It might take me less than 1.66 years to become this....

I’ve always been a person who likes neatness, cleanliness, order, and organization. In my first apartment I just happened to have a roommate who was even more fond of neatness, cleanliness, order, and organization than I. Belongings left in common areas for more than 2.2 hours would magically appear in a pile in front of my bedroom door, once a week cleaning was of supreme importance, and I swear that she would clean the bathroom after me sometimes when she might have thought I didn’t do a good enough job. All of this sort of solidified the neat clean person in me and I became a beast (for those of you who realize that I’m exaggerating, try not to blow my cover). My next roommate was quite the opposite of the first, and suddenly I was experiencing a reversal of roles as I played the cleaning Nazi to my unsuspecting new comrade (no pun intended). :S (She later became more conscientious about household chores than I, for which I do not wish to claim responsibility)

Thankfully I have been able to temper my preferences after years of learning that when living with others, their style of keeping house may not coincide with my own (and reminding myself that I’m not married to them, thank goodness), and that that’s ok! (The differences part, not the married part, though that really is ok too… I’ll just quit now…)

When I move to Michigan, however, I’ll be living on my own without roommates for literally the first time in my life. Without the necessity of tweaking my insanity in order to coexist with other women sharing my kitchen, I have semi-terrifiying visions of myself turning into a hyper-vigilant neat freak, bent on keeping every speck of dust in its rightful place. I can only imagine how my cat would suffer with her long luxurious fur which might look a little dusty to a wild cleaning eye. There would be benefits, of course, such as the gleam in my boyfriend’s eye as he gazed with approval on the evidence of my superior housekeeping skills, but do I really want to go there? Giving in to the neat freak psychosis would make living with someone else again all the more difficult. I’d really like to plateau somewhere between Anal Angie and Sloppy Suzy. My worries about this aren’t tempered at all by my recent frenzy of organizational escalation. People, the other day I, seriously, I organized all my shirts, sweaters, and dresses by color in the order of the rainbow!!! For some of you this may be normal, but I have NEVER done it before. If I start alphabetizing my drawers, I may have to check myself into the psych ward. I lie awake at night envisioning my new home and in my mind it’s the vision of perfection and cleanliness. This vision blocks out the fact that I have pets, am clumsy, get lazy, and am easily distracted.

On the other hand, and this is much more comforting, perhaps the renewed urgency for organization is a symptom of moving. I do believe it’s a lot easier to know what I have and where it is, and to decide what I do and don’t need to haul across the nation, when it’s all nicely organized, alphabetized, colorized… Is anyone with me on this? Before I go on a trip- before I even begin to pack for a trip- I feel a deep deep need to clean and straighten. Then it’s so simple to pluck certain items from their natural habitat and pack them neatly away into their suitcase. I have a friend who’s boyfriend seems obsessed with deep cleaning the car before taking a roadtrip, so I think I may be onto something here. My mother also spends the wee hours of the morning before any trip doing everything she can possibly think of to do that she has written on a massive list (and it will make your head spin around in perfect circles). I must have gotten some of that genetic material from her. Recently this phenomenon has been directed toward my clothing, but I expect it to spread shortly to other areas of my living environment, maybe to my food pantry (that’s an extremely glorified term for what I have) or (oh NO!) bookshelves! I’ll keep you updated. It’s always my dream, though, before embarking on any kind of travel, to achieve ultimate organization and cleanliness… a goal that always seems just barely out of reach….

Found these hook boxes by designer Luca Nichetto on Design Sponge.  These are what Alton Brown would call multi-taskers. As a self-confessed neat freak, I am imagining all the possibilities.

The two books I am about to highlight would probably be the worst and most boringest ever books for anyone but me and about 3 other people on the planet to read. They totally make my inner freak jump up and down with delight.

I (a) am a neat freak, compulsively, and love to clean (or rather, I hate to clean but I love having things be clean, so I suck it up) and (b) love science and also to cook.

Thank goodness people on this good Earth write about the craziest things and get them published. Practical books that are waiting for me to pick up at the library, that I’m rubbing my hands over to read:

A. The Complete Household Handbook, by the Good Housekeeping Institute.

From Publishers Weekly: “This extensive, phenomenally organized volume lives up to its title: with this household handbook, there’s no need for another. The book even manages to make such dry subjects as loading a dishwasher and installing lock sets reader-friendly and reasonably interesting. The chapters—beginning with cleaning and going through laundry and clothes care, food and the kitchen, decorating, storage and home office solutions, maintenance and repairs, home finances, and safety—are logically subdivided to help readers find topics quickly. They feature frequent boxes containing helpful suggestions (“keep a sponge mop just for rinsing floors; it is almost impossible to get all the cleaning solution out of a mop”), time savers (“paint large areas more quickly with the help of a power roller”), dollar stretchers, safety tips and advice on how to shop for specific items. Diagrams, checklists and focused sidebars (such as how to hang pictures, in the home decorating chapter) round out the detailed coverage. Neat freaks will pore over this work as if it were a suspense novel; the rest of the population will be glad to take its easy-to-follow advice as needed.”

This sounds like it was written for moi. A lot of times, as a young-twenty something, I don’t know those tricks that Grandmas know. I don’t know to use ammonia here, vinegar there, baking soda for that. Although helpful resources exist [check out the blog Things Your Grandmother Knew], it seems most practical to have an encyclopedia-like tome of all you might ever need to know about running a household. These are things you typically learn only with experience, so bring it on. I cannot wait to learn how to clean ink stains and grout and dust upholstery and scour kitchen appliances. Yay! (I know, you are allowed to shake your head at me in disgusted wonder. It’s OK.)

Good Housekeeping also has an online guide to cleaning anything, which is also quite useful.

B. The Science of Good Food: The Ultimate Reference on How Cooking Works, by David Joachim, Andrew Schloss, and A. Phillip Handel.

As a teacher and a home chef, I plan to incorporate lots of fun food science labs in the classroom. Why? Kids like food. They like to eat. They love snacks especially when their stomachs rumble at 10:45 a.m. and lunch isn’t until 1:18. They can relate to it. Explaining a science concept is much easier when you involve something they are familiar with.

I myself am fascinated by food science and food chemistry. Any home cook who has tried to thicken a gravy by adding more flour knows what happens (clump town. no blend. ick. food failure.) when you try. Why does it take 90 minutes to cook a potato in the oven but only 30 in a pot of boiling water? Why do your pork chops get totally annihilated 85% of the time?

I will read, find out, and share the wealth of info with my dear readers.

And I’m going to make my students do a lot of cooking.

I have finally landed two jobs at the tiny-town in no-where-land. I work at a vet clinic and a garden/giftshop. The vet clinic is neat, clean and tidy. The garden centre is the absolute opposite. It drives me insane. I feel nice and sane when I am at the clinic for my first half the the day, then I ride my bicycle over to the garden centre and almost rip my hair out from the incredible permanent mess and disorganization. So every day I go from sane to psycho. And it doesn’t help that my roomies (brother and sis-in-law) are slobs. Their house appears clean, but it isn’t. It is just roomy.

Ironically the vet clinic and garden centre are also opposite when it comes to religion. Today the doc’s and techs were talking about how silly religion is and how they used to react to bible thumpers. Then I biked over to the garden centre and had a similar conversation but with a different spin. They were talking about how they haven’t been to church in a while and that it was good to go. Hah! I’m currently reading Counterknowledge by Damien Thompson and absolutly love it. I recommend it to anyone that would like to see through the fog or is tired of listening to baseless and non-scientific theories about deity figures.

If you’re a regular reader here, you know that I am an anti-hoarder. I’ll throw something away quicker than you can say wait, I’m still using that. There’s not a single extraneous thing in my house. And after I finish writing this, I’ll take a good look around, just to be sure, and throw something else out just because I can.

My favorite quote is from William Morris: Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. None of this oh, maybe one day this will come in handy so we might as well hang onto it. Whassat? Nope, it’s already in the trash.

When Eric’s really firm about wanting to keep something that I disagree with him about, I just wait until he’s out of the house to get rid of it. And you know what, he hardly ever realizes it’s gone.

Yeah, yeah, I’m a great wife, he loves me, I have many good qualities, I promise.

My parents are moving into a smaller home, which makes a lot of sense; they’re 62, and it’s just the two of them. Problem is they’ve had a four bedroom, two car garage home for so many years that they’ve totally…how shall I say…settled into it. And when I say two car garage, no car has actually ever fit in there, that square footage just serves as more room for stuff. Grandma died and my brother and I moved out, but it seems there’s more stuff in that house now than ever before.

This is where the picture above comes into play. As they’re cleaning out, they’re taking pictures of things that they’re throwing away so that they can keep the memories. This is a poster I made them for their 25th anniversary. They have now been married for forty one years. This thing has been hanging on the wall of their garage for sixteen freaking years. It’s so faded that you can’t even really make out the “Mom and Dad” or “Love you, Karyn” parts.

Man, if I had a kid, I’d take a picture of the artwork the same day they made it and throw it out. I’d probably wait ’til they went to school so they didn’t witness it. I’m not totally heartless. -K

Over this long weekend, there was a lot of TV watching, mainly because, FOR ONCE, we had nothing to do – did not have to go anywhere, or do anything. Just be and vegetate. So we watched a lot of Netflik movies that have been sitting there for months! And lots of TV.

While Tom concentrated on the Comedy network, I totally fell for reality TV. Have I told you how addicted to reality TV I am? Yes, it’s my dirty secret. And, I’m totally NOT apologizing for it. I get a kick of watching the dramas, and the ongoing wars, and the stupidity of people – and boy is there a lot of that.  But, this past weekend I think I meet my match.

While channel surfing I landed on a TV show called “Hoarder”. It’s shown in A&E and it’s a 60 minute of the most disturbing form of OCD issues. They usually show 2 different people whose inability to part with their belonging is so out of control that they are on the verge of a personal crisis. For some, throwing away even the tiniest thing – a sponge, a button, an empty box — is so painful that they will not be able to allow the cleaning to be completed, no matter the consequences.

One of the episode I watched featured a woman named Shirley with lots and lots of cats, living (and dying, apparently) amidst the clutter of her house. When all was said and done, animal control removed 70-some cats from the home; many of those were dead, some to the point of being skeletons. I’m no expert, but this woman must have no sense of smell whatsoever.  And do not get me started on the woman that has ROTTING FOOD ALL OVER THE HOUSE, because she simply FORGOT it was there.

While watching I was just first totally disgusted, I mean, how can you live like this? I mean, thank god that we don’t have the benefit of smell coming through the TV, because, seriously it LOOK nasty, can you imagine actually being able to smell the nasty? I actually gagged a couple of times!

But, there’s also the so called train wreck effect… You can’t quite look away, no matter no horrible the homes are. I found myself wondering how they got that way, how did they manage, will they ever be able to move beyond and lead normal lives? Sometimes the most painful part of the show is when you realized how hoarders are so unable to see what is so obvious to everyone else: YOUR HOME IS FULL OF CRAP. I mean, how sick must you been when your daughter (whom has leukemia) demanded that she choose between her stuff and her family, and she stubbornly chose the stuff.

Would I watch it again? I’m not sure.

But I can tell you this; I went through my house like a bat out of hell after watching this show. I went through every closet and donated a mountain of clothing Tom and I no longer wear. I dumped year’s worth of magazine and files and then stood panting in my pristine environment, because I’m pretty sure “Hoarders” isn’t good for me.

The other day I bought an orange and an apple from Hen House©. Being 26 going on 27 I decided that I must eat the vile fruits to continue living in good health. I ate the apple with a sandwich. It was a Green Delicious and was OK at best. Apples are OK i guess. I’m sure there are better varieties however.

Today, for lunch, I brought two leftover spinach enchiladas. With my enchiladas I brought an orange. I microwaved and consumed my enchilada lunch with glee but as they disappeared from their plastic vessel the orange grew larger in my mind. I stood up from my desk, grabbed the orange, and walked toward the break room. I had to eat this orange alone.

I closed the door to the break room, set up a chair and trash can in the middle of the room, and shut off the lights. I sat down and peeled the fruit in the dark. I ripped rind from meat until the rind was no more. Orange juice ran down my fingers as I peeled back a single section of fruit. My eyes had barely adjusted to the darkness as I stared the fruit down. One hand clutching the partially dissected sphere while the other hangs a sliver to drip above the waste basket. I let go. Down went the fruit into the abyss. I walked out of the break room, sipping my water, and thought “Apples are ok. Oranges are not. Too much work. Too much mess.”

I smiled.

My daughter has a chronic cough which hits at least once a year and lasts, well…a chronically long time! We’ve been through a drawer full of drugs and finally figured out that 20 days of a high powered antibiotic is about all that will knock it out. Remembering to take meds every day for 20 days (during the structure-less summer, no less) is a challenge for an 8 year old…let alone her organizer mom! So I came up with a system to help us remember:

Low tech: I created a simple spreadsheet that I keep on the fridge. It lists the date and the day that we’re on for her Rx. It also reminds me when the current meds have expired and when it’s time to mix up a new batch. We check off each day so she can see that she’s one day closer to feeling better.

High tech: I set an alarm on my cell phone every day as a backup reminder. If she’s forgotten to take her meds, this will remind us to take them. If we’re out and about having fun, I can leave a voice mail message at home reminding her to take them when we get back.

I hope you and your family are all healthy and happy and enjoying some fun in the sun!

If I had to pick the Neat Freak hill I’m willing to die on, it might just be mealtime at my house. I’m no gourmand, and if forced to identify my favorite hobbies, cooking may not enter the top 5. But I do feel strongly about creating a healthy meal for my family most nights and having us sit down and eat it together. Below, I’ll share with you my favorite tips for making meal time work. Follow along and you may just find that you save time and money and, as a bonus, eat some amazing home cooked meals with the people you love.

1. Plan. Well, okay, that may sound obvious. But I mean really plan. Sit down once a week with the people who consume food in your home and talk about the next 7 days. What events or activities impact mealtime? Late swim meet? Business meeting? Book club? Boss coming home for dinner? Snack mom for preschool? That’s the kind of planning I’m talking about. Factor all of these events in as you plan your meals and shopping. Then start to build your shopping list around your real life.

2. Map out the meals you plan to prepare at home. I like to spend my Sunday afternoons surrounded by my favorite recipes and cookbooks, a stack of sticky notes, and my calendar. I make decisions about what I want to cook (this can be really fun during farmer’s market season when amazing local food is readily available) and then build a shopping list. I get the family involved and ask the kids to weigh in and make decisions about a meal a week. In another year or so, I’ll be ready to let my kids do the cooking, too. After decisions are made, I write my meal plans in the calendar so there are no “what in the world are we having for dinner?” moments in our week.

3. Create a pre-printed grocery list. This is, in all honesty, my meal planning lifesaver. Save your shopping lists for a couple of weeks. Sit down at your computer and type in the items you purchase regularly. Divide them into categories such as Produce, Baked Goods, Canned Goods, Snacks, etc. If you want to get super neat-freaky, arrange them in the order they appear in your grocery store. Update your list as needed and keep a few copies handy in your kitchen. As you run out of things during the week, circle them on your list. Then, when you’re ready to have your planning session and shop, your list is good to go. Don’t want to start from scratch? Just Google “preprinted grocery list” and you’ll find a few good ones online.

4. Keep it simple. Have your family brainstorm their favorite 12 meals, stock up on the essentials and rotate those meals for a few months. Email friends with similarly aged children and ask what their family favorites are and swap recipes. No one expects gourmet food and total originality every night (at least, no one who eats at my table)!

5. When all else fails, it’s time to cheat. Consider a meal planning service such as Saving Dinner or Six o’ Clock Scramble. If you want to make meal planning a social event, gather up some friends and cook large batches of food you can freeze and share. And if the thought of going to the grocery store practically brings you to tears, check to see if your store offers a shopping service that allows you to create and manage your shopping list online, place an order and pick up your food curbside.

I find that when I’m in my meal planning groove, my family eats healthy, fresh foods; my kids get to experience different tastes and textures; we save money by actually eating what we buy; and I save time by making only one (or sometimes two) trips to the store each week. And the biggest bonus? We spend a little time around the table, talking about our day and breaking bread together. Bon appetit!

Here’s a little follow up to all of you entry-way Imelda Marcos out there.
1.    Sort the shoes that pile up by the door and ask family members to return infrequently worn shoes to their closets (e.g. if you still have snow shoes readily accessible and you live in the northern hemisphere, give them the boot!)
2.    Pair down (pun intended) the number of shoes your kids wear regularly. For summer, a pair of sneakers and pool shoes should suffice. If your child is currently playing a sport that requires special shoes, keep those handy, too.
3.    Corral the mud/water/mess with a boot tray from an organizational store such as this one from the Container Store.

4.    Think vertically! If you have a coat closet door near your entryway, consider hanging over-the-door shoe pockets on the inside of the door and have your kids put their shoes away in the lower pockets. Higher pockets are great for your shoes or sunscreen, bug spray, sunglasses and keys.

5.    Consider keeping a plastic laundry basket (or two!) next to the door for kids to pile sports shoes in. Hose it out occasionally and quickly whisk it away if guests are on their way over.

6.    Other favorite Tools of the Trade:
•    Shoe cubbies are readily available at Target or WalMart and some can hold up to 24 pairs of shoes.

•    I have a huge crush on the Horizontal Shoe Rack from Design Within Reach. Quite pricey, but oh so awesome.

•    Feeling crafty? Make your own similar solution such as this Apartment Therapy reader.

•    Finally, Ikea’s TRONES shoe storage is attractive, handy and inexpensive for shoe storage in narrow spaces.

Do you have a favorite shoe solution? Share it on my blog in the comments section! Inquiring Imelda’s want to know what works for you!

A few weeks ago I posted on Facebook that I was working on my newsletter (it’s coming, it’s coming…I’m just easing in to summer and gettin’ my lazy on for a week or so!). I asked my friends if they had questions for the “Ask the Organizer” segment of my newsletter. I had no idea I was opening up such a huge can of worms, but man, did some friends have some questions and complaints about shoes (kids’ shoes, muddy shoes, stinky shoes, too many shoes, etc.)!

As promised, I’ll be answering these questions and sharing solutions in my upcoming Neat Freak News. For now, I thought I’d share my own shoe solution from the Neat Freak’s house.

First, let it be known, we do not have a mudroom. We don’t even have a garage, so when you walk in our house, you’re officially “in the house.” Shoes can easily pile up–especially since the first thing I utter when we walk in is “shoes off!” In order to keep them from piling up by the door, I had to create a solution that looks good and the kids could use with ease.

Shoe Solution

Peek inside and you’ll see that this armoire holds shoes the kids wear on a regular basis, jackets and coats for the kids, backpacks and bags. On the door we mounted pockets that hold glasses, phone chargers, keys, sunscreen, spare change, and a sock monkey (just because he’s cute). We also use the space at the bottom to store arts and craft supplies for the kids so they can get to them easily.

During the day, adult shoes get piled in here as well. In the evening, we’re responsible for returning our shoes to our closets. The kids keep extra shoes in their closets, but their most frequently worn shoes are usually in the armoire.

Not everyone has a hidden solution like this available. So look for my next newsletter to offer up additional ideas for taming your shoe collection. For now, cheers to summer…the season of bare feet!

I am not a neat freak. I am not a complete slob either. At some point my tolerance level is reached and I have to tidy up. Sadly my ten-year-old doesn’t appear to have a tolerance threshold of any description, from what I can gather. Nothing has a home and wherever it drops is where it remains until the next time she needs it. If I had a dollar for every time I have been blamed for misplacing something of hers I would be rich.

Try as I may, I can’t keep up with her and it feels futile to tidy the house everyday because the minute I do my very own “Pigpen” wanders through and leaves a trail in her path. So while she is extremely messy and disorganized I admittedly have my own issues as I have always struggled with clutter and paper in particular.

I have no idea why paper accumulates in my life. (Too bad that didn’t include paper money!) I have file drawers. I have boxes of various descriptions. I have “purged” a dozen times over the last few years but to no avail. Stacks of paper grow on flat surfaces in every room like fungus grows on trees. I do take some pride in the fact that I am not an extreme”hoarder”. I have watched cable shows where those two British women go into the most unbelievable scenarios where people have completely shut down and stopped cleaning their homes. I think I understand the psychology behind it. In many cases these people are actually perfectionists and they have shutdown in despair of ever getting their messes cleaned up. I mean where does one even begin in a situation like that?

I remember going to a fellow’s house to adopt a kitten a few years ago. He literally had “aisles” throughout his home. Newspapers and magazines were stacked in rows across the length of the rooms and he had cats everywhere. The smell of cat urine was enough to make my eyes water as clearly the animals didn’t have enough litter boxes to deter them from peeing wherever they happened to be. The cat was a white manx and perfectly adorable and while on some level I knew I was making a mistake supporting this “kitty mill,” I felt compelled to “rescue” this one poor animal.

Many years ago I was a guest in a couple’s home in a small Ontario town near Peterborough. They were a very nice couple but they were absolute pack rats. Truthfully it would have been an antique dealer’s dream. Their house was loaded with knicknacks and old things but it was beyond chaotic. It was a huge old farmhouse so I guess it was somewhow appropriate but I can only imagine how hard it was for their children to deal with it all when they passed away. The man of the house often teased his wife about her housekeeping habits by suggesting that whenever we had soup for dinner it meant that she had swept the floor that day.

My “quick and dirty” solution to tidying involves finding an empty box and chucking the various piles into the box which will ostensibly be sorted at a later time. This would be wonderful if I actually sorted through them and filed what I need to keep and shred that which I don’t. Unfortunately, I have more boxes like this than I would like and I rue the times I need to find something. Instead of going to the relevant file folder I have to route through three or four boxes, or worse, as I can’t recall which mound it was actually in.

I don’t imagine I am alone in this predicament. I do acknowledge that I have a tendency to hang on to all manner of reading materials regardless of the fact that I never again refer to the stashed treasure. And they really are treaures. I wouldn’t have clipped them in the first place if they weren’t of value. Each time I purge it is a painful exercise and keep trying to be brutal. Considering how many times I have moved in my lifetime I should be travelling a lot lighter than I actually am. I think with the advent of the internet I am gathering less and less paper but its taking time and a change of habit is definitely in order.

Needless to say I feel a purge coming on  and I may really be capable of the necessary brutality this time as I’m getting fed up with the clutter chaos that seems to rule these days. At the very least if I can diminish and even eradicate my own clutter then I can potentially better control the trail of clothing, homework, dirty dishes, random shoes and chaos that follows ‘Hurricane Kidlet’. The other key will be finding “homes” for everything and ideally training daughter dear to put stuff where it belongs so she can find it when she needs it rather than blasting her mother everytime she loses something. The funny thing is I won’t be the least bit surprised if my daughter ends up being a neat freak when she grows up and has her own place. One can only hope and then at least then I might be willing to visit.

photo by Joanne Bartholomeusz

Call it a weird super-power. Call it a gift. Call it a bizarre desire for symmetry and clean lines. Call it a manifestation of my father’s not-so-secret yet undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive traits. Call it a coping mechanism. Whatever it is, I have always had a type of x-ray, or rather display vision, the ability to look through a cluttered room to see what a room could be – what would be possible if someone added a little side-table here or an umbrella stand there or a trio of books placed on the mantle just so.

It is likely that I inherited my skills from my father, truly the most organized person I have ever known. My father was a retired electrical engineer and a mathematician. Never found a problem he couldn’t solve. Never broke anything that he couldn’t fix. He refused to give up on any unfinished crossword puzzle. He was known for taking apart major household appliances, putting them back together without instructions, and getting them to work again. He memorized the sine, co-sine and tangent chart, just because he could. He was brilliant, logical, kind-hearted and loyal. My father made order out of chaos, and it was not uncommon to find him vacuuming the same room twice in one day.

A child who grew up with little more than the basic necessities, he appreciated what he had and desired little more. He rarely bought anything new and never threw things away. If a button fell off a shirt, he sewed it back on. If the shirt ripped, he mended it. If it ripped five times in the same place, he mended it again, slowly, and methodically. My mother often joked that it was a good thing that my father had an aversion to new things, otherwise he would have gotten rid of her long ago.

Several years ago, my family sat down to watch some old slides. At one point, my brother, Avi, could not stop laughing as one slide, taken in the early 1960s honeymoon hovered on the wall before us.

“What?” everyone asked aloud as Avi whooped it up. “What is it?”

“Dad still has that shirt,” my brother chortled.

“I don’t have that shirt,” my father disagreed.

“I’m pretty sure you do,” challenged my brother.

“I got rid of that shirt years ago,” my father insisted.

“I’ve seen you wear that shirt.”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s older than I am,” Avi giggled.

“It’s gone,” stated my father emphatically.

The slideshow continued as Avi stood up and walked down the hall. We heard footsteps, the creak of my parents’ bedroom door, the rolling sound of closet doors followed by a hearty laugh. My brother returned, holding the forty-five year-old shirt in his hand.

The entire family broke loose in hysterics.

“All right, all right,” my father said, being a good sport. “You made your point.” Then he added, “Now go put it back where you found it. And be neat.”

Be neat. Those are my father’s famous words. Messes were not well tolerated in our house. Spilled milk? That was a serious offense, absolutely a reason – not only for crying – but for cursing and buckets and sponges and various cleaning supplies and dirty looks and blame.

Once, when my brother was nine or ten years old, he asked to try a cherry tomato. My mother clasped her hands together, thrilled that my brother was turning out to be such an adventurous eater. My father asked, “Do you know how to eat those?” But it was too late. My brother had already bit down, his front two teeth sinking squarely in the middle of the chubby, little tomato. Immediately, juices squirted everywhere; red goo landed on the kitchen table, seeds polka-dotted one wall, and splattered my father’s white work shirt and eyeglasses. There was a face that my father made when he was angry. He pursed his lips together and tipped his jaw upward while letting out air in one giant exhale. On this particular evening, there was a variation on this theme, as my father also had to remove his glasses to clean them of the egregious tomato spooge. It was just a tomato, but it symbolized the eggshells my brother and I walked on when it came to making messes.

Neatness counted in the Stein household, and while never officially diagnosed, my father had some mighty strong OCD traits. Before GPS systems were invented, if you asked my father for directions, you would need to be prepared for a twenty-minute monologue and wait for a detailed map, a sketch drawn on graph paper by hand – probably to scale. My father was afraid of subways. He worried that, upon his death, his family might not be able to figure out where he put everything, so he was forever refining his extraordinarily complicated system which involved numerous binders, information about account numbers, safe deposit boxes, coded instructions as to the location(s) of said safe deposit box keys, and general information about secret hiding places of goods within the house, some of which are located in the basement ductwork.

After we were robbed, my father got the idea that nothing in plain view was safe, so he started hiding things. Then he had to check and re-check all his hiding spots.

In addition, my father was forever straightening the paper formations that lived on his desk. It is really anyone’s guess as to how his organizational system worked, but as best as I could tell, the piles are organized by paper size. My father was smart, loving, generous, funny, filled with humility. He locked a door once, but checked it twice. When he went out of the house, he made sure to unplug all minor appliances, especially the toaster. He also turned on the radio to simulate the sound of people in conversation. (To keep burglars away, he’d say.)

While my mother might have tried to determine just how much can be put off until tomorrow, my father was the chief list-maker of what must be done not just today but now. This minute. There is no doubt that I inherited my organizational skills from my father.

Before middle school, my father sat me down and taught me how to color-code my subject areas: How about a red folder and red notebook for math? he suggested. And how about a blue folder and blue notebook for English? And later, when I graduated to a three-ring binder, my father taught me about the benefits of dividers with rainbow–colored tabs, how the paper tabs could be labeled in ink (black Sharpie, fine tip, of course).

Truth be told, my father never met an office supply that he didn’t like, and I have learned much from him. How to balance a checkbook; how paying bills can be elevated to an art form; how to stay on top of all the paperwork that comes into a home. My mother taught me how to make my bed, but my father taught me about “hospital corners.” My mother bought the necessities for the house, but my father taught me how to containerize them. My mother put the dirty clothes in the washer, but my father taught me to fold them once they were dry. My mother did the cooking; my father taught me how to clean up immediately after a meal.

I have to admit I get a weird little adrenaline rush when entering a Staples or Office Depot. There are calendars and day-planners; reams of paper, neatly stacked and organized into categories: colored paper, copy paper, graph paper. There are staplers and staples, tape dispensers and tape. Label makers and labels. There are organizers and desk accessories to hold pens and pencils and markers and scissors, all the necessities of a well-appointed office. And the storage options; so many ways to be neat.

Who would have ever predicted that all these seemingly insignificant lessons in organizational systems would serve me so well one day?

© Renee Schuls-Jacobson and “Cleaning Up a Mess,” 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given toRenee Schuls-Jacobson  and “Cleaning Up a Mess” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

I’m a neat, tidy and organised kind of person. My house is nearly always very tidy and clean, and everything is well organised. I spend a lot of time and energy keeping it that way and I’m very house proud. Spick ‘n’ span Spud, that’s what they call me.

Secret 3...every day I go in to batle with my domestic slattern

But no, listeners, wait…spick ‘n’ span Spud has an evil twin sister …Slattern Spud, who really can’t be bothered to tidy up, put away, ready for …another day [any Doodle Do fans out there?]. Slattern Spud just looks at the mess and thinks, “Why bother? It will be messy again in about 5 minutes and there’s only me and the boys here anyway, so I’ll just have a nice sit down with a cup of tea and a biscuit instead”

I’ve noticed Slattern Spud has been around quite a lot more since we moved to The Country. I’m beginning to doubt whether I’m genuinely a spick ‘n’ span Spud at all. In Days of Yore my neat freak habits even extended to the workplace. I used to make my team tidy up on a Friday because I couldn’t stand to see the office untidy. ‘Tidy Fridays’, that’s what I called them. ‘Stupid cow’, that’s what they called me…

So here’s a totally candid shot of our playroom today. This was immaculately tidy until I popped upstairs to fetch something. This is what the boys had done in less than 5 minutes. I think I’ll just leave it like that and get MrSpud to tidy it up later. Because I don’t think that a 12 hour day including 4 hours of commuting is any kind of excuse for him not doing domestic chores. I’ll just direct from the sofa.

So, join with me, and set your inner domestic slattern free. She’s screaming to get out.

Time is always not on my side. for weekdays because of work commitment for weekends because there is so many things to catch up for things i don’t get to do on weekdays. i hate this vicious cycle. no matter how hard i try to break it or how innovative i get with spending my precious time it is still not enough.

While “i don’t have time” i a trap but it is still unavoidable many a times. perhaps i am a neat freak, a perfectionist in some ways or am simply greedy. wanting to spend time with husband, family, friends and coco and wanting to do my own things, my personal time and space. and there are the admin tasks like bills payment, following up on items to be reparied, improving area in the house, etc etc) and not forgetting trying to cook whenever possible to makeup for the junk accumulation while eating out….oh what about personal interest like knitting, yoga, reading (oh when was the last time i read? grhhhhh…)

even tranquil time is short lived…

gonna get back to planning so that i can do even more

Did you ever notice that some people are just neat freaks?  They just can’t leave their office until everything is off their desk and everything is in it’s rightful place.  Well, I am NOT one of those people.  Here is a look at my office.

Here is a look at my business partners office.

Who do you think works the hardest?  Me, of course! (But that might be only my opinion!)  But here is the really interesting part.

This is the inside of my filing cabinets.

This is the inside of her drawers.  I didn’t want to go into her file cabinets but they are organized like this drawer.

Amazing isn’t it!  When I first got into the insurance business I had to take an aptitude test.  The man administering the test kept telling me to be completely honest even if I felt that my answers were not the “right” answers.  I went through that test and several of the questions really made me uncomfortable but I answered them honestly.  One that kept coming up in different forms was something like these:  Do you consider yourself an organized person? or  Do you feel uncomfortable when your desk is covered with work?  or  Is tidiness one of your strong points?  Well, I had to answer a resounding “No” to each one of these and I was sure that the powers that be would take one look at those answers and say “Adios”.  When he called me back in for my next interview he told me how extremely well I had done on the test.  I had to look at him with this look like “Yeah right, Buddy.”  I said that I had really felt that my answers about organization would probably be the end of me but he replied “Oh my goodness!  The very best salespeople are NOT organized or tidy.  They don’t have time for that.  That is why they hire assistants.”  Well, paint me yellow and call me a sunflower.  I must be the best salesperson on this planet.  I have never forgotten that comment and live by it today.

You see, that desk may look really messy but if you ask me I can tell you just where everything is and why it’s in that particular stack.   Actually this photo was taken on one of my better days because there are no stacks in the floor.  Yes, I keep all the files with personal data like social security numbers and birth dates in locked file cabinets but these papers are quote requests, new policy information, continuing education materials, contracts, etc.  (That last little bit was for any insurance commission people who would be looking for an opportunity to fine me for HIPAA violations.)

I do occasionally get the urge to clean the place up but I can usually talk myself out of it.  There are better things to do like finish reading blogs.

Just a little something to turn way up on a Friday…Slow the Flow.

My friend Rah just sent this link to me. Something sweet, cute and HAPPI for Earth Day!

To honor Earth Day, I took my little Neat Freak dude to the Museum of Life & Science in Durham and soaked up some science and sun. I hope you did something Earth friendly today…took a walk, enjoyed some gorgeous spring weather, took the bus or rode your bike, or just smelled some yummy flowers.

Today I was trimming back some azalea bushes in our yard (*the* most beautiful blooms this year!), and I discovered a hidden treasure. Growing between two overgrown bushes was a lovely pink dogwood tree. It’s only about 4′ high but has several pink flowers on it…and I imagine if given some space and sunlight, it will have many more next year. We have loads of white dogwood trees in our yard, and don’t get me wrong, I love them (it’s the state flower of North Carolina, afterall), but I’ve always wanted a pink flowering dogwood. And there it was, hidden in our overgrown, desperate-for-a-trimmin’ azaleas.

Finding this hidden treasure got me thinking about clutter and how it can often hide hidden treasures in our homes (and sometimes there is actual treasure underneath all of that crap…like the $1500 check a client once found, or a lost-but-not-forgotten $5000 watch another client unearthed!). Sometimes clutter is hiding the stuff you really love, and sometimes it’s just hiding your “real” home…the home you desperately want to live in, the one that reflects the real “you.” So what are you waiting for? Go forth and unearth your treasure!

Check out my new website @ www.neat-freak.com. There’s treasure to be found there, too!