Clutter, Clutter everywhere and not a spot to sit....

Clutter, clutter everywhere and not a spot to sit.

Here’s another one; No one notices what you do until you stop doing it. I don’t know if these are exact quotes (actually, the first is my personal rendition upon noticing my living space, the second is questionable), I don’t know who first uttered these apropos clichés, and I don’t know why, despite really disliking becoming a cliché, I can’t find the motivation/energy/determination to stand up and reestablish order in my living room.

The sheer overwhelming apathy that has settled upon my broom and mop is oppressive. These fine instruments of cleanliness are now heavy and unbearable; impossible to even push along my laminate flooring, devoid of any hope of gliding along the blond oak colored floating floor.

See, its not that I am ‘dirty’. I hate a sink full of dishes. Yes, I know I have posted many, many pictures of sink loads of dishes, but I put those dishes, however desultorily, into the dishwasher every evening. I hate ring around the toilet, sink and bathtub and will begrudgingly whip out solvent chemicals to shine our porcelain throne. I will hand scrub a pot or pan that our dishwasher failed to clean, and then run it through again for good measure. And our trash is taken out – almost with OCD-type frequency. So, you see, not ‘dirty’ in the sense that our home is unclean, just cluttered – in the sense of untidy, unkempt, disordered and in disarray.

I know that this is directly related to and resulting from way too much stuff in way to small of space. For instance, the clutter counter-tops have cereal and snack boxes that can not squeeze into my over-stuffed pantry, recycle bottles that wont fit into our recycle bag and books that have no home on my bookshelves. The sloppy sidebar is covered in small gadgets, gizmos and house wares that I would prefer stored inside the sidebar and not on top, but have been displaced by a newer, larger purchase. The coffee table is just a catchall for mail, work, journals, magazines and anything else that is transient. The pile of stuff in the corner by my couch is an accumulation of keep-my-hands-busy-while-avoiding-housework projects, mostly knitting, crocheting, reading/writing projects, that I like to keep close at hand when watching my favorite tv shows or movies streaming on my computer.

Let me emphasize, I can keep an immaculately clean house – I just feel uninspired to do so at the moment. This past week I was tending to the most adorable and joyful of family obligations, babysitting, and as a result spent very little time over the last five days in my own home. During this time, it has become apparent to me what I do manage to accomplish daily, but to my husband, all he sees is what hasn’t been done and what has accrued all over our limited flat surfaces. So, however disheartened I am to become a cliché, especially these two, I must acquiesce to the fact that it is a cliché because it’s true. 

Toast!

So, this morning I was yanked from dreadful nightmares by my beautiful husband's silly grin, inches from my face, pleading for me to wake and brew him coffee and butter him toast.

First lets start with just how awful it is to startle me awake. Let's set aside for a moment the nightmares. I am an incredibly physically reactive individual. I don't know why, but I respond to stimuli with a variety of punches, kicks, slaps, knee jerks, jumps, ducks, elbow smashes, twirly spins and upper cuts, depending on circumstance.

For instance, once in the not too distant past, I was (begrudgingly) bent over the washing machine doing my husband's laundry. The water was running, filling in the tub and making quite a bit of noise as it cascaded into the aluminum drum already filled with his filthy work clothes. Honestly, I could hear nothing but the water. When I felt a - presence. I turned at the uneasy feeling and being taken by surprise and completely jolted by a body standing in front of me when I didn't expect it, my fists struck. I couldn't help it, I didn't plan it, I just did it. My reaction was severe, I admit. I punched my dear husband in the chest, leaving quite the black and blue where my knuckles landed on his sternum. He was just saying hello as he had just gotten home. I wasn't trying to hurt him, but he wore the bruise for about two weeks following. I guess its good to have such highly tuned self-defense reflexes. If only my groom would remember my tendency to punch first and ask questions second.

So, this morning was no exception. My darling sweet husband leaned in close to my face to wake me, I was startled and I clobbered him - and the nightmares of zombies, monsters and psycho-ax murders on the chase only helped to improve my accuracy.

After I helped my husband up off the floor, then hollered at him for scaring me, then thanked him for interrupting a nightmare, I agreed to brew his coffee and butter his toast for breakfast to help ease the guilt  of planting a solid knuckled punch right to his gut.

Guilt aside, it is rather annoying to be woken up specifically to make breakfast for a grown man who is capable of rebuilding a transmission. Seriously, he can make his own toast. But today, his grin, too close to my nose, translated into a guilt-ridden wife and a tower of buttered cinnamon toast and large travel mug of Kona coffee, all made just the way he likes it.

Let's just hope for his sake, he doesn't make a habit out of these methods.....