Organsizing

This isn't really a post on organizing, or "organsizing" as our favorite five-year-old calls it (and the fact that he even knows what it is shows you how pervasive the love for it is in our family). Our Emily is the spread sheet queen; you should see her planning for her wedding! And if you're in need of organsizing in Wichita, our daughter-in-law has a business to do just that!

It's a bit of a curse, but for the most part, I know where everything is. My books, for example, are alphabetical. I've seen where people have color-coded their library, and while it looks beautiful, who are you and how can you find anything???!!!

2 of 7 bookcases in our house 

My herbs and spices are also alphabetical. I had taken all the pictures, but they were too much even for me. You get the idea. My clothes are sorted by color. My art supplies are organized TO ME, although you might walk into my room and think Hobby Lobby exploded in there.

You know what REAL organization is? This:

*sigh*

The Dewey Decimal system is a thing of beauty, and I absolutely love card catalogs, which apparently don't exist anymore. And I'm not the only one who loves them, according to the prices on the ones I've seen on eBay. I spent so many hours at the Alexander Mitchell Library in Aberdeen, South Dakota when I was a kid, writing papers, doing reports, and just reading. And of course whispering with my friends because no one dared talk out loud in the library. Our kids don't even know what this is.

And then there's the ultimate in organization, which leads me to why I'm writing this post:

I may have this suitable-for-framing in my Amazon cart...

Yup. We have the fridge magnet

A little background: My degree is in Medical Technology, which some universities (including mine) have renamed Clinical Laboratory Science. It was four years of studying All The Chemistry And Most Of The Biology, so I am pretty familiar with the periodic table. After graduation I spent several years working in Clinical Chemistry, so - more elements and reactions.

Mad props to Dmitri Mendeleev for organsizing all the elements. There are the halogens, the noble gases, and eight other groups. They're organized across, in columns, in numerical order based on atomic number - pretty much perfect. I know I'm flying the nerd flag here, but I'm going to put my own spin on it. I've decided to combine calligraphy and chemistry, and write the names of the elements. Some of the names are so cool! Iridium! Ytterbium! Europium (which I mistakenly read as Euphorium - yes please)! Okay, I did nothing with all of these in my classes, and I'm pretty sure they weren't even discovered when I was in college, but the names are cool anyway.

I won't be going in order, but today I'm starting with Atomic Number 1: Hydrogen, chemical symbol H. It's the most abundant, lightest element, and is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, highly flammable gas. Hello, Hindenburg! It's used as rocket fuel these days, and you may remember it from such compounds as water (H2O), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), and sucrose (C12H22O11).

If you're interested in looking at elemental writing (see how I did that?!), I'll be posting on my Instagram account, @cathyboll. It's a public account so you don't need any secret code to look, but feel free to double-tap for a like. #validateme

This is a one-time post to my personal facebook account (I know, promises, promises), but you can find my (infrequent) blog posts by searching cathyshowsup.blogspot.com on your browser.

Nerdfully yours,