Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Clutter Battle

This week, the sweet gal at http://www.thehomespunheart.blogspot.com/ has been doing a week of making your home a haven. I would love to say that I have been participating successfully... but, I didn't discover the plan until late and wasn't really able to get geared up for it. On Monday, her plan was to tidy your home. You know, just pick up some of the clutter around the house that has piled up. So, I made a plan to clean up a couple of places. I decided to tackle the fireplace. It gets so messy with soot, chunks of wood, just your all around basic fireplace yuck. So, here's what it looked like before:
After a little attention, I was able to get it cleaned up in about 10 minutes...

The other place I wanted to tackle was the kitchen counter. It's the clutter magnet in the house. Here's what it looked like before I got after it:

You can see stacks of coupons, cleaning pads for my stamping, some hand soap that I got a good deal on, and just your basic normal paper clutter. I got to work and got it cleaned up. I finished around 2:00 on Monday afternoon.
So, I took a picture of it around 6:00 pm. Here's what it looked like afterwards:
What do you notice!!! It's still totally cluttered, but with TOTALLY DIFFERENT STUFF!! I wasn't able to get a picture while it was clean... it only took about 4 hours to make it worse than it was before. So, I'll see if I can get it cleared off this evening. I've had a couple of things going on during these last couple of days, so getting extra stuff done has been a little difficult. The rest of the week is a little slower, so I'm hopeful to get some other things done. Thankfully, mercies are new every morning... so, I'll ask the lord (again) to order my day so I can get some things done tomorrow.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha ha - that's so funny - I experience the same thing when I clean something . . . it's as if some little clutter fairy is peeking behind my dusty houseplant just waiting for a clean spot to mess up again. My remedy has been to take a picture IMMEDIATELY after I've cleaned something, and even then, I often have to move a bowl I already pulled out for the evening's meal. Thanks for your honesty!

Lynn said...

LOL---such is life
and so it will always be.....
Not so profound,but true.
Especially with a SNACKBAR!!!

Melissa Flaming said...

That's so hilarious! Believe me, you are NO DIFFERENT than the rest of us. I had to laugh at the counter!
I'm battling the same kind of clutter...only we're living at my mother-in-law's house this month, so I'm freaking out trying to keep clutter at bay! She's single and 60-something. We are 5 people who LIVE in a house. eek.

Shan said...

Yah ha he ha! Good one. This is truly the rub when it comes to tidying up. This is why it is just not worth the fight most days. But, at least it can be slightly different clutter from day to day. Sometimes I leave things out on purpose so I will remember them. Then it's called Short term memory clutter. Of course, that is a whole other daily battle in itself. ;)

Adelia said...

I love the homespun heart...She's so precious.

And it's good to know this phenomenon occurs outside of our home as well...

Bekah said...

We all have our "catch all" spots don't we?! Don't lose heart, it is something we all struggle with. On another note...do you guys have a Trader Joe's in NW Arkansas now? Impressive!

Wendy said...

Ha! Not funny to you, I'm sure, but it makes me feel so much better. I stayed up cleaning my kitchen/ dining are yesterday.... and ugh. You should see it now. Spilled peaches on the floor, markers, pipe cleaners. The mess puts a smile on my face when I think about our happy day, but then I groan inside as I try to gain the energy to tackle it. I'm tired.