Closets and Carousels

Have you ever set out to clean your closet, then ended up with all the clothes (and other odd items that always seem to end up in closets like broken fans, Nordstrom bags, and books on HTML) strewn all over your floor in your attempt to make things better? At this point I'm really hoping you have, or not only will this whole analogy fail but I'll have to reexamine my life if I'm the only one to have ever done this.

Assuming I'm not.. I'll continue and share that this is pretty much what's happened to my book this summer. I thought the middle needed tweaking. Then I thought I'd just take it out and rework a few things. Then I rewrote certain chapters again and again, with all sorts of different directions until I had a big tangled mess all over my bedroom floor, er, computer screen. (though my floor could actually use some work, too.)

Fortunately, I went to the zoo this week, with the kids, and they rode the historic carousel and I started to see a way through the mire. Did you know some carousels, wooden carousels no less, were steam powered? I won't detail too much here, but suffice it to say the carousel is my equivalent of going to Storeables and loading up on plastic bins.

The photo above is from a new favorite place on the web called Curious Expeditions and details this still operating steam powered carousel in the Netherlands with horses that face perpendicular to the circle, and are mounted on springs, so you're constantly rocking out toward the edge as the ride goes in circle - and puffs steam. Yes, the Netherlands has just sky-rocketed on my list of places I must visit!