So you had to bring up the taxes did'nt you, you little monster. Yes, when (as we Danes so poetically put it)the toilet is on fire, I used to focus on taxes. I will have to get another thing to rant about now that my secret is no longer a secret. Any suggestions?
I can't imagine anyone not having an alphabetized CD/DVD collection!
I do have a question though, how come you need to do it more than once? Do you not put them back where they belong??
Grrr, I typed a really nice comment and closed the window instead of hitting Publish, and with haloscan you can't just back arrow!
I tend to withdraw and read a lot. Not very exciting.
I long ago did not keep my music alphabetized; I had it organized by "flavor". But my roommates in college couldn't find anything because, for example, to me Deep Purple and Stravinsky have a very similar "flavor", and to them that didn't necessarily make sense. So I caved in and alphabetized, which led to its own amusements, since now instead of being next to Deep Purple, Stravinsky is in a row with The Stray Cats, Barbra Streisand, and Suicidal Tendencies.
PhilB
I like to spin whenever, but particularly when stressed. The sound of the wheel/treadle and watching the fiber turn into yarn is very soothing. I've even been known to call it my "productive valium".
Needlework. When I get pushed too far I just pull out some thread and fabric and start going. I can go for hours and hours and hours. It's very soothing and hey! I get something pretty out of it. Or, sometimes I get insane and just start cleaning. Very werid.
And I cannot imagine having alphabetized cds 
Sorry. I just toss 'em all on the shelf
My CD's and DVD's are as far from organized as possible. They're not even all in one place. Instead there's a pile here, and a pile there, and another one... somewhere around here. Alphabetized? Ha! I sometimes forget what DVD's I own and accidently buy a second copy.
Oddly, when I was younger (in my teens), my cassette tape collection was organized. Some were by band, with each tape in chronilogical order, others were organized by genre.
To be honest, my usual method of dealing with stress is to either sleep, or veg in front of the tv. Needless to say, I frequently feel stressed.
But it's funny that you mentioned organizing your music and movies. One way that I occassionally escape is to delve into my hard drive's musical collection and try to organize it. Many years of, er, downloading from, umm, unknown sources, has given me quite the collection of songs that aren't labelled as clearly as they could be. So I sometimes lose myself in my hard drive renaming files. Yeah, it's exciting.
I fold things- socks, quilting fabric, t shirts- or count things- windows, sidewalk squares, books on a shelf. Folding is more fun, counting more discrete. For really bad times, I wind yarn from hanks into nice little ball winder cakes.
My movies are not organized, other than being on the same shelf, but that's manageable since I only own about 30 of them. I must keep my music organized, though, since I now have well over 1000 CDs and am somewhere around 3000 LPs. That would be an awful lot to hunt through if they were randomly arranged.
PhilB
"Serenity, NOW!!!" How do I cope with stress? Usually badly! I suppose I handle the big stuff (major moves, divorce) better than being overwhelmed by "37" little things. Being pulled in different directions drives me nuts so (after ranting) I usually write a list on a post-it. Prioritise. Then do the LEAST important things. Re-write the post-it. Repeat. The most important things don't get done. "No problem is so big that it can't be ignored."
I knit. Or start typing. I've been trying for two days to figure out how to answer your question, even got a blog post out of it last night, but those two things basically sum it up.
garden, garden and garden some more...winter kills me though. I usually go into hyper mode and organize stuff. or watch mindless chick flicks..
I bake. Bread, cookies, cakes, pizza, sweet rolls, whatever. All from scratch and all delicious. Who can stay stressed when it tastes so good? Mind you I have been known to eat a whole pan of sweet rolls before I am sufficently de-stressed (and it didn't work at all when Mom and Dad were both dying in the same month, who had time to cook?).
Ha! I had a roommate in college who did that. Whenever finals rolled around, he was busy in the kitchen churning out fine concoctions of simple carbohydrates. Bagels, sweet rolls, even croissants once (once. took him 8 hours to make them, then he and and our other roomie sat down and ate all 57 of them in an hour and a half.)
As a college student with a blazing metabolism (5'6" 105lbs no matter what I did), this was great. Nowadays, it wouldn't be so fab.
PhilB
Took me awhile on this one - hit a little too close to home. Finally, today, I blogged about it. Thank you for asking, Lene.
When Taz was in the hospital I knit things for the other kids in the unit, and I did my own meditation ritual every day. Alas, my control issues do not express themselves in the form of cleaning.
I don't always see it coming but how do I tell when the stress is "here"?... I count obsessively. Sometimes I get to almost 100 before I realize I am doing it.
Sigh - slurps margarita
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