Lazy living

nancy324

Cathlete
My stepson is coming over tonight because he and my DH are doing a bike tour early tomorrow morning. We rarely have guests. I'm thinking I should make this place presentable, and I'm looking around me and seeing how lazy we've become. Nothing is in its place. Everything is just sitting out where it's most convenient. My nutmeg and cinnamon never find their way back to the spice rack. My dumbbells sit out on the coffee table, even though the rack is only feet away. Several pairs of my shoes sit in the front hall near the door, even though there's plenty of room in my closet. Months of papers are piled high on my desk, waiting in vain to be filed. ALL my hair products and dental products (and there are many), are sitting out on the bathroom counter. The cards from my birthday in March are still sitting out. And that's just my stuff. In short, we never put anything away! x(

Anyone else living lazily?
 
I am! But not by choice :) My DH has a tendancy to have 5 or 6 pairs of his shoes out, not because we have no room in the closet. He seems to have some physical impairment that I don't know of which prevents him from putting his shoes in the closet }( .

A lot of his stuff sits on the kitchen counter, pepper mill, spices, the syrup for his coffee, chips ...... DRIVES ME INSANE, I am no neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, but stuff on counters, dressers, tables, etc. is one of my pet peeves.

But then again I live with my DH, two boys, four dogs and a cat, so I have losened up a little bit, let me put it this way, Martha Stewart would get a nervous breakdown in my house}(

It's only you and your DH, Nancy. As long as you guys are comfortable and happy in your home why should you change anything? Clean up so someone else is happy?? Naaahhh!

Carola
 
LOL, Carola. Actually, I was raised in a house where everything was always in its place. Everything was so perfect, maybe I'm just rebelling. But the truth is, I'm like you. I hate when there's stuff out. I'm always in a tug of war with myself about whether to be happy or whether to be lazy. :(
 
I'm just the opposite, I grew up in a house full of CAOS! I honestly didn't know how to keep house when I moved out on my own. 15 years later, I am better at it. I still have WAY too much clutter lying around, but my husband hates to throw things away. My closets are a disaster, too. I'm at the computer desk and can find at least 10 things that I should pick up and throw in the garbage, but I'd hear about it later. Whenever I am at a family members home that is kept up nice, I always come home and have a mini anxiety attack.

Sally
 
Sally, my DH doesn't throw anything away either. He drives me completely bonkers. I have to negotiate discarding EVERYTHING. Even socks with holes in them. He's too young to have a depression mentality, so I don't know what his problem is. x(
 
I am kind of the opposite. Growing up my mom was completely clueless about how to keep things neat. She still is! It turned me into a total neat freak. I throw everything away which drives DH nuts.BTW, his mom is a neat freak so I think he likes a little disorder. I can't think about anything when my house is a mess until I have it back in order! I say do what makes you happy and don't worry about everyone else! We are all different!
LD
 
I confess!
And living alone makes it worse than if I had a housemate.
I too have a tendency to 'leave things out.' I was just looking in my closet, and realized that there are more clothes outside of it (hanging over my bedroom door or the back of a chair, or on top of a dresser or on the 'to be washed' pile(s)!) than in it!
One of my goals for May and June is cleaning (my office is the same way, but 'a neat desk is the sign of a sick mind,' or at least that's what a plaque I once saw said...and I agree!!). But that's something I often find an excuse not to do...or some other distraction to do instead.

Our secretary is somewhat of a neat freak: at the end of EVERY DAY, she cleans off her desk, and even wipes it down with Pledge.

I should take a lesson from her (but perhaps not to such an extent).

I used to have a colleague whose office was messier than mine: his files drawers were always open, with stuff hanging out of them...and he didn't even have that much stuff! At least I can say my drawers are closed.
 
I am a neat freak. Nothing on the counters. Everything has to have a place tucked away. I like things orderly. Makes me feel better. the down side is when you have company and they leave things all over. it really drives me crazy. it takes some of the fun out of getting together. So ladies.....live lazy it's more fun!
 
Kathryn, my secretary is the same way. I guess that's why they're so good at being secretaries: they're organized.

Kathryn, WARNING: do not get yourself a lazy housemate. For all my laziness, compared to my DH, I'm Martha Stewart. (Of course, on a scale from 0 to 10, with 10 being My Mother, Martha is about a 7. Seriously, my mother needs medication!)
 
I just had to clean *everything* for our party. We ended up outside; half the people didn't even come inside! LOL

I realized that I'm waaay more comfortable with having a not-clean house. My mom is like yours, Nance, so I'm totally rebelling. (And to be fair, my mom is exceptionally good at keeping one room trashed and closing the door on that room!)

It's just how comfortable you are with yourself and your guests, I think. I consider it an honor when people do not clean when I come over! My friend had a baby shower and I was surprised to see her house just as messy (even the room we were in!) as it is on a regular day.

:D
 
Ame, if your Mom has one trashed room, then she's not quite up to my Mom's insanity level. My Mom is deceiving: her style is rustic and casual and when you first walk in, everything looks so cozy and colorful and inviting. But if you open a drawer, you will see that everything is organized by color, shape, size and probably alphabetically too. If you put your purse down on the floor, it will miraculously disappear while you're not looking. If you hang up your coat facing the wrong way, when you go to collect it, it will be facing the same way as all the other coats. But you never see her do anything. She's super scary, but most people don't know! All they see is the casual, warm, cheerful, inviting exterior. Which, of course, is what makes her so scary to me.

Apologies for the novel. I hope your party went well, Ame!
 
My mom is just like that in her drawers when she's feeling okay... her hidden room is when she's not feeling okay.

I swear, my mom has a little basket for *everything* in her drawers... earrings by color in little baskets, socks by color in little baskets, etc... it makes me want to scream!! (after I've taken the photo for the magazine, I mean)

I feel bad when my mom comes to my house... she has got to go through a little coronary every time!!! She is getting better, though...

ETA: I love the direction the coat is facing issue!! I try to do that just in my own closet and can't accomplish it, LOL!...
 
Ame, you are too funny. My mom has a silent coronary when she comes to visit, which is hardly ever. She never says a word, but I can tell what she's thinking.

As for the coat closet thing, I'm just happy if most of the coats make it on to a hanger at all. :p
 
What's wrong with putting everything in little baskets? I do it all the time}( No, not really, but I do have baskets for books, magazines, etc. and I put things that I use on a daily basis in my office (stapler, office pins, hole punch, etc) together in a basket, so I can just pull it out in the morning and put it away after I am done.

I have the same problem with my husband that you have Nancy and Amy, my DH is a packrat with a capital P!! It's like, "no, honey, you really don't need the Hawaian shirt from the 70s anymore, REALLY!" Arrgh! It's driving me insane, because additionally he keeps buying new clothes ALL THE TIME. My closets would be bursting if I let him have it his way. So things just disappear, "hmmh, no idea where it went, honey!"}(

Carola
 
Me too, Carola. Packrat with a capital P. :( :( And we live in an NYC apartment, which means there's not a lot of room. I've told him a few times that for every thing he keeps and doesn't use I'm going to charge him rent, because for every useless thing he keeps, that's less space we have to live in. But he just doesn't get it. For a brilliant guy, he's stupid when it comes to understanding that space has value. x(

Thanks for letting me rant. :)
 
I try and put things away as much as possible but there's always seems to be a pile of papers on my dining room table. I am trying to sell my house now and it's a constant pain to always have to put things out of sight so it's presentable. I had people come in yesterday thinking there was an open house when there wasn't and I was scrambling to straighten up upstairs while my DH was showing them the backyard. My DH is the opposite: he throws everything out while I tend to be somewhat of a pack rat although since getting ready to move I have thrown out a lot which felt so liberating. I'm finally getting rid of all those clothes I know I'm never going to wear again.

Marcy
 
Yes, dear Nancy, you are definitely not alone. x(
I figure we must have had more IMPORTANT things to do than be neat! :)
 
>I try and put things away as much as possible but there's
>always seems to be a pile of papers on my dining room table.

LOL, Marcy! Got that one too. DH likes to throw the mail, receipts, papers, etc. on the dining room table and I just want to strangle him for that}( Arrrrgggghhhh!

I know my posts sound like I am perfect and a neat freak, but I am far from that. I throw my towels on the floor after I take a shower or bath instead of putting them on the rack (drives DH bonkers), I have to force myself to put stuff away immediately because otherwise it never gets done. And the problem is, I can't function in a mess.

I work from home and my home office looked like a disaster area probably for the last two years, I just kept piling on stuff. A few weeks ago I got so fed up with the mess and my inability to actually get work done because I didn't want to even set a foot in my office (other than going on the Cathe forum :) ), so I got this great little organizer thing call "NeatReceipts" , it scans all my receipts, papers,etc. and I organized it in categories, run reports on business expenses, private expenses, budget, etc. LOVE IT.

What can I say, it took me a whole week to get everything done and I am talking 10 to 12 hours every day, but I am amazed at what I found. I organized, filed and scaned 19 (yes, nineteen) moving boxes of papers and "stuff", and much to my surprise I could see my desk again and found out I had cabinets that I forgot I had }( not to mention a few checks that never got cashed, $ 50, etc.

Very liberating, I tell you!


Carola
 
I'll have a streak, where I am too focused on having fun, outside the house of course. This past weekend I was too busy lounging around Starbucks reading books left and right as well as working out to pay any attention to the growing heap. However, I really do like things neat and orderly but this has more to do with exerting control on a world that is beyond control than anything else. There may be chaos in Palestine, but dang it, my house is clean....
 
Well, you probably already know this Nancy, but I'm utterly and completely anal when it comes to having a neat, clean house. Any kind of clutter makes me unbelievably anxious. I'm so bad that I don't even like looking through the Ikea catalogue because all of their rooms have WAY too much stuff in them. Thankfully my SO is pretty good about me throwing things away. Except his models. But he's good at keeping those organized.

I went to someone's house on Saturday night and they'd just moved in and it was in such a state of disorder and chaos that I just about had a nervous breakdown:p
 

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