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By Mom Unplugged, August 21, 2007 8:03 pm

This is how I feel today. In fact this is how I have felt ever since I returned from vacation two weeks ago.

My space and my mind are cluttered. The more I try to declutter, the more rapidly “stuff” accumulates there.

Today was my oldest daughter’s first day back at school. Unfortunately my son still has two more weeks at home. Without his sister, he is wandering the house like a lost soul.

I was going to send him outside on his bike and use this day to actually accomplish something. To finally sort my desk, my house, and my brain.

I tidied up a bit this morning during baby nap time. I figured that this afternoon I would tackle The-Dirty-Laundry-That-Ate-Arizona (read about it at CNN.com).

After running to the bank to deposit the one check (of three) that I was able to dig out of the clutter, I returned home to find the carpet cleaners standing in my driveway with their hands on their hips, tapping their feet, looking at their watches. I thought they were coming on Friday. Ooops!

I wildly chased my seven cats all over the house, attempting to corral them in the laundry room as the carpet cleaners watched with amusement.

Since we have about 15 square feet of non-carpeted floor in my giant carpeted house, we ended up hanging out in the driveway all afternoon because the baby would not stay put in the kitchen and wanted to “help.” I tried to make some phone calls out there, but the static from being outside on a cordless phone combined with the background noise of the carpet cleaning truck made this difficult. I even tried to call my friend Wishy for some sympathy, but she was out. We were truly unplugged.

By the time they left, it was time for a nice dinner of leftovers and then bed for the kids. First we had to FIND the beds, which had been piled with all the bits and pieces usually located on their floors.

I then tried to put some of the The-Dirty-Laundry-That-Ate-Arizona in the drier and noticed that crazy White Kitty was still hiding behind the drier, and had somehow managed to detach the drier vent pipe from the wall. I am too tired to begin moving driers and fiddling with vent pipe now.

So, here I am amidst the mental and physical rubble of my life. I type on the computer as a kitten sits next to my chair, attempting to devour a cupcake paper that she found who knows where.

My big furniture is back in place, but all the little “stuff” is pushed over onto the wood floor of my kitchen while the carpet dries. Baskets of kids’ books, baby gates, baby toys, odd chairs, a laundry basket full of dirty clothes, and several assorted pairs of shoes surround me as I lament the waste of my morning. Why bother tidying up when all that soul-satisfying order can so quickly return to chaos?

How much is in my bank account right now? Where is my agenda book that would have told me the correct day for the big carpet cleaning? Why do I have 97 already-read email messages in my Inbox? See! Clutter on the computer too!

The phone rings. Can I find it? Yes, this time, but thankfully I have four rings to try. Can I find a scrap of paper to write down a phone message? No. A pen that works? Forget it.

Help!!!

Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for this photo. Click here for license information.

Comments (6)

By Mom Unplugged, March 13, 2007 7:44 am

I have a love-hate relationship with stuff. I am, by nature, a neotoma albigula, more commonly known as a “pack rat” (see photo). Yet I yearn to simplify my life by shedding all the excess.

Whenever I get stressed about mess and excess, I go on a cleaning frenzy. I tidy, I throw out, I donate. I always feel so good afterwards. Cleansing the closets equates to cleansing the soul!

However, there are always some strange things that I have trouble parting with: stuffed animals from my childhood (they are my friends, and besides, their feelings would be hurt), the swizzle stick I saved from that family vacation to Maine when I was six (the prettiest shade of red I have ever seen), a box filled with every work schedule I ever had as a flight attendant (cool places!), another box with every letter my Mom or Dad ever wrote me (sentimental attachment), old board games I plan to sell on Ebay (when I have time-ha!), etc. How can I teach frugality and simplicity to my kids when my life is filled with odd and unnecessary items?

I have a particular weakness for cardboard boxes. I like to save them. You never know when you might need one. Plus the kids play with them, and one day I will use every single one of them when I sell all my extra stuff on Ebay and make a fortune.

My husband hates my stuff, especially the boxes. He says we need to just rent a dumpster. I told him, we’ll rent a dumpster when he agrees to put at least half his precious garage junk treasures into it.

I continue to fantasize that my house will one day be transformed into a zen-like sanctuary of simplicity and spiritual living. It will look like one of those minimalist spaces you see sometimes in House Beautiful or even Architectural Digest. My furniture will all be white. My few, artfully arranged books will have matching spines in a soothing palette of neutral colors. I will have miniature zen rock gardens on my coffee table instead of the zen scattering of Cheerios which sits there now.

One day…

Oh…are you going to throw out that box? Can I have it?

Comments (1)

By Mom Unplugged, March 12, 2007 11:03 am

I have two ideas to present in today’s post:

1) DON’T FORGET FRIENDS

A TV-free Mom friend wants me to write a post about how friends can help the anti-TV effort.

This friend is working on a Master’s degree and had an important deadline to meet on Friday. Unfortunately Friday was a half day at school. I picked her daughter up, gave her lunch and then she and my kids played happily until her Mom was through with her assignment. My friend was grateful since her only other desperate option would probably have been to sit her daughter down in front of the TV with a series of videos.

This was a win-win for all! My friend completed her work on time, her daughter and my kids had a great afternoon, and I was able to do some things around the house because my kids were so busy playing with a buddy.

My friend would like to remind people to consider friends as a resource for turning off the TV. When you absolutely, positively need to get some alone-time for an important task (or even just to regain a little sanity), call a friend and everyone benefits!

2) CLUTTER BUSTER - ORGANIZE THE ART

Idea number two is an organizing tip that works well for us. What do you do with all the art work that your TV-free kids create? The refrigerator is the traditional display area, but we recently remodeled the kitchen and have a stainless steel fridge (non-magnetic).

I picked a bare wall in the playroom and hung two lengths of string by tying the ends around thumbtacks in the wall. For a more modern-look, you could also use wire. We hang the most recent masterpieces on the string using clothespins.

The kids enjoy hanging the pictures and seeing their efforts nicely displayed on the wall. It makes a cool focal point for the room and is easy to change when the mood strikes!

UPDATE: Here is another great art-organizing idea from a reader-comment:

“My favorite idea for getting rid of art or schoolwork clutter is mailing “care” packages to grandparents. (A favorite aunt & uncle would work too!) The grandparents love seeing what the grandkids are doing and the kids enjoy showing off their work with others and it eliminates the guilt and/or hurt feelings from throwing the item away.”

I like that idea because I hate throwing it away, but you just can’t keep it all (even a packrat like me). Thanks for the input!

Comments (6)

By Mom Unplugged, March 8, 2007 10:53 am

As I sit here watching my 14 month-old doing an “Ozzie” by trying to bite the head off a plastic bat that has somehow found its way to the kitchen floor, my thoughts turn to “mess.” My life never used to be like this. My house never used to be like this. I was truly, AN ORGANIZED PERSON. Those days are gone.

A brief survey of my living room floor reveals: one clean sock, one dirty sock (Where are the mates? Who knows!), a cardboard box “rocket ship,” one of my shoes (Where is the other? Who knows!), an inflatable bouncy pony, a penguin backpack, one piece of a baby stackable toy, a miniature plastic airplane, and a “Sunset” magazine with most of the pages torn out.

Why can kids live so comfortably with mess? I used to be a slob as a child too. My mother constantly lamented the sorry state of my room. When did I turn into a neat freak? Why can’t I simply be at peace with clutter?

I suppose there is some false feeling of security or of having control of life if we have control of our clutter. If we control our clutter, we control our environment and thus our life. Right?? Probably not, but at least it feels good.

I was intrigued by this post from Wife Mom Maniac’s blog: Appreciating Messes. I guess I am not the only one who struggles with this issue.

This post brings TV watching into the mix. What do kids do when they aren’t watching TV? Often, they are making a mess! The cardboard rocket ship in the living room, the seemingly random collected objects that are somehow absolutely essential for the “show” that they are producing, the “craft” project they have dreamed up, etc. It is much easier and tidier to plop them down in front of the tube for an afternoon. I love the discussion of mess and what to do (or not do) about it on Sandra Dodd’s site. It’s definitely worth a read.

If we are going to choose not to have TV in our lives, then I guess we must accept some degree of clutter. After all, those highly imaginative games that I love to see my children play often involve mess. So I’d better just get over it and be happy that there is a plastic bat on my kitchen floor and a “rocket ship” in my living room!

PS. Sorry to expose you all to that truly terrifying photo of our playroom closet. I think we shall be having a dreaded “Playroom Tidy” this weekend!

Also, a big THANK YOU to Toddler Planet for her endorsement of my blog. It is so exciting to finally have some readers find me!