It's like we just moved in

And that's the problem. Steve-o and I are still living in our house as if we just moved in. Last week, we went to a shindig at a friend's house. They had moved in only about a week earlier, and the place was in order. Labeled CD boxes, fruit in a bowl on the counter, things in their proper places! This happened last year, too. A party at a friend's house shortly after they moved, and that place was just the same. At the time, I thought they were just terribly efficient about unpacking. But now, it seems like this is a more widespread phenomenon. How long does it take you to unpack after a move? Is a year too much? hmmm.

Steve-o and I have a few problems which contribute to our inability to live like normal people. First, we are both sort of pack rats....okay, we are pack rats. (admitting you have a problem is the first step, right?). We (I'll stick to "we" to preserve some of our dignity) keep notebooks from college. We keep receipts from 6 months ago. We keep books we didn't enjoy and will never read again. We keep magazines because there might be something in there we'll want. We keep do-dads, thingies and other miscellaneous stuff just in case we need it. Of course, when you need it, you can never find it.

Second, we do not know how to put things "in their home." You know how things have a place in the house? Nail clippers go in the medicine cabinet. Scissors go in the kitchen drawer. Phone chargers go....well, somewhere other than the kitchen counter. But not for us. Things come out of their homes, but they don't seem to make it back.

Third, we do not deal well with mail. One of us gets the mail. We put it down in a different place every day. It is mostly junk. The other one can't find today's mail pile and weeks later, we find a mess of bills and junk under something else....or under several layers of something else.

Fourth, we have too much stuff. We have so much bathroom stuff that there is a bookcase outside the bathroom door that has been coined "the health and beauty aisle" because it seriously looks like the health and beauty aisle in the supermarket - soap, deodorant, shampoo, NyQuil, q-tips, toothpaste, razors, etc. All this stuff exists in the bathroom for our daily use; this is just more of it. I'm all for shopping at Costco, but I think we're out of control. How many months/years does it take to go through 6 bottles of shampoo?

Fourth, we are both procrastinators. We have good intentions. Then, we do something else. For example, "we" have been known to not unpack a suitcase for several weeks following a trip. We avoid decisions.

But....we have made one decision. This week....starting today, we are pretending like we just moved in. It's a do-over, if you will. We want to see if we can be like the rest of you and get our house in order. Yes, I know we have a head-start, since we won't have to do too much heavy lifting or figure out how to get the couch through the door. We already did that and the answer was to take the door off the hinges. But we will be moving the couch across the room and dealing with all the stuff we've been avoiding. Hurray for us. Check in on our progress, and offer encouragement. We procrastinators need it.