I have a closet by the front door (which is rarely used--the front door, that is), and when I get a pile going around the house & then I need to clean & don't have time to go through the pile (usually of papers), I put the pile in the front closet. So my closet is looking pretty horrid right now. I had intended to spend time on it today, but instead I cleaned the basement play room, did some laundry, dishes, straightened other areas of the house, cooked some meals, typed up the church bulletin, etc., and I did NOT get to the closet, which I didn't really want to get to anyway.
Dan gives me a hard time (& rightly so, though I don't want you to tell him I said that) about all the "catch-alls" I have going around the house. There are stacks of mail & school papers & other such things on the kitchen counter. There is a stack on our computer desk. There is another stack in our room. ETC. Why do I have to have a catch-all? Why can't I just get rid of stuff or file it right away so I don't have to have these piles all over the house?
And why can't I get to my front closet & clean it out so I don't have to worry about guests coming over & asking if they can put their coats in the coat closet?
Do you have a place like that in your house?
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The reason you have a catch-all is because you CAN'T file it right away. People and things are demanding your attention now that are more important than filing and putting away. Your children need to be comforted and played with. Your son needs to be calmly sent off to school or welcomed home. Dinner needs to be prepared before beloved gets home. There's a deadline on the church bulletin and cleaning and straightening to do.
Things need to be sorted . . . later. There's not always time to deal with stuff when kids, phones, meal preparation, laundry, etc. are demanding attention now.
And the problem is that it's the Mom's job to keep up with everybody's stuff! Why is that?
Papers! What a pain. At my house, there are several piles of mail and most items not addressed to me, either! The Hoosier (my desk, sort of) becomes everyone's catch-all. The kitchen table is another. Days worth of newspapers there; is everyone finished looking at them? If you put them in recycling finally, that is the day someone comes looking for something in one of them! Mail. Magazine clippings to be filed (or eventually, after accumulating for years and not filed before time to move, tossed.) Coupons. Circulars. Mail that needs a response, but not today.
In our house, I'm the only one apparently who can recycle. Others rinse things out (that's progress) but leave them on the kitchen counter for someone else (me) to actually put in the container (less than a dozen steps away!). Why is that?
But I'm just as bad. Our storage containers (like Tupperware) are stored in the garage (less than a dozen steps away, just past the recycling), but I pile them on the pantry cabinet (half-way there) to be sorted and put away later. I keep hoping someone else will put them away, but that doesn't happen unless I specifically ask.
Another problem is having several projects going at once and not wanting to put everything away when the projects are not complete. And things that need repairing, but if you put them out of sight, they are out of mind and don't get repaired, glued, sewn, reassembled, etc.
We don't have a coat closet (people in Florida don't wear coats, I guess -- no, that's not it. They do, even when we Yankees think they aren't needed!). So the closet is not an option here. My dresser top is also a catch-all. The garage. The top of the washer (kitchen linens waiting to be washed). The coffee table (everyone has something going on left in the living room!).
At our two-story house during your growing-up years, it was the bottom of the stairs. Everything that needed to go upstairs waited at the bottom of the stairs for mom to make the trip upstairs and carry it all (why did no one else feel inclined to carry his/her stuff up the stairs?).
When you have a house with several play areas and several children, for example, like you do, toys get set aside to be returned to their rightful place later. They're picked up, just not yet put all the way away.
Long answer to your question. I think it's normal. If your beloved doesn't like the system, he can help correct it himself. He's very organized. Does he have a system to suggest, and is he willing to help implement it? Is it something that will make less work for you rather than more?
Keep your priorities in mind. There's always stuff to put away. There's always cleaning to do. There's not always time later for a cuddle, a book, listening to a child tell you his version of an event, making a precious gift or memory.
Jesus said, "The poor you will always have with you." Pat paraphrases, "The clutter you may always have with you. Your children you won't." If the stuff is put away in a closet rather than underfoot, that's progress!
I am back, I hope anyway. So you have "Catch-Alls" Welcome to my club. I just have let the catch-alls overtake me. Uncle Steve has a fit all of the time. Worst yet the kids are copying me. If that is the worst that they can do then all is well. Anyway please remember a little saying I heard years ago. "Calm down cobwebs, dust go to sleep, I'm rocking my babies and babies don't keep" Love to All. Aunt Dawn p.s. I am going in as Other as I am having a SENIOR moment and cannot for the life of me remember my username and password.
Um, yeah, I have LOTS of piles (aka "hot spots!)!! My Mom calls them her "Hot Spots!" :) They are everywhere in my house, too. Just wait until you have 3 children in school - OH MY! I can't believe how many papers are sent home each day. I try to go through school papers and the mail everyday and throw out what needs to be thrown away instead of keeping. I keep a bin/box for each child to put in art/school work that I want to save for them. This is the best that I can do for now but I still have "Hot Spots!!" I'm still trying to put away all of our Christmas decorations :)
Yes, you should just enjoy your children and let the clutter "take care of itself." When you decide you need something desperately, and it is in one of those "catch-alls", you will take the time to clean that spot. But others will pop up. And it doesn't get any better when you are a senior citizen, with no one but your beloved at home (a neatnik like your own). Nana
my entire house is a "catch-all" and it drives Matt crazy! I am always trying to get organized but doubt that I every truly will. I have high hopes though!! If I didn't have 3 kids that demanded my full attention 24/7 I might get more done (but I wouldn't trade them for the cleanest house in the world!) Here are "our" catch-alls: front hall closet, my dresser, bottom of the stairs, the play room, small counter in the kitchen, laundry room, garage, dining room table and our closet. Crazy that I have that many!!!!! OK...now I need to go clean! ;)
In our house, our study is our catch-all but my husband is the one who creates them all over the rest of the house. When you come up our stairs, we have a shrunk (German word for what the rest of us call a shelving unit -- it is huge) and our stuff gets put there. Other piles that are bigger go in the study, but most of the time I keep those small. I am an organizer and don't know what life will be like when we have kids and those piles get bigger. I'm sure there will be a lesson from God in there somewhere for me...like chill out.
I have a chair in the room that is a catch all of clothes worn, but not dirty. The front table gets a lot of catch all mail and other random papers near the door. I luckily just got a new bed, cleaned out my entire room leaving just a bed and speakers w/ ipod in the room. I then forced myself (luckily no roomates to complain about it) to go through everything I owned and organize, throw out trash and old clothes and put things in one specific place. of course now I found more stuff that got piled ontop of a table and the clothes are starting to build up, but its better than it was.
I'm gonna make a good husband some day...I cleaned the bathroom and kitchen before my roommates returned, did every dish, and tonight took out all the trash, organized recycling and vaccumed. mom is probably wondering why she never saw such initative out of me in her house...
I think we all have those "catch-all" places. We need something like that so we know exactly where to find that one item that we are looking for. You know when you say "Now where is that ____. I had it just yesterday." It will have ended up in one of your "catch-all" piles. Mine is on top of my yaffa blocks or my desk. I usually place things that I need to get to within the next week on top of my desk. My desk at school has piles in various places for things that I don't know where to put them. Typically that gets cleaned more than the piles at home.
P.S. Did you know that you can have all the commments left on your blog emailed to you? Go to setting, comments, then at the bottom fill in your email address. This way if you haven't had a chance to check your blog, but have checked email, you will know who has commented. (Like you wouldn't check your blog everyday!)
Ha! Thanks for that.
In Jesus,
Maria in the UK
www.inhishands.co.uk
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