I was reading a book about how to organize your house (because although I’m not organized, I enjoy reading about how I could be if I bought a label maker, got rid of 50% of our possessions, and didn’t have children, or had children who were more like robots…)and I came across this little list. I liked it, at first. Here. Read it. You’ll probably like it too.
Common Practices of Good Housekeepers
1. Find a happy medium where everybody is comfortable.
2. Pick things up as you go.
3. Avoid putting things down temporarily.
4. “A place for everything and everything in its place.”
5. Mental list of small jobs to do in a few minutes.
6. Stay busy; don’t allow things to get ahead of you.
7. Believe it is important to live in a peaceful, uncluttered environment.
8. Love, need, and use everything in your home.
9. Buy fewer, but higher quality, things.
10. Do it now or don’t do it.
(
Ellen Sandbeck, Organic Housekeeping)
“A Happy Medium”
Then I started thinking about rule practice #1: “Find a happy medium where everybody is comfortable.”
Allow me to describe the everybody and how they are comfortable.
1. The husband. Packrat, visionary, creative, tends to accumulate tools (large) and projects. Swings between a perfectionist attention to detail (due to German ancestry) and a spontaneous, committed-to-the-moment unawareness of the mounds of mess accumulating as a result of “the moment.” I have a feeling that my lack of organization bothers him but he’s too sweet to complain.
2. The daughter, 3 1/2. Nothing makes her happier than cutting one big piece of paper into a thousand tiny pieces of paper, or rolling one big lump of play-dough into a thousand tiny lumps of play-dough.
3. The son, 2. The more trains, the better. The more trucks, the better. The more cars, the better. The more tractors, the better. The more blocks, the better. The more tools, the better. The more floor space covered by aforementioned trains, trucks, cars, tractors, blocks, and tools, the better.
4. The baby, 9 months. His motto: “It’s not really a meal unless there’s as much on the floor and as much on your face as there is in your belly.”
So I’m just going to admit here and now that when it comes to a happy medium, the only person whose comfort concerns me is ME. Is that wrong? Selfish? Short-sighted? Unfair?
Nah. Because there’s one common practice missing from that list. It’s not a practice so much as a truth. My Daddy used to say this, and he’s a wise man. My husband says this, and he is also a wise man.
#11: If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
Furthermore, I think we should all agree that #11 trumps all the other 10 rules practices.
The End.
Image courtesy of
D Sharon Pruitt.
