Category Archives: Housekeeping

Organization …

is not my strong suit

My desk at work is organized because I would simply fold in upon myself otherwise.  I find it difficult to focus enough to know where I am and what I am doing there, so being disorganized is not an option.

Not if I want to keep getting a steady paycheck (which is imperative to fund my real ambitions of photography, writing and travel).

My photographs are organized.

Brutally so.

With tens of thousands of photographs, literally, there must be organization or I would never be able to lay my hands on a particular photograph when I needed to.

As crazy as it may sound, when I look at an image, I remember the moment it was taken.  It is like a bionic power of some sort that allows me to pull from the brain pan recesses in perfect clarity something that happened on some obscure day in the past though I often have difficulty remembering what I ate for breakfast.

When I remember to eat breakfast, that is.

My house is not organized.

It is jumbled and chaotic, but I know where everything is.

I’m not big into “stuff”.  I have one photograph on my wall and the calendar is still on may of 2011.  To those that know me personally, this will not come as a surprise.  To the rest of you … close your mouths.  It’s not that big of a deal.

I have clothes on the floor, shoes on the floor and junk on the couch.  But my kitchen and bathroom are clean.

I rarely cook anymore, which is a shame because not only do I love to cook, I am very good at it.  That isn’t bragging, just stating the facts.  I am an excellent cook.  I just don’t do it.

But if one day the mood strikes, my kitchen is clean and my butcher knife sharp.

I think I started this whole post with organization. I’m not sure why that was even on my mind since there are only the three areas, work, photographs and kitchen that are organized.

My house, at any given time, looks as though a band of rogue monkeys swept through and had a free-for-all.

I don’t care.  If I’m ok with it, anybody who finds fault is simply a fault-finder.

If you are coming to see me, come ahead, if you are coming to see my house, make an appointment … about one year in advance.

I never understood and still don’t understand people who pretend to be what they aren’t simply to impress someone who likely wouldn’t be impressed even if you levitated while juggling flaming torches.

If being impressed by me is what someone is looking for, they will be sorely disappointed.  I live in my house and clean it when I feel like it, I wear clothes so I don’t get cold or arrested and I work so I can afford to do the things I really want to do.

Organization?  Not if I can possibly avoid it.

I’m much too busy living to worry about the small stuff.

flowersfornini

What a mess …

my house, I mean.  I hate to clean house, do laundry, wash dishes.  There is nothing about keeping house that I like.  My mother, bless her heart, will attest to that.  She likes a clean house and tried to instill that need for order to my sister and me.  It didn’t take.  I am, at the very core of my being, unorganized.  It is a miracle that I can keep my photography, poems and stories in any kind of order and some of it, well, let’s just not go there.

I’ve had some time off this week and could have easily devoted a day to do chores around the house; I could have, but I didn’t.  There were places to go and things to see that held much more appeal than vacuuming the rug or washing the dishes.  Luckily, in regard to dishwashing, I don’t cook.  If I can’t heat it up in the toaster oven or on the stove top, it likely won’t be found in my house.  I used to heat things up in the microwave, but it stopped working several months ago and I just haven’t replaced it.   But I digress.

This afternoon, I decided to have some soup.  I heated it up, poured it in a bowl and went to get a spoon.  There wasn’t one.  They were all dirty.  I looked more closely at the silverware drawer and saw that not only were there no spoons, there were also no forks or knives.  I tried to remember the last time I had washed dishes, but it was a lost cause.  At this point, I looked around the house and winced.  Without me even noticing, it had become more cluttered than I am comfortable with.  Shoes in the floor, papers on the couch; the usual clutter that normal people pick up as they go along.  Don’t misunderstand … I don’t mind a little clutter, but when it gets bad enough to make me want to move, well then it’s time to get rid of it; so I cleaned.   I vowed (as many times before) that I would be more careful to pick up as I go in the future; I knew, even as I told myself this, that it was highly unlikely.

It only took an hour or so to get it done, but in my mind, that was an hour or so that I could have spent doing nearly anything else.  I can see my mom shaking her head and asking herself where she went wrong.   Sorry, Mom.  Some things never change.