Clutter
I'm trying to bring order into my life, partially by bringing order into my home. I even started organizing some of my books, which is a major step in the right direction for me.
(I feel the need to remind you all that owning it doesn't mean I've read it, and reading it doesn't mean I remember it. A lot of these are books I read in childhood that are in desperate need of a re-read, and some are gifts I haven't gotten around to yet.)
I've still got books that I haven't found yet, and I'm sure I lost several in house floods at my old place. (I've lost a lot of things that way; I try not to dwell on it, but sometimes it makes me really sad, specifically over the childhood posessions I now won't be able to pass on to my daughter.) I've been living out of boxes for so many years, and it doesn't look like that's going to entirely stop for quite a while. My house is in a spectacular state of disrepair; we currently live in the upstairs, while we wait for the time and money to make the first floor habitable. But our three livable rooms are quite lovely, and I'm enjoying putting little touches in here and there. Hopefully I'll remember to upload photos as I do little things; it makes me feel accomplished, and makes me happier in my home.
I've noticed a funny thing in how people view their homes, and the upkeep thereof. My house is messy. I don't pretend otherwise. I don't worry if I don't get my daughter's books and toys picked up every night before bed, or if the laundry doesn't get folded and put away immediately. I could almost forget what color my computer desk is, it's so piled up with books, papers, computer accessories, and sometimes just random junk. There is pet hair on every bed, chair, and floor in my house. And I've realized that I don't really care. I visit people with far nicer homes, people who vacuum daily and keep everything in it's place, but feel the need to appologize to me a half dozen times because there were two pieces of mail sitting on their coffee table when I came in. Those people used to make me uncomfortable. They made me feel like I was failing, because my house didn't look like theirs. They'd tell me how hard it was to vacuum every day when they had a toddler, and the first thought that pops in my head is, "But then why bother?" There are always Cheerios hiding in some corner of my home, but I just don't care. Yeah, my guests will probably have some cat hair on their butts if they sit on my floor, but if that's an issue, I suggest they don't visit. I have a two-year-old, a dog, three cats, two mice, and one very messy husband. Why should my goal be to make my house appear unoccupied?
There are lots of areas in which I'd like to see my housekeeping improve. One of my goals this year is to try and keep dishes washed and put away daily. But my goals are simply the ones that make life easier - if there are never clean dishes in the dishwasher, I can load the dirties in right after they're used, which saves time and effort. I want housekeeping to be something that's done to make life more comfortable, not something I do so people think better of me, or so my house lives up to some ridiculous standard of cleanliness.
I organize my books in neat little stacks because it makes my eyes happy to see them that way. Most printing on book bindings is horizontal, so while lining them up vertically with pretty little bookends might make my house look classier, it also makes my eyes hurt to try and read the titles. I vacuum weekly because it keeps me from crunching niblits of toddler-dropped Life cereal between my toes when I crawl out of bed in the morning, not because it makes my carpets look like they don't get walked on.
Frankly, I'm not happy in spotless homes. Whenever I visit someone who keeps their house like that, I'm nervous. I don't dare drink a soda in the living room, because I might spill a drop on the sofa and incur the wrath of the homeowner. Not a problem in my house; we spill, we clean it up, hopefully it won't stain. If it does, oh well, at least we get to enjoy our food and beverages wherever we want without stress. I like when I enter someone's home, and they have to clear books or sweatshirts or a couple of cats off of a chair so I have a place to sit. That's the kind of house I grew up, the kind of house I keep myself, and the kind of house that feels like a home to me. Spotless places feel like hotels to me. Yeah, there are photos or knick knacks around that remind you an actual person lives there, but they somehow lack that feeling that an actual, normal, fallable human being spends their life in that home. That it's that very life that takes precidence, and not whether or not you'd be comfortable eating off of their kitchen floor.
I'm sure that as our house gets repaired and we spread out, our clutter will decrease, simply based on mathematics (the same amount of stuff in twice the space will naturally feel like half the stuff). But there will still be pet hair on my floor, sweatshirts draped over my furniture, and papers strewn over my desk. And the day I worry about that stuff is the day I'm not enjoying the rest of my life enough.