one step forward, two steps back

Unfortunately, this title is not a reference to dancing. It is a reference to my attempts at being tidy. Tidiness is something that I struggle with anyway, but add some other factors into the mix and it feels that all this 'organisation' business is just impossible!

Firstly, living with someone who is equally as messy makes things difficult. It can mean two times the mess and it can mean it is harder to find things, because you weren't the one that put it away, so who knows where it could be? Where we choose to put things always makes sense to us, but will usually remain a mystery for the other person involved.

For example, I have noticed that there always seems to be an outfit in a mound near our front door. I cannot figure out why this seems like the best place to put these clothes, but there they are. So I move this mound into our bedroom where gradually another mound is added and then another... it then becomes at least a half-hour job to sort through the mounds of clothes and put them away or, if they fail the sniff test, into the dirty clothes basket.

Likewise, I am sure my husband is stumped when it comes to where I leave some things. We lost our one and only cooking turner. For weeks we could not find the stupid thing. We improvised of course, but flipping pancakes with something spoon-shaped is quite a challenge! Anyway, one day I got fed up and went out to buy another one (actually I got two, in case we misplaced one). That same night I went to use our stick blender, so I pulled the box down from the top of the tallest cupboard, and the turner fell out onto my head! I am sure it was me who put it up there, but even I couldn't tell you why that made sense. We now have three non-stick cooking turners.

Now back to what I was talking about in the first place...
My plans for being tidy are also thwarted by my dear children. I now have two active boys that follow me around the house pulling things off the shelf I had just 'restocked', or spilling their food onto the floor I just vacuumed, or asking to play with that train set that they just saw me packing away.

In the end, it is this that brings it all into perspective. I am not going to be a kill joy when it comes to the children playing and having fun and making a mess, and I am certainly not striving to have a 'display home', but I just really want to create a more orderly space (especially behind the scenes) where things are kept in places that can be located and make sense. I am hoping that this will then flow into life in general and I can keep a better track of day to day things.  I feel like I could be a better wife and mum if these things are more in control. (I'll certainly feel less stressed if I can find my keys when I'm ready to walk out the door.)

And, when it comes down to it, I will pick reading a book to my children over stacking the dishwasher any day.