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.