queen-sized bed that the vacating tenants of my new apartment are generously gifting to me
• Gorgeous new tea-towels that I found at the flea market
• A real vacuum cleaner (until now I've made do with a Swiffer and a DustBuster)
• Photo storage boxes in which to file all my old photos and negatives
• Frames for some small pictures and prints I'd never gotten around to framing
• Two huge Case Logic cases for my CDs, since I'm damned if I'm moving all those jewel cases and that media rack again (I know: Case Logic is SO 1996, but I don't have an iPod).

On tap for next week:

• Weed out my wardrobe
• Have frames made for my M.A. and Ph.D. diplomas, to match the one for my B.A.
• Purchase some photo albums, since I haven't done anything with the photos I've taken over the last three or four years
• Clean and Scotch-Guard my upholstered furniture
• Launder the new linens I've purchased
• Buy a third section for my over-door shoe rack, since I'm long since out of room.

I've also scouted out a variety of organizational fixes for my new place--the apartment's one major negative is that it has relatively little hanging closet space--so that after I move I can perform the appropriate emergency measures.

And I have to ask: is there anyone out there who doesn't love the Container Store and the way that it allows one to feel, ever so briefly, in control of all aspects of one's life?

(If so, I haven't met this person, and we probably wouldn't be friends anyway.)