Mark My Words

Today, I am feeling a little batty.  I'm not sure if it's PMS.  Well, I'm pretty sure PMS is contributing...but it isn't solely to blame.  Another culprit is some serious lack of sleep.  A week in 4 different hotel beds, sharing a room with your husband AND 3 children, going all day until 10:30 at night and up and at 'em to start the next day before I've gotten a decent night's sleep...plus staying up well past midnight last night catching up on PVR'd shows contributes to my sleepiness today...which also contributes to the batty-ness.

But that's not it.

Dealing with mountains of laundry after a week long trip adds to it.  Especially when my dryer takes three or four rounds before actually drying the clothes.  Coming home after a week and discovering 'a smell' in your house that you can't pinpoint, and therefore can't illuminate adds to it.

Finding papers and socks and toys and wrappers and toothbrushes and pillows and suitcases and shoes shoes shoes ALL over the house adds to it.  Things that had a place before we left, but have not found their way back to their place since coming home Saturday night.  Why have they not found their way back to their places?

But the real source?  The real problem I'm facing today?  Is a problem I do not yet have a solution for...and hence, the batty-ness.   Stuff!  I don't like seeing stuff.  I like stuff to be in it's place...and it's place is most definitely out of sight.  I would love to not have all this stuff...but the people insist that they need it, so we keep it.  But in order for this mother-child relationship to remain simpatico...the stuff needs to be in it's place.

And new stuff keeps finding it's way into my house.  Everyday my kids come home from school with a backpack full of stuff.  I imagine that the teachers feel the same way I do about all the stuff...so their solution is to send it home in a backpack.  Out of sight!  I wish I had a backpack I could fill with stuff and send away and be done with it.

I lived in a trailer for 5 years.  5 years!  We started with 3 people in that trailer and grew to 5. We acquired a lot of stuff.  There were 2 closets.  Stuff did not have a place.  For 5 years!  Don't get me wrong...I loved living in the trailer...but not for the house.  The people made it fun.  The proximity to Grandma's made it fun.  Being snowed in, freezing pipes, mouse droppings, and not having ANY space for anything did NOT make it fun.  Things usually ended up on the counter.  Or the table.  Or the desk.  And it would stay there for a long LONG time.

The walls feel tighter around me when I think of all the stuff.

So now I am in a big beautiful home.  Oodles of space for stuff.  But my insanity continues because there is space for stuff but nothing to put the stuff IN.  Remember...out of sight. I want it out of sight.

Most of the furniture that we own is 2nd hand.  Or 3rd.  Our living room furniture is new.  Our TV is new.  Our mattress is new.  That's all.  We have dressers that were handed down to us from our parents...who got them handed down to them when they were newly-weds.  The kids beds, basement couch and chairs, dining room table and chairs, and bookshelves come from moving sales.  We have 1 bedside table that came from a friend.  There is no artwork. There are no curtains.  You can't usually find those at garage sales.  The washer and dryer are from kijiji.  They're being replaced by ones from friends.

So as you can see, we don't spend money on things to put our stuff in.  And therefore, the stuff is around.  I would love to have places for things to go...but I also choke at the possibility of spending money.

We have the ironing board set up in our bedroom so there is another surface to collect things.  Sunday School manuals, papers, a climbing harness, mail, artwork from my children.  And every Sunday, my husband moves these items to other locations so he can iron his shirt (because I don't iron) and every week, those items move their way back to the ironing board, because I don't want them in other places. It's like a dance.  A hill-billy dance.

On Sunday, my friend came over and brought me a gift.  A beautiful, wonderful gift.  I have been bringing a deliciously beautiful trifle to a number of BBQs and events lately.  It's delicious.  It's sought out.  It's wonderful. I bring it in a white mixing bowl, because I don't own a trifle bowl...or event a clear bowl for that matter.  I was in Walmart the other day and saw a trifle bowl for $20 and thought, should I buy this?  I make a lot of trifles.  It would make sense to have a trifle bowl.  And then I thought, it's $20...my white bowl is already sitting in my cupboard at home.  It has a place.  A trifle bowl would not have a place.  And it's $20.  I did not buy it.

So I shared my trifle recipe with my friend, who shared it with her sister, who made it for her dad for Father's Day.  And these two sisters got to talking and said, "have you ever noticed that Heather never brings trifle in a trifle bowl?"  "Why, yes, I have noticed that."  "Do you think she owns one?"  "I don't know."  "You gave me 2 for Christmas a few years ago, would you mind if I give one of them to her?" "I don't mind at all."  And so on Sunday, one of the two Sisters came and brought me a beautiful trifle bowl for my trifle creations as a thank-you for sharing the recipe.  How thoughtful.  How glorious.  And I even found a place for it.  It's beautiful.

So I digress...this is getting lengthy.  And the stuff is still there.  It screams to me silently and makes me crazy as I sit here all alone in my house.  We're here!  You can see us!  We're the stuff without a place!

Yes, stuff, I see you.  And I hear you.  Constantly.  Your day will come.  When my purse strings loosen a little bit...your day will come.

Mark my words.