I realized this morning that I’ve been on a redesign binge. I think it started with the pantry, but I suspect I should be blaming it on the insurance company.

So ten days ago, I decided the pantry needed to be cleaned out and re-organized. I threw away a bunch of expired food, gave away a bunch more that I will never eat (products containing gluten), shifted the shelves around so that the stuff we need is in the middle, moved a bunch of appliance-type items into the garage, and wound up after a couple of hours work with a very user-friendly and half-empty pantry. It’s nice.

A few days after that, I decided to attack the spice cupboard. I took everything out, sorted through what we have and don’t have, put a couple of items on a grocery list, and arranged the rest according to categories. All the pepper-based products (red pepper flakes, chili powder, paprika, tabasco, sriracha, Marie Sharp’s, etc., etc.,) are in one group, all the green herbs in another, all the seasoned salts and spice mixes in a third. Frankly, it mostly made me want some really good spice racks or lazy Susans, but for a brief moment in time, it was organized.

Then I did my bathroom. The tea cupboard. The baking cupboard. Finally, I realized that I’m currently waiting on news from my insurance company about whether they agree with the damage control people that I should have all new cupboards and perhaps it’s not really the best time to be re-organizing all of them? Just guessing.

So my attention went bookward. This weekend, I went a little crazy. I went for a new cover on A Lonely Magic. I think I can’t talk about that too much right now, because my anxiety level will skyrocket, but it was an impulse purchase that goes with an expensive secondary impulse purchase and… yeah, anxiety rising. But re-design. And then on Monday, for whatever insane reason, I decided I needed to re-format all my books. I spent the whole day working on it, trying to make them as beautiful as some of the books Amazon is turning out. I didn’t entirely succeed, but I made some improvements and will be re-posting files eventually.

This morning I decided it was time for a website re-design. I opened the dashboard and started to consider my options–and finally, finally, I reigned myself in and said, “What’s going on here? Does everything need to be different?”

As soon as I started to think about it, I realized that all this change is really just a reaction to being in a holding pattern with house changes. I am going to need new floors. But I liked my old floors. I am going to need new cabinets. But I liked my old cabinets!

But my subconscious is busily working away, trying to get my conscious to reconcile itself to change sometimes being positive. Change can be good. My new floors might be as nice as the old ones. My new cabinets might be a lot nicer.

And my new web design–well, I’m going to try to come up with a fancy front page, maybe one of those slider carousels, showing off the books?–and move the blog to a less prominent area. Not hidden, but tucked away so that people who come here merely wanting to know if I have another book on the way don’t need to read about my dogs & other miscellany. Because change is okay. And unlike house disasters, I can always revert it if I don’t like it.

I should probably call the insurance company, too, and find out what’s going on with my claim. It’s time to bite the bullet and figure out how to get my new floors.