Friday 27 July 2007

A CLEAN POST

I'm not and never will be a Domestic Goddess; Anthea Turner and I have only one thing in common....we are both female!;........... don't get me wrong I DO housework,much prefer gardening
I just don't enjoy it. With Lynn & Steve visiting this weekend I thought I should have a bit of a tidy up; .......in an effort to stave off this "thought" I had a bit of a Google to see if I could find any short cut cleaning tips. One of the sites I came across was Women's Journeys; it's not only about housekeeping; there was lots of other interesting stuff there which meant I had no time to clean the windows took me a while to look through. I came across the following and had to share it:

Clutter
Author Unknown
It arose one morning from the bowels of my desk, a formless mass that spread and covered itself over anything I was looking for.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I am Clutter," the mass answered, "and I am here to confound your life. I am the things you refuse to throw out though you haven't used them in six years, the miscellaneous papers, phone numbers, business cards, and chatckas you accumulate and don't put away. I am the inevitable manifestation of your sloppiness. I am Clutter."
I grabbed Clutter and moved it from one end of the desk to the other.
Clutter chortled. "That's my favorite pastime. Moving from one end of the desk to the other."
"What do you want?" I asked.
"To frustrate you. I will resist all attempts to remove me, reduce me, or otherwise eliminate me. It's my purpose to hide whatever important piece of paper you need, whichever phone number you must call."
"I'm throwing you out," I stormed.
Clutter shook his untidy mass sadly, as in pity. Not without looking through me to see if there's anything you really need," Clutter answered. "The odds are slim, but you won't take that chance. And while your sorting through me, I'll re-form in another pile."
"But you'll be smaller, more manageable."
"Not really. You'll decide to keep 90% of me, as you always do. And soon, new papers, numbers, documents will gather, making me more obstructive than ever."
"You won't ruin my life, Clutter! I'll start a filing system. Put a bit of you where you belong."
Clutter gazed at me contemptuously. "The last time you tried that, you created my cousins, Chaos and Disorder. It'll never work."
Clutter had me and I knew it. Attempts in the past to file things alphabetically had only created 26 piles of mess instead of one. I was desperate, so I decided to bluff.
"I'll take a time management course," I threatened. Clutter quite rightly ignored my remark. I wasn't dealing with an idiot, after all.
"Then I'll buy a computer and store you on my floppy disks!"
"And within a month your disk-filing system will be in total disarray, plus you'll have another pile of papers waiting to be entered onto disks. Face it, you can't win."
Exasperated, I ran to the closet. "I'll throw you in here!"
Clutter had been to the closet before me. Shoes were scattered, shirts were unhung, clumps of pants and underwear lay strewn next to towels and a lawn chair. Socks congealed in small piles, looking like the waste product of some nylon-eating monster. Cliff notes from A Tale of Two Cities lay atop the heater.
"Clutter," I yelled. "You have crippled my productivity for the last time. No longer will I be late, no more will I miss appointments, Never again shall I be overwhelmed by your size and withdraw into reading old magazines. I am going out to the store to buy a paper shredder."
I looked around for a long moment. "Now where did I leave my keys?"
Clutter burped.

Well that's enough time wasting Ruth...back to the cleaning.....
you didn't see me do that did you?

21 comments:

Akelamalu said...

That's was funny, but oh so true!!

PS you have an award to collect at my place Ruth. Have a nice day. :)

Anonymous said...

Well done on your award. I'll be back!

Bob said...

Ha ha! Hi Ruth, I can tell you now that I have even less than you in common with Anthea Turner! If I lived alone I would live in a one roomed log cabin by a lake miles from anywhere that way I think housework could be kept to a minimum. Bob.

david mcmahon said...

G'day Ruth,

You speak for us all. Ah, but not me, m'lady, not me!

You see, I went to boarding school, so I am immaculately house-trained.

No clutter in my neck of the woods!

Hope you don't mind - I've added you to my blogroll.

Keep smiling

David

Katya said...

Hmmm...I totally agree with Bob on this one. I am ALWAYS throwing STUFF into boxes. Some goes to daughter, Carly because she can use it. Some goes to the Salvation Army because someone can come in who needs it and claim it! And, the rest...TO THE DUMP!!! I have become much less inclined to buy "stuff" anymore. My biggest problem was paper, notebooks, pens and other writing sundries! I have been pretty tough on my stance and am proud about that! Now....Mark, on the other hand...he is a packrat. You have no idea how hard this is for me!!! I am always thinking I would LOVE to "clean up" his stuff. Problem is, there would not be much left! Then, he would KNOW I threw away something he needed for "something"
"sometime" "somewhere"....ughhhhhhh

Katya said...

Oops...forgot to add....
Don't anyone even THINK of reducing my little Scottie collection. hehehehe

dot said...

Very funny Ruth but a lot of truth there. I love the little images you used.

Jean said...

Sorry you must clean! You flower pictures from your last post are amazing! So many unique plants I have never heard of. The black grass is amazing! Thanks for the tour!

RUTH said...

akela; will be over your way soon
misslionheart; look forward to seeing you soon
ukbob; sounds idyllic!
david; cheers will add you to mine
katya; I do keep trying to offload my rubbish...ermmm I mean useful artifacts on the kids :o)
dot; thanks glad you like them
jeanette;must admit I love the black grass; it's not really a grass but part of the lily family
Rx

Libbys Blog said...

Excellent!! reminds me of me!!!!

Berni said...

I don't mind housework actually. But I do a little every day so it is not a big job except I give a really good clean in Spring because my woodstove makes everything really dusty.

If you do an hour of housework every day except the weekends you have 5 hours done. That includes the normal things like making the bed and stacking the dishwasher. I might spot clean the carpet one day, damp mop the floor another, turn out a cupboard another day. If I leave it I feel overwhelmed. Today I just did the very basics like dishes and bed as I went outside and weed eated for an hour or so. I might do a quick check to see there is no obvious gunge in the bathrooms and pick up any bits I can see. Hide some clutter and then deal with it Monday.

Auntie Noo said...

Too Funny (on account of being SO true!) Bah! Life's too short!!!

Shaz said...

Thats so me! A bit worried that I'll have my own desk in my new job & therefore no one else to blame the clutter on! . . . lol

Mauigirl said...

That was great! Thanks for posting it. It certainly sums my life up! If you're feeling guilty about clutter, get on Amazon.com and buy the book "A Perfect Mess." Its premise is that people waste more time trying to be organized and that it's actually OK to be cluttered! I like that theory so I'm sticking with it!

B.T.Bear (esq.) said...

I enjoy dusting. Have a look at the photo on my blog today. Ha!

Anonymous said...

GREAT - I WILL PRINT THIS OUT

The only thing that tends to get cluttered is one corner of my studio - well we all have to have a corner for clutter don't we!

Jeanette said...

theres a lot of truth in that Ruth and so funny.....I like my house clean and tidy but my cupboards hide a lot ,,,,

Gledwood said...

I used to perversely like cleaning at one point. but maybe that had something to do with the ocd ...

Gledwood said...

perhaps ocd stands for the Oxford Chinese Dictionary ...

Tea said...

Hi Ruth :)

I`m with ya on hating housework!!
Couldn`t see your last post movie cause I have such a darn slow computer.
Hope it`s drying up there a bit and you have a nice weekend

tea
xo

Elsie said...

Don't know if you can remember... way back in October 2006 when I started blogging, I had a salt dough broom with the words: "Housework can kill you if you do it right".......and what to do with all my scrap drawers and folders?...

but such a fun, true post, too

Lcxxx

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