i am usually a fairly neat person. i don't mean anal neat where a spot of dust sends me off to find a dust rag and the endust. but an organized kind of neat. the house looks lived in, but it is not a filthy disaster. i like being able to find whatever it is i happen to be looking for at the time. this is not always possible, i do have four kids, but usually i can find things relatively quickly. if nothing else, i know the general location and pile of where whatever it is is supposed to be. when all your art stuff tends to be piled in one place, looking for colored pencils most logically takes you to the pile of art stuff. beyond that. we clean every saturday, complete with sweeping and mopping, and i organize when i feel things are getting out of hand for me (generally once a month or so). so, while we are not so pristine that a speck of dust would be glaringly obvious, we are not a pigsty. the only exception to that is jewel and froggy's room. most days you have to look very hard just to find a patch of floor. we're working on that though and they are getting better. thank goodness.

some areas of the house stay in this condition most of the time. like my bedroom. i used to spend hoards of time in my bedroom, mostly to study. so half the california king bed was quite clear since i needed a place to sleep, the other half was covered with books, papers, school supplies, and so on. anything i happened to need at the time ended up on the right hand side of the bed in the appropriate pile. i think i even had my cross stitch supply basket up there for awhile. obviously when saxy moved in this had to change. the couch, beyond being a most uncomfortable place to sleep, is not conducive to marital closeness . . . especially when only one of you is using it. so all my books and things came off the bed. not really a huge deal as i graduated from one school shortly after we met and took an loa from the other shortly after we married. i didn't need all that stuff all of a sudden, so making room for saxy was no major adjustment, at least in the bedroom. (and even if it had been, i would have done so gladly as i love my saxy-man!)

other areas quite naturally are well used and need constant upkeep. the kitchen, rest rooms, the kids rooms, the living room, etc. we either share these spaces as a family, or at least traipse through them from time to time throughout the week (or day), or they are just well used by the person who has primary ownership of it. one room doesn't really fit into this particular pattern and that is kitten's. she is an absolute neat nick. so cleaning for her takes like 5 minutes. that's how "out of place" things get there.

then there is my desk. most of the time, well . . . maybe half the time, the desk is fairly neat. everything has its place and i can find things quite easily. i also have nearby shelves and filing boxes that are pretty much the same. things are a bit piled just for lack of space, but they are generally organized piles. however, there are times when things get hectic in the house and things get piled, dumped and just dropped anywhere while i move on to get other things done or get out the door to do errands. now, most people i know would fix that when they come back. not me. it just piles and piles and piles and . . . and i am sure you get the picture. and those piles hit my desk, my shelves, the tops of the filing containers. and eventually what i have is paper, boxes, notebooks, receipts, pens/pencils, scissors, tape, checkbook boxes, brush, pony tail holders, diskettes of all types, and more piled all over my desk in various locations, most of which is in the wrong location and therefor not easily findable. some things pretty much stay put -- the books are all on the shelves, my unused notebooks are in the same place as always. it's the stuff i use frequently that gets shuffled about and buried.

as you may have guessed, i am looking rather bewildered about my desk at the moment. i have already had to dig under various papers and things to find my checkbook. there are pens, money, and papers scattered all over the desk top, and piled on the filing containers. my shelves not only have all my usual writing and waiting to be written things but books, q-tips, cds, and a number of other things as well. and these things are not all piled in the same place. nope, the cds are scattered over three shelves, the books over two, and so on. one cubby has all its supposed to have, but in a jumbled mess rather than the usual easy to find neat stack. even my knickknacks are buried under. . . stuff. so, once again it is time to unbury myself from the disaster i call my desk. if you don't hear from me in 24 hours call 911.