Cleaning the lesson room

EVERY YEAR AT this time, I take a couple of weeks off from lessons. It's nice to take a break. It's been another great year and I have the best students, and 2018 promises to be another good one.

Yesterday I cleaned my lesson room. We have two rooms in the back of our first floor, one for me and one used mostly by Jim Bier. Jim keeps his room clean and free of clutter. Me? Pishaw.

In the midst of the clutter, I found 12 guitar picks, three lesson plans, seven song lyric sheets, two guitar cords, two other cords with strange ends that plug into something, one moldy dog treat, my broken bug wireless guitar rig, and a bag of microwave popcorn.

Should this tell us something? Am I a hoarder, or just unorganized, or does stuff just sort of pile up over the year?

I hate cleaning. But it's a good thing for the soul and mental outlook. I vacuumed the daylights out of the room and dusted. I tossed a bunch of stuff, put the bookcases and tables in different places, rearranged the chairs. I still have to go through a bunch of music books and old lesson plans, but I have a couple of weeks and I'm sure I'll wait until the last second. Heaven forbid I get ahead of the game.

The end of the year is a good time to take a deep breath, take stock and get ready for more.

Hey! Microwave popcorn! Bet it's still good and makes for a good snack this afternoon ....