How Tidy Are You?

Are you a really tidy person or is your house or desk quite “busy”?  I have never been minimalistic and have always been a bit of a collector but recently I seem to have collected rather more than usual as I said yesterday and my normal “everything has its place” house has rather become a “put it where there is space” house. 

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I may have let things lapse recently – I have no idea why unless it is a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them”.  I used to be so tidy, keep everything in its cupboard etc. so had very little laying around.  I used to keep the kitchen debris-free and never left dishes or cups in the sink or on the worktops – as they were finished with they went straight into the dishwasher – well now if I bring a mug downstairs it goes into the sink rather than the dishwasher as it will get put in there later anyway.  Mind you that particular quirk might be to do with the fact that the handle on the front of the matching panel on the built-in dishwasher snapped and we had a real job to get any more (you know how these things happen – no-one ever stocks spares!!) and so now we open it very carefully with the new handle so I guess we now don’t open it for single items but wait until there are more to go in just to save on pulling the handle too often. 

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I suppose I have a very slight OCD tendency as well (or did have more than now) because everything has to be positioned “just so” – ornaments etc. have to be in a particular position on an exact spot and I “just have to” straighten pictures etc. (in fact it is all I can do not to straighten pictures when I am round other peoples houses too!).  Our doorbell is only held on by a screw at the top with nothing to hold it in place at the bottom and every time I go out I end up straightening it as no-one seems to be able to just push the button without moving it sideways for some reason.  I am sure they all know to move it just to wind me up J  Every time we go out Ray sneakily moves it a bit when I am not looking to see if I notice and move it back – he always takes the p… out of me about it.  I suppose nowadays though it is the little things like that which bother me more than the bigger things as I have just become acclimatised to his mess and can’t be bothered to worry about it any more.  Every now and again his papers in the kitchen seem to take over the breakfast bar or his “stuff to go out to the garage” takes over the utility room and I think enough is enough and ask him to sort them out.  But as long as my bears seem to keep breeding upstairs I suppose I feel I haven’t got a leg to stand on, so as long as it looks neat and tidy where visitors are likely to be then that is ok by me these days.

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The only trouble is when you start tidying a room, like I have been this week, you find all sorts of things that you had forgotten to do or to finish, especially in the office.  You unearth piles of filing, papers waiting to be shredded, papers you put “handy” as they needed to be dealt with etc. and then as you move them, rather than sort them, you just end up with piles of stuff everywhere with nowhere to put them now that you have cleared the desk and realise you should have definitely sorted them all out BEFORE clearing the desk as at least then you knew which piles were which.  It was all in certain remembered places on the desk, maybe not very tidy, but in your head you knew where everything was but now you run the risk of never find anything ever again.  I haven’t even finished yet (it will take at least 3 more days at this rate!) and I have already found that things I need are nowhere to be found.  Some of the things have never had a place to live permanently so need to find a home and others just can’t fit in where they are meant to live because the space is already choc full to the brim.  I need to file about 6 months worth of bills but the filing cabinet is already full and it is painful to even try to get things out yet alone trying to add some more papers to the already tightly full files, so before I can file them away I need to do some weeding out and of course that takes even more time so it gets put off, and off, and off.  On the plus side you turn up things that have been “lost” for a while.  So at this moment in time I have a clearish desk but boxes of stuff behind me that somehow used to sit on my desk once as well as the bears!!!  Oh well, another day tomorrow…

 Picture by a friend, Jean Lagadec

Todays interesting trivia snippet:

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And here is todays chuckle:

'OLD' IS WHEN.... 

Your sweetie says, 'Let's go upstairs and make love,' and you answer, 'Pick one; I can't do both!'

Your friends compliment you on your new alligator shoes and you're barefoot.

A sexy babe or hunk catches your fancy and your pacemaker opens the garage door.

Going braless pulls all the wrinkles out of your face.

You don't care where your spouse goes, just as long as you don't have to go along.

You are cautioned to slow down by the doctor instead of  by the police

'Getting a little action' means you don't need to take any fibre today.

'Getting lucky' means you find your car in the parking lot.

An 'all nighter' means not getting up to use the bathroom.