Clutter's Last Stand

"Clutter is the physical manifestation of unmade decisions fueled by procrastination." -Christina Scalise

We are a house full of clutter bugs over here at the Watson residence. I am the worst clutter bug, Neil is a close second, and the four children are constantly trying to compete for my slot as number one mess-maker. Somedays they are successful. When we were designing our new home, a mudroom was a must. You see the dining area in my last house was a perpetual disaster. There were always shoes and jackets and backpacks and A-day binders and B-day folders strewn about. I blamed it on the fact that we had no real place to keep these items that were in constant use. We needed a mud room straight off the garage. Then everything would have a place. Then there would be order. Then there would be cleanliness.

I ask you... does this look like order?! Does this look like cleanliness?! It will take just one last pair of shoes to bring the mess over the threshold of the mudroom and into...you've got it...the dining room! I blame the school system. I blame the school system for everything. If my children didn't have to rush out the door at unreasonable hours in the morning, this might not be such a problem. If they didn't come home so darn tired after a long day at school, perhaps things would get put away properly. If society would just allow us to run around as the illiterate barefooted barbarians that we truly are inside, then my mudroom would be clean.

I have decided that no amount of square footage, no amount of forward thinking and designing, no perfectly placed mudroom can control nor contain the clutter of this desperate family.

I give it one more week. Then my precious mudroom is getting an overhaul. From that point henceforth until the next school year, the children will be allowed one pair of flip flops under my darling bench and one pair of sunglasses dangling from my dear hooks. Then we sluggards will give one last-ditch effort toward tidiness, before I pronounce us officially and pathetically hopeless.