Where are those damn elves when you need them?

I am a mess.  Not as in "she is a hot mess", but my apartment is a "hot mess" (only because the AC is not working (remember the post about the AC leaking into my apartment?)).  I think about the Grimm Brothers fairy tale about the shoemaker.  He was a good person, but he had a hard time getting shoes made.  He cut out the leather and planed on making the shoes the next day.  Alas, along come the little elves and they make the shoes for him.  I really don't think that is fair.  I am a good person too, but I just can't seem to get my apartment orderly.  Where are those damn elves when I need them?

Over the weekend I tidy the apartment.  I wash clothes, I put most of them up.  I run my dishwasher every Sunday.  The part I struggle with is all the crap that accumulates during the week.  I can never get through the entire New York Times paper over the weekend, so I keep it.  I am absolutely sure that I will get to it.  Of course you know exactly how that goes.  Actually, you probably don't.  You probably think I toss it because, as you correctly guessed, I never get around to reading it.  Of course, I never throw it away.  **Disclaimer - when I say "throw it out" I always mean "recycled" or "gave to Salvation Army"**  I have a couple of Style sections from May.  I only read 1 column in that section.  "Modern Love".  I WILL READ IT.

I have created a vicious cycle.  I let my work clothes build up on my bed, then on Friday night I decide if it can go back in the closet or needs to be washed.  (Yes people, you can wear clothes more than once (or twice) before you wash them).  This bed thing has been an issue my entire life.  When I sleep, I take up approximately 13 inches of the bed.  Throughout my life, the rest of my bed was filled with clothes, magazines, books, cassette tapes, etc.  Until I moved into this apartment, my bed had always been against my wall - all the better to stack stacks of stuff.  My other trick from childhood is stuffing stuff under my bed.  My mom would send me to my room to clean up and EVERYTHING would be shoved under my bed.  Far enough back so you could not see it from the vantage point of the door.  Of course, she caught on to that trick pretty quickly.  I had a huge amount of junk and one small closet and a desk with 4 drawers.  I was not Sabrina from Bewitched.  I did not twitch my nose causing the broom to jump to life and sweep the room clean 10 minutes (which is actually about how long it took me to shove it under my bed.)  After college, I wised up (and made more money) so I actually bought containers to slide under my bed.  And mom wasn't around to check under there anymore. 

When I moved to New York, along came the "under bed tubs".  When you have a house, you get used to many luxuries.  For example, TWO sets of sheets, THREE bath towels, etc.  I moved to New York in October along with the contents of my linen closet.  I needed towels for all those folks who were coming to visit.  I quickly learned that in bedrooms, as in life, real estate comes at premium cost (or it did until 2008).  And nobody was probably going to visit. Traveling home for Thanksgiving, half of my suitcase was filled with towels, and my 2nd set of sheets.  If someone did come to visit, I nicely asked them to bring their own towel.  That also saved me from paying to wash it when they left - BONUS!

I have cabinets empty in my kitchen.  I have empty shelves in my closet, yet I have junk still sitting around in my living space.  I think in my mind, if I place something in that cabinet I am commiting it to that location.  Crazy, I know.  Every piece of furniture I own serves as extra storage.  Seemingly antique trunks masquerade as my coffee table and end table - storage.  A giraffe patterned footstool stores magazines. My entertainment center looks like something you would find in an apothecary shop, instead you find it on page 68 of the Pottery Barn catalogue. I bought a bench for my bedroom with a lift top lid.  My jewelry will go in there if I ever get it moved from my closet shelves (see - committed).  I actually bought a bed with drawers underneath it to render the under bed tubs obsolete.  Now the under bed tubs are empty, stacked up and under my desk.

I may sound like a hoarder, but I really am not.  I take more stuff to Goodwill than anyone I know.  I keep my wardrobe paired down to what will fit into my closet.  I have sworn off wearing shoes that don't fit for the sake of fashion.  Those are being auctioned off on ebay.  My issue is junk.  Magazines, like the newspapers, I will read them.  Let me ask this, who came up with this "auto-renewal"?  I get about 9 magazines and 4 of the 9 are weekly.  And they just keep showing up.

Flylady recommends spending 15 minutes a day tidying and your clutter will stay under control.  Of course, this is the same woman that said if you "shine your sink" you will be motivated to clean the rest of the kitchen.  I did read about Flylady and her cleaning system in RV Magazine.  The average age of their target audience is 67.  In their retirement, these folks probably look forward to the 15 minutes of cleaning each day.  It is probably sanwiched in between "Cash Cab" and "Paula Dean"

My biggest issue is when I start to clean, I inevitably am distracted by a bigger project.  Last weekend it was the refrigerator shelves and drawers needing a good cleaning.  One shelf and the two drawers are still in my kitchen floor.  Today, I went in to unload the dishwasher and complete the refrigerator.  I decided it was more important to declutter the counter top.  Sounds like an easy task, right?  Not with Holly. First I should mention that I have 20 feet of counter top.  I decided to start with the small section on one side of the cooktop.  I moved all the junk mail (to the other side of the cooktop), placed all the canisters, utensils and electrical appliances on the floor.  I wiped up the dust, then I used the special granite cleaner.  After the cleaner, I used the special granite polish.  The polish needs to be sprayed on, given time to dry and then "buffed to a sheen". While I was waiting for the polish to dry, I decided (project #2) to move a part from one set of blinds to the kitchen blinds (the thing that opens and closes the slats).  I broke it.  This brought on project #3 - super gluing everything that had broken in my apartment over the last year, including the blind thingy.  After gluing all the broken items, the polish was dry and I set about my buffing.  Finally, project #4 - re-arranging everything that lives on that side of the counter top.  Can you develop ADD at 40?

Today I made a list of my "must do" tasks for the weekend.  This does involve reading many magazines and hanging up many clothes.  I hope the satisfaction of the checklist that I enjoy at work when finishing a task will drive the same behavior at home. 

As far as the elves go, they probably knew that when I left out those cleaning products in hopes that they would come clean, the reality was, I got distracted and forgot to put them up. Or maybe I needed to sew them some tiny little elf clothes, like the shoemaker did.  Just another project to start and be distracted from.