Out With the Old, In With the...Same?

After an unknown number of decades of delayed maintenance (read, more than 15 years of the assumulation  of dirt and dust and who knows what else), my boss decided to paint all the offices, and re-carpet and re-tile at the end of 2010. My office, which had been tiled, opted for carpet after my excellent arm-twisting. "Really, don't you think the cleaning guy will be able to keep it cleaner by vacuuming than by swishing around the dirty water we've all seen him use on the tile?" My not so secret agenda was to hide the cracked linoleum tile that was in my cubicle and no one else's (from the building settling as its two cement pads moved--like plate tectonics). I hated that dang cracked floor. It didn't bother anyone else, but then again, they didn't have to step on it every day at least five times. You can just see some of the broken tile in the fourth photo.

I decided that I'd re-arrange as best I could and get rid of some of the kitschy stuff and have a big girl office. My only regret? That pink plastic bag you can see hanging from the board in the first photo was from Cambodia, and it had a happy, jumping child on it and said ""If you be happy, you be...If you be sad, you be..."disintegrated after I took it off the corkboard. If I be sad...  Actually, I am sad as the only thing I can't relocate is a photo from the corkboard of my sisters and me. Where could it be?

Messy = Creativity!!

At one point, I had streamers made from those different colored flagging tapes hanging from my ceiling. Festive!

No visible pink hard hat. Sorry. But gingerbread cookies on table--yum yum.

I only used about 35 boxes to pack all my stuff. My coworker S, on the other side of this cubby wall, stopped counting after 65.

Look, desk now on opposite wall, bookshelves slid down and moved, and carpet!  Yes, ugly, industrial grade carpet, but quiet, non-dirt showing, uncracked carpet! And clean walls!

S' cubby, she of the 65+ boxes. I'll break this photo out in a few months to remind her of the downside of acquriring stuff, even wonderful stuff like books.

See clean desk. See clean table now next to desk.

See fancy new magnetic wall board to hang vital scientific data on to inspire Great Thoughts. Actually, that's a leftover remnant from the Great Scientists Who Have Great Thoughts in the lab next door, but it could help, you never know.