Shiny Things

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or--
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!
-Messy Room by Shel Silverstein

I'd much rather be at home. The hours between 2:oo and 4:30 pm are totally wasted at work. All I want to do is clean and organize but I can't really do that at work every day. They might think I'm weird. Or have some sort of compulsive disorder. Which I might, but that's totally not the point.

Right now, I can barely enter our spare bedroom (I use the term loosely because it's only about seven feet wide by 12 feet long. It's more like a glorified closet..with it's own closet) because it's so chock full of stuff.

The three boxes of stuffed animals, quilts and Junior High and High School Year books that I took from my parent's garage and said "trust me, it'll be out of the house or put away by tomorrow night" to my husband as he watched me shove them into our trunk? Still there.

The boxes of Christmas decorations that we were going to put away immediately after setting out the few things we chose to put up this year? In the middle of the floor.

The shopping bag full of Macy's, Express, Bare Ecentuals, Limited and Victoria's Secret shopping bags? (Like anyone really needs more than three of those at one time. And if you don't think you need any on hand, you're probably a dude. Trust me on this one. Three. At all times.) Yep, those are slumped over onto the sewing supplies from Halloween.

The two pairs of pants that need mending? Still there from when I said I would take care of them at Halloween when I knew that I would have the sewing machine out and it would be so much easier to do it all at once.

Matt's seminary books? Still there in the corner. Though to be fair, he has kept his things in two nice neat little piles. He gets a pass.

And how many 1 inch binders from College do I really need? Two? Three? Five? Five should do it. It's not like I have year books that I need to put on the shelf or anything...


But it's pointless now to put away the Christmas boxes because in two days we'll be leaving for Christmas with the Mungers and then we'll come home and need to put our tiny little tree away and all of those glass balls and the Nativity scene.

And I shouldn't really take too much time to put away the boxes of memorabilia just in case I get something for Christmas that needs to be put away in the space I was planning to keep Larry the Cucumber, my great grandma's quilt or all six year books.

And those shopping bags could be used as gift bags! Sure, I might be done wrapping my Christmas gifts but you never know...

It's not like Matt needs those jeans that are sitting in the corner. He has three other pairs of pants. And I've put on a pound or two since the hem fell out of the slacks so it's probably better for my psyche to just leave them there for a few more weeks while I gather the nerve to join Sarah at the gym...but first I have to get in shape before I let people see me attempt to turn on a treadmill.


I can't be expected to be productive at work when I know how much is waiting at home for me to do and heaven knows I can't focus on putting away those boxes when my itunes library isn't up-to-date. Hey, I wonder if I can beat my fastest minesweeper time...