Organized or OCD?

I'll admit it - I like organization.  I think things are just easier if they are symmetrical, organized, color coordinated, right with the world.  I never knew this was an obsession with me until a few years ago at work. I was part of a group working on getting ready for a review of our practices by a national organization. If we "passed" their scrutiny it would mean big dollars for the company. We would have team meetings that lasted for hours. One of the doctors started bringing big bags of peanut M&M's for us to eat while we worked. One day everyone started commenting at how I ate my M&M's.  I would separate them by color and only eat them in groups. If I just had one of a certain color I would eat it with a complementary color - green with blue, yellow with orange, orange with red. Brown had to be eaten alone (do they even make brown any more? but I digress).  I didn't even realize I did that until the others pointed it out. Since then I have noticed other things that I do that just have to be that way or it kind of messes with my head.  My shirts and blouses are separated in my closet by color.  I can't even think about stitching a needlework project that isn't symmetrical, probably why I won't do a historic sampler - those women were all over the place with their stitches - YIKES! Freaks me out!

For years my stitching supplies have been a mess - yes, it bothered me but I no matter how hard I tried, the floss ended up being a mess.  A few weeks ago I was in northern AZ and I went to an antique shop just browsing while I was waiting for my husband. I found this cool 6 drawer chest that was the perfect thing for all my stitching stuff. I snapped it up!  Now I have sorted my piles of floss into these drawers and things seem so much more peaceful in my stitching world.

Before - notice the cabinet in the background...

After...

more after...

Getting that done made me feel so much better. Maybe I'll be better about getting projects done now.  I have lots to do so maybe this is a very good thing.

I have carried some of this into my job as well. At the law firm I had every case color coordinated. For example - baby cases were in pink, a death case was in black, sometimes the binder color was based on the name - green binders for Mr. Green, etc. It kept things organized in my mind, and it was easy to tell the attorney where to look for something if I wasn't there.

My binders at work- color coordinated labels of course!

Now to my other passions.
Flowers:  
 I planted some sunflower seeds late in July and today a sunflower opened - yeah! I didn't have any last year and I missed their smiling faces.

I also planted some pumpkin seeds that are coming up now. I am bound and determined to give my grandbabies home grown pumpkins for Halloween one of these years. Maybe before I die I'll figure out the perfect time to plant them in AZ. I haven't had much luck the last 3 tries.

 Last but not least Flour:  I am going to Sedona to visit my son this weekend so I had to be the good Mom and bake him some cookies. These are chocolate brownie cookies with chocolate chips and dark chocolate M&M's. He loves dark chocolate so I think these will be a hit with him.  We are going to celebrate his promotion to Managing Editor of the Red Rock News - so proud of his accomplishments!  Now I'm off to get things "organized" for my road trip. 

I will admit that I do have my messes, but they are "organized messes" at least in my mind.  So, no I'm not OCD, I'm just quirky.