In Which Clutter Happened...

Yesterday was going well. I washed and hung out laundry. I processed a bunch of oranges for drying. (I dried some peels for Christmas potpourri presents, and the flesh as alternatives for raisins.) I was feeling efficient, and proud of myself. I even made it to a meeting on time.

Then something happened. I'm not sure what happened, but I know it made clutter. All. Over. My. House.

I have a laundry basket sitting in the living room. It should have been put away last night -- why wasn't it? Dinner dishes weren't washed. I know what happened there. My daughter had a huge homework assignment ,and she and I worked on it past her bedtime. Just before her final print she read that the text had to be 12 point font, double spaced. So I spent over an hour helping her to reformat the assignment, making the text fit and resizing pictures to fit in the pamphlet design. Neither she not I was inclined to wash dishes when we were done (it was her turn).

My wonderful, amazing husband made dinner, because I was late coming home from picking my son up at school. It took him an hour to work on his science project, longer than I expected to have to wait. My wonderful husband even used up leftovers to make dinner. Prevented food waste, I didn't have to cook (I'd forgotten to soak the chickpeas for the plan, so it would have been flying by the seat of my pants anyway). But the dishes are still sitting there, waiting for their turn, and looking ugly.

I could go on, but no one needs to hear the depravity to which my house can sink in a day, and I need to clean up, so I can't sit here typing all day.

But here's the point: I know I can get back out of this in one day, and I know that underneath the house is clutter-less. Not clutter-free, but less than there was. So there is less to deal with than there was in the past.

Once I get this layer of clutter cleaned up, we can go back to our routines, and we can go back to the level of tidiness we have been enjoying lately. Late night homework assignments will happen regardless of my schedule. But having minimalism as a goal helps these nights to be the exception, rather than the rule. And minimalism helps me bounce back faster.