How far does everyone’s messiness extend? Is your desk at work a mess? What about your car? My car is a disaster! Old fast food wrappers, junk mail, books, magazines, a set of dumb bells, a blanket, I can’t begin to name all the stuff that is in my car right now!
“Love given when it is inconvenient is the greatest love of all. Kindnesses that are shared at a high cost to oneself are the most dear.”
Don’t know who said it, but I like it.
I have to agree with Omnicient that big trashcans are critical–and I mean HUGE, embarrassingly large trashcans. And 55-gallon liners so that when the can is overflowing and you are still to lazy to actually walk to the dumpster you can pull the bag up and gain a couple more days before stuff starts falling on the floor. When that happens, I know my place is about to go critical, and if I don’t do something about now, I will quickly become used to it being that way and in fact, it will come to seem normal, standards will dissapear completly, and then six months later it will be at the point where it takes a full week of eight hour days to get rid of the trash.
That being said, I find that my cluttter tolerance is inversely proportional to the number of people I’m living with. While mess dosn’t bother me, I hate not being able to find things. This is not a problem if you live on your own-- My blue shoes that I last wore eight months ago? Oh, their in the linen closet on top of the bag of jeans my butt won’t fit into anymore but under that pile of fabric remnants that was supposed to be a halloween costume, obviously. Once you add other people to the equation, however, this all goes to hell, because they make slight adjustments to the mess and don’t tell you! They never seem to understand that they shouldn’t take that pile of newspapers to the recycleing center because, obviously, my birth certificate is mixed in there, it’s a long story, but I knew it was there and was going to get it out. . . Slobbiness is not a problem–communal slobbiness can be.
Medical school is an unkind place for someone with my profound level of disorganization.
Every lecture that we have is accompanied by a handout of anywhere from 5 to 15 pages. Multiply that by 4-5 lectures a day, 5 days a week. What’s worse, I memorize things by re-copying them, so I probably fill up another 50 pages or so in a week doing that. I try to at least route the lecture handouts into 3-ring binders, and throw study papers away after the test, but it doesn’t happen quite that neatly.
My other big problem is dishes. I usually eat at my desk while I’m studying or reading, so the dishes tend to pile up, and I’m too lazy to haul them to the kitchen.
But it’s not a reflection of my value as a person. <sniff>
Dr. J
Oh my goodness. :::wiping tears from eyes:::
I am not alone!!!
Oh, I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I see bits of myself in nearly every post. My stuff is mostly disorganized. Not filthy, bug-infested stuff, just stuff that needs to be put away/just got bought & hasn’t found it’s niche yet.
It’s so hard to keep on top of everything when you work outside the home and have kids. Well, maybe I should rephrase that. I am on top of everything, because I haven’t seen my floor in a week. “Digging out from under everything” is a better way to explain it. Hell, it’s hard to keep things organized if you never leave the house.
I want to change my ways, I really do. Now that I know there are others like me, I have hope!
Gloom. Sigh.
I’m not even consistent in being a slob, so I’d be in and out of a support group like a revolving door…
Is there such a thing as a periodic slob? I work way too many hours to get very wound up over books piled up, newspapers, and an occassional dust bunny that drifts out from under furniture. But I’m like the BluePony family (minus the arsenal): for all the comfy clutter, the kitchen and bathroom are usually spotless.
But house, car, desk, whatever, I’ll torpidly coexist with clutter and then it will suddenly drive me NUTS. Then I go on a slash and burn cleaning jag.
This often happens at night, oddly enough. The dog slinks away and hides while I vacuum, scrub, wash curtains, the whole shebang. Or people at work avoid my office to avoid being brained by old file folders, broken staplers, etc. sailing toward garbage cans.
Then I collapse like a marionette with the strings cut. But it’s great to sag back and look at all that wonderful, pristine order.
Then I go back to being a slob.
Veb
You want proof? I moved in MARCH and here is the eat-in part of my kitchen: http://fathom.org/opalcat/cam/kitchencorner.jpg
Here is the desk where I spend all my time: http://fathom.org/opalcat/cam/mydesk.jpg
We are slobs. We really are. It is sad, but true. We are trying very hard to keep oour house a little cleaner since we have a kid, but with the kid and the dog, it is always a challenge. We do keep most of the really gross stuff cleaned, but there are frequently Mystery Crumbs ground into the carpet, and there are all kinds of stains from god-knows-what… and there are a lot of scraps of paper and stuff (the dog drags stuff out of the trash).
>^,^<
“Cluemobile? You’ve got a pickup…”
OpalCat’s site: http://opalcat.com
The Teeming Millions Homepage: fathom.org/teemingmillions
Also, due to our inability to ever actually maintain dishes, we eat off paper plates, use plastic disposable cups, and have plastic utensils.
>^,^<
“Cluemobile? You’ve got a pickup…”
OpalCat’s site: http://opalcat.com
The Teeming Millions Homepage: fathom.org/teemingmillions
