Every winter we get a “teaser” week, when the skies clear and temperatures soar into the low 60s. It’s a break from four months of rain that gives us the will to live until spring arrives. Teaser week often causes premature spring fever. Our teaser just ended, which means I’ve been cleaning like crazy.

Last year, a minor pregnancy complication required me to rest with ice packs on both hands for 20 minutes, three times a day. I’m not in to daytime TV but I was very much in to “nesting” so I set our DVR to record every episode of Mission Organization on HGTV. If you fast-forward through the commercials, it’s exactly 20 minutes. Perfect.

For four months I learned tips and tricks for getting and staying organized. The show taught me to think about using things in different ways than they were originally intended, or “repurposing.” Sort (the categories are keep, toss, and donate/sell), clean, then put away. Over and over again.

Sometimes they spent $20,000 on custom built-in cabinets, but most of the time the organization systems implemented were within the price range of non-CEOs. They organized and put things away in such an attractive, efficient manner it was almost art. Most of the people seemed likely to stay organized once the professionals left them to their own devices. I was hugely inspired to make long-lasting changes in my own cluttered, unorganized spaces.

Alas, I had zero energy and moved like a slug so I got very little of it done before Daniel arrived. He was five months old before we finally made enough space in the former guest/storage room for his crib and dresser. I was going to say finished his room, but we’re not. Among the issues, we’re still stymied on where to store large suitcases and several blankets/comforters that aren’t in use now but will be when he gets older, or when we have company. But if we take down the bunk beds, where will guests sleep?

Seven months postpartum I finally have an iota of energy back. (The baby naps now, and I’ve been taking iron supplements.) During our teaser week I’ve cleaned drawers and cupboards, finding stuff we haven’t touched in literally ten years and forgot we had. I clean and toss with a vengeance, getting over (to some extent) my need to hold on to things, brutal in whittling down the number of items to put in their new, tidy home. That is the underlying cause for much of my cluttter, I think – not having a proper place to put everything.

But… every time I get to the putting back stage, the part Mission O made look so easy, I want to pull my hair out. Because even though I have all these neat ideas (pun intended) and new tools, there is room to neatly put away only about 90% of the stuff that’s left.

That last 10% drives me bonkers.

By the time I get it crammed into the space it has to go into it’s no longer neat and tidy. And what did the designer seriously think we’d be able to do with the top part of the pantry, a cupboard that goes three feet back but is five feet off the ground? I don’t have the arms of an orangutan. There’s room for Marty the Midget to hide up there, as well as the sack of cake flour that expired (mumble, mumble) ago. And I still have to find someplace for a new category of stored items – baby food.

Btw, I’m still waiting for Mission O to tackle a real challenge — organizing a writer’s office. Those so-called home offices where people just need a place to pay bills and surf the ‘net? Don’t count. Let’s see them store a blizzard of important papers and a small library of books in a typical suburban 10×10 bedroom/office in a way that can stay neat for creative types who need to see all their stuff. Please?