Nesting?

Lately, I've been preoccupied with the state of the house we rent--namely, the packed-to-the-gills state of the house we rent.  Moving isn't an option. We like this house quite a bit (in spite of its little quirks).  The rent is very reasonable, and the location is great for our lifestyle and work.

So you know what that means: either we need to get rid of some stuff, or we need to better organize the stuff we have.  In fact, we likely need to do both.  Part of me thinks, "Hey, we got rid of so much stuff when we moved from Tallahassee to here--haven't we already purged the things we didn't want?" Well...maybe. The truth is that I might be inclined to get rid of some things if it means that I don't have to think of a better place to put them.

I wonder if my fretting over the house is part of my normal worrywart nature or if it is actually a symptom of this "nesting" phenomenon I've heard about.  Apparently, a lot of pregnant women go a little crazy on the cleaning and preparation of their home before the baby arrives, and this instinct is called the "nesting instinct".  It still seems a little early for it to be something like that, but maybe I'm just fooling myself.  So far I've been really lucky with regard to the emotional side-effects of pregnancy--save for a few strange crying jags early on, I've been remarkably even-tempered.  Perhaps more even-tempered than before, really. 

This project to organize the house will be a big one, and it will likely take me a while, but I think it will be worth it. It's hard enough to keep the house in some semblance of order without adding a squalling infant to the mix, so something has to change.  I want to be smart about it, and if I do make any purchases to help in the process, I want them to be worth every penny. After all--we need a new vehicle (new to us, most likely we'll get a used car), and it's never too early to start saving for college and family vacations.