(Post-A-Day Challenge, Day 17)

Ahhh.  The smell of furniture polish is in the air.  That can only mean one thing:  Today was desk-cleaning day at my house.

One of my pre-NaNoWriMo prep goals was to clean off my desk, and today, I finally found the right combination of time, inclination, and location to get the job done.  (I won’t commit to cleaning the whole home office, because Beloved Husband shares it with me, and what he does on his side of the room is up to him.)  I did go so far as to tidy the shelves behind my desk, since that’s where my writing reference manuals live–alongside my fangirl shrine, software discs, a pile of stuff waiting to be scanned into my computer, and a goodly stack of blank CDs and DVDs.

It’s amazing how much clutter can accumulate on a person’s desk in a year or so.  Tax forms, DVDs and CDs, empty water cups, pocket watches, dead computer batteries…the list could go on, but you get the point.

But now the trash is all in the can, stuff that needs to go elsewhere in the house has been put where it can be taken downstairs, desk and shelves have been dusted, and all feels tidy and happy.  Now, the only things on my desk are my computer keyboard, monitor, speakers, mouse and mouse pad, printer, lamp, headphones, hand sanitizer, and my fingerless gloves.  Oh, and the case for my glasses.

I have to add that my desk is not the desk that I wanted or would have chosen for myself.  But it belonged to our house’s previous owner, and she didn’t want the challenge of moving it to Tucson with her.  It’s a big, old, wooden desk–not a roll-top, sadly, just a flat-topped desk.  It was built long before the days of personal computers, so it doesn’t really have a good spot for my CPU; that shares the knee-well with me (rather uncomfortably, sadly).  It did need a little repair, which I was able to handle, and for now, it will do.

It also has one very important factor in its favor:  It smells right.  It smells like my dad’s desk in his home office, and like one my grandfather had in his house.  It’s not just the smell of furniture polish.  It’s a scent of wood and metal and pencils and old typewriter ribbons and I’m not even sure what else.  But it smells like a desk should smell.  And that makes me happy.

My current desktop computer is a cast-off from work; the monitor was scrounged from someone who didn’t want it anymore; and up until a couple of weeks ago, my keyboard came from state surplus (but unfortunately, that one broke, and I had to replace it).  My desk chair also came from state surplus, and I’m very happy with it.

But the best thing on my desk is my lamp.  It’s beaded and delightfully Victorian-looking, even though I did buy it brand new.

So now my desk is clean and ready to go come November 1.  One more item checked off my NaNoWriMo to-do list.

Anyone else out there getting ready for Nov. 1?  What preparations are you making?