November 14th, 2018

                                                                         I've had an epiphany. 

It's my fault.

The state of my house is my fault.

Looking around my house at the piles and the clutter and the random items out of place, I pondered what I would say about them here, on my blog. What would be my excuse for the paint cans we're still tripping over, months after we finished painting our son's room? How did my kitchen get this out of control so quickly? Why is the paint scraped off of half of our dining table, and    also part of our butler's pantry? Whose junk                                                                                                           is this? ​

---

The butler's pantry, with doors and hardware removed

It's my junk. These half done (or barely begun) projects are my projects. At least a dozen of them, and most will require much more than an afternoon to complete. 

This realization is a bit of a slap in the face. But there's a silver lining. If I'm the problem, I can fix it. Or at least I hope I can.

First I have to figure out where the disconnect is. How is it that I'm the one making the messes, but I'm not seeing it happen? Here are some things that I think are contributing to the issue.

1.) I'm slow. I'm slow at almost everything.

I'm a painfully slow reader, which is why I've never loved doing it. I'm a slow processor. This is one reason I started this blog: I am much better at forming coherent sentences when I have time to think about how I want to say something, which means I'm a much better writer than I am a speaker. And this wonderful quality of mine is not just limited to the thoughts in my head -- it affects physical activities, too!

I have a distinct memory of putting on my marching band uniform in high school on one occasion. Time was always of the essence once our bus rolled into the parking lot. I decided I was going to race my friend Mindy, but I didn't tell her. I just wanted to see if I could put on my uniform faster than she could when she wasn't even trying. I couldn't.

2.) I will avoid doing things if it involves any minor annoyance or discomfort. 

It's cold in the laundry room or attic? I'm not going in there just to put something away. 

I have to get out the step stool or a key? I'm not bothering with that either.

There's a pile of junk in the way? Whatever it is can wait for another day.

3.) I'm going to use that item again soon and it goes in one of those annoying places.

(Soon could mean in a month or two, and that time frame could very well get dragged out into a year.)

​4.) I don't have a place for this item. ​I'll deal with it when I have figured out where it should go.

​5.) I want to do projects, but I underestimate the amount of time needed and overestimate the amount of time I have. 

Examples:

• The surface of my dining room table was chipped and marked up, so I decided to strip it and repaint it. I mean, just the top of the table! But as I mentioned, I've taken off about a third of the paint and it's been like that for a few months now.


• The doors on our butler's pantry wouldn't close properly, and I thought it would look so much better with a fresh coat of paint along with new hinges. It was a lot more difficult than I expected to remove the paint, so that too has been sitting in a state of disrepair for months, which means that most of the stuff that goes on/in it is displaced.

---

• Two rocking chairs with unraveling seats were given to us about two years ago, at which time I removed the seats and painted the chairs, but still have not replaced the seats.​

​

• I chalk painted an old twin bed with the intention of selling it, but it just never seems like the right time to do the step of coating it with polyurethane so I can actually sell it. It's leaning against the fireplace in my living room.

The painted bed frame propped up in my living room

​
I could go on, but you get the point. 

The things I do have a decent handle on MOST of the time are laundry and dishes. I know that I will start to feel hopeless if I can't at least keep those two things reasonably under control. I do a load of laundry almost daily, unless I really have a lot going on. I'm not always the best at getting it put away once it is folded, though. And dishes pile up so quickly. I can fall behind on those if I forget to stay on top of it, but when I remember, all it takes is a few minutes here and there throughout the day. (The paper clutter and other things in my kitchen that don't belong there are another story.)

If I have to spend a long time in my kitchen, I like to listen to podcasts, although this could contribute to my slowness. Sometimes I set a timer for 10 minutes and race against it. It really does help me and my weird brain to stay focused on the job. 

I have been doing a great job of getting things out of my house lately. I'll make a separate post soon about where I take things we no longer use.

I'm not sure how to tackle all of these issues I seem to be facing so that I can just LIVE in my house and enjoy it while I focus on the things I really want to be doing.

I'd love to hear your suggestions and personal experiences, and if you would like to be notified of new posts in the future, you can enter your email address below to receive my newsletter!
​